Hurston. Books that shaped america monday, september 18th at 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now, our free mobile video app, or online at cspan. Org. Is so Abraham Lincoln president ial Library Museum opened its doors in 2005, but our collection goes back much further. In 1889 they established the Illinois State historical library, and ever since that time we have been collecting all the treasures that help illustrate illinois wonderful past. And as you might imagine, the illinois story ist not complete without a a really close look at Abraham Lincolns life. In our lin lincoln collection, we have about 52,000 pieces that cover every aspect of Abraham Lincolns life. That collection would include about 18,000 monographs written about Abraham Lincoln. He is the most writtenabout american ever, which is quite staggering. So on any given day, a visitor to the museum is open to see about a hundred original pieces from our collection that are on display. And theres always a reason to come back to the Abraham Lincoln president ial museum because we are rotating those items out, were putting new pieces on display all the time, and we always like to say a visitor that that comes to the museum today, if you come back one year later, youre going to see a whole new group of 100 pieces from Abraham Lincolns life. So today i pulled some pieces out of our vault to show you to help illustrate the life of Abraham Lincoln and some of my favorite pieces. Ill show you, first, the oldest piece of writing that Abraham Lincoln did that survives. This is a piece of paper that Abraham Lincoln got his hands on in h 1824 when he was living in that cabin in the middle of the wilderness. He got his hands on 1 11 pieces of paper just hike this. He showed them together, and he made a little notebook. He used this to work his way through a textbook. And and you can, see he worked his way through all sorts of mathematical problems. Hess doing addition, subtraction, long division, multiplication. Hes a little boy that is trying desperately to acquire an education. Abraham lincoln hadad less thana year of formal education, and so a to lot of his education is reallyly selftaught. He picks it up by little, he picks it up by working his way through little textbooks. And so this is the first page of that notebook. I think its quite remarkable. Ill show you a couple of my favorite things. This is the first Abraham Lincoln autograph that survives. Look at how clearly he wrote his name as a young teenage boy. Abraham lincoln told us in his autobiography that heth wrote fr the 1860 election, a little autothe biographical sketch, that his father had never done more in the way of writing than to bumblingly sign his own name. Lincoln wanted a different life than his father had. His father had a rough signature later in life, hes just making his mark on documents. But Abraham Lincoln wants Something Else in his life. He didnt want to be a subsistence farmer. He wanted to have a life that might include things like being a lawyer, being a politician, etc. He didnt want to spend his life in the wilderness. So he learned at a young age how to make a good signature and also what whats so special about this document, on the back i think Abraham Lincoln might have got a little bored of working out some mathematical problems, and he wrote a fourline little poem. Abraham lincoln, is my name. And with my pen i wrote the same. I wrote in both haste and speed and left it here for fools to read. This is a really interesting piece thats in our permanent collection. Its a not a real fancy piece, its a really common ink well from the middle of the 19th century. But this ink well participated in an extraordinary moment in american history. Thatss when Abraham Lincoln he in springfield crafted his inaugural address. He used this ink well. Hes dipping his pen into this ink well as hes searching for the words that will be stern as well as reassuring to those folks in the southern states. This ink well that he uses, that he has by his side as he secludes himself in springfield at a location where hes not going to be bothered by all the onlookers, all the individuals looking for a mix statement. Mr. Lincoln public t stateme. Mr. Lincolns going to try to craft those words using this ink well for the first inaugural address. At the time of his assassination when individuals were going through his office to collect nott just the papers, but also the contents of his office, this quill pen was on Abraham Lincolns desk. Now, when he was a little boy in southern indiana, he was probably using quill pens as he was writing. But during his presidency, he wasnt using quill pens. He was actually using, you know, quite modern pens to do his eloquent writing. In fact, when they found this quill pen on mr. Lincolns desk at the time of the assassination, it was sitting close by a beautiful gold pen. Now, why did Abraham Lincoln have a quill pen and a gold pen sitting right next to each other on his desk as president . A matter of speculation, but consider this maybe the quill pen represents where Abraham Lincoln began in life in that log cab bun with a dirt floor cabin, withless than a year of formal education, and maybe that gold pen symbolizes what he had achieved. Hes president of the United States, and t at the time of his death hes one of the most powerful men in the world. Social security that its that evolution that Abraham Lincoln talked about during his presidency when he talked to soldiers as he was reviewing soldiers at the end of the war and he was pleading with them to continue on with fighting until the war was finally over. Thats the lesson that he would tell those soldiers. He had achievesed achieved, and it didnt matter where he started in life. But thatsbu the american dream. Thats why americasorth fighting for. Its also probably a hint at why he hatedlavely so much, because slavery is an artificial barrier. It only allowed alave in america to only so far, and it hindere their ultimate grth robert e. Lee srendered to s. Gran on april 9, its the virtual end to american civil war. The other confederate armies still in the field, but lees arm is the army is the big one this signals this is the end of the war. Five daysmi later, abraham linct imagine was in p goo spirits. He andto wife decided to see a play. They went to fords theater, and ey s a play called our american cousin. I think its significant that it wasnt a tragedy that they went to go see, they wanted t a comedy. They wanted to laugh. They were in good spirits. And at a quarter after ten that evening, a very well known actor made his way into the president ial box, and he brutally murdered the president of the United States as he was Holding Hands with his wife. This piece helps illustrate the real tragedy of that evening. This was a fan, the fan, that mary lincoln brought with her to fords theater that night. When it was brand new, it was probably quite striking. Ivory base with a silk fan, and it had ostrich plumes that came off the top. This was a brutal reminder to mary about the worst night of her life. As you can imagine, mary did not want to keep this fan in her possession after the tragedy at fords theater. She got rid of it, and it became really a collectors item to individuals in the 19th century all the way to today to where it has its place in our museum. Mary lincoln had a fascinating life. Shes americas most controversial first lady. Mary had a really tragic widowhood ass well. The remaining years of her life we not happy, pleasant and she had lost a little boy before the presidency, she lost another l boy during the whousese years. And then in widowhood, she lost her Constant Companion duringwas her widowhood. Things went downhill for marry after that, and in 187 for mary, and in 1875 her last remaining son made an excruciating decision to have his mother involuntarily committed to an asylum. She spent about four months in a private sanitarium in illinois. She never forgave her son robert for having done that. And so a challengic episode in the life of mary lincoln. A tragic episode. This is another relic from the assassination. These arere the gloves that were in Abraham Lincolns pocket on the night of the assassination. He kept gloves, it was a custom of the time to have these in your pocket when youre shaking peoples hands at an official event. Youden have on kid gloves. These are a pair of white leather gloves. Over time theyve probably shrunk a bit, but you can get a sensem of Abraham Lincolns hands. S hes 64, still the tallest president in american history. But he kept these pockets or these gloves in his pocket. And when booe fired that shot at theack of mr. Lincolns head that horrible night at fords theater, the doctors that enteredded the box couldnt immediately identify where the wound was. It took several minutes for a doctor prodding around before he found an entry wound on the back of mr. Lincolns head. Bloodd wasnt coming out of the wound until the doctor placed his finger inside the wound and then blood began to flow freely. Mr. Lincoln was laid out on the ground in the president ial box, and as the blood began flowing out of his hair, it went down the length of his body and went into his pocket, and it made its way onto these gloves. And you can see the remnants of the blood on these gloves today. And this artifact is really a reminder of the brutal end that mr. Lincoln met. Its important for i Museum Visitors to see original pieces on display be it a document that Abraham Lincoln wrote, a everyday piece that might have been in hisry home that he interacted with as he got ready for the day. Those pieces are incredibly important as people walk through to our museum because with theres power, theres magic in a museum artifact. There is something to be said for stand thing in front of the actual object. You can read about that object, you can see it in a different format, maybe a picture in a a book, but when youre standing right in front of it, there is power in that piece. And i think the greatest power those pieces have is that they remind us that figures like Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln himself, hes just a human being. And when you stand in front of one of those pieces, you understand that Abraham Lincoln was a human being. Muck . A healthy democracy doesnt just look like this, it looks like this, where with americans can see democracy at work where citizens are truly informed. Our republic thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbias biased, word for word. From the if Nations Capital to wherever you are, because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. American history tv, saturdays on cspan2, exploring the people and events that that tell the american story. At 6 p. M. Eastern, librarian of Congress Carla Hayden hosts a conversation marking president trumans executive order 99981 99 81 prohibiting discrimination in the u. S. Military. Also President Biden talks about its accomplishments for minority in the military at the truman if human rights symposium. An
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