Further. In 1889, they established the Illinois State Historical Library and since that time we have been collecting all the treasures that help illustrate the wonderful past of illinois. As you might imagine, the illinois story is not complete without a really close look at the life of Abraham Lincoln. In the lincoln collection we have 52,000 uses the cover every aspect of his life. The collection would include about 18,000 autographs written about Abraham Lincoln. He is the most written about american ever, which is quite staggering. On any given day a visitor to the museum is able to see about 100 original pieces from our collection that is on display. There is always a reason to come back to the Abraham Lincoln president ial museum because we are rotating the items out, putting new pieces on display at the time and we always like to say that a visitor that comes today, if you come back one year later you are going to see a whole new group of 100 pieces from his life. So, today i pulled some pieces out of the vault to help you illustrate the life of Abraham Lincoln and some of my favorite pieces. I will show you, first, the old list peace of writing that Abraham Lincoln did that survived. This is a piece of paper that lincoln got his hands on in 1824 when he was living in that cabin in the middle of the wilderness. He got his hands on 11 pieces of paper like this. He sowed them together and he made a little notebook. He used this to work his way through a textbook. He worked his way through the mathematical problems, doing multiplication, division. Hes a little boy trying desperately to acquire an education. He had less than a year of formal education, so a lot of it is selftaught. Little, it up by working his way through textbooks. This is the first page of that notebook. I think it is quite remarkable. I will show you my favorite things. This is the first Abraham Lincoln autograph that survives. Look at how clearly he wrote his name. Autobiographyhis that he wrote for the 1860 election and autobiographical sketch that his father had never done more in the way of writing than to blatantly sign his own name. Abraham lincoln you can see, he wanted a different light from his father. His father had a rough signature later in life, just making his mark on documents. Abraham lincoln wanted Something Else in his life, 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. Didnt want to spend his life in the wilderness. At a young age he learned how to make a good signature and what is so special about this document. On the back and think you might have gotten a bit bored of working out some mathematical problems and he wrote a fourline poem. Abraham lincolns my name and with my pen i wrote the same. I wrote in haste and speed and left it here for fools to read. Is a really interesting piece in our permanent collection. Piece. T a real fancy it is a common inkwell from the middle of the 19th century. But the inkwell participated in an extraordinary moment in American History. That is when he here in springfield crafted his inaugural address. He used this inkwell. Hes dipping his pen into the well, searching for the words that will both be stern and reassuring to the folks in the southern states. It is this inkwell that he uses that he has by him side aside as he seclude himself in springfield at a location where he isnt going to be bothered by all of the onlookers, the individuals looking for a public statement. He is going to try to craft those words using this inkwell for the first inaugural address. At the time of his assassination , when individuals were going through his office to collect not just the papers, but also the content of his office, this quill pen was on his task. Boy in was a little Southern Indiana he was probably using quill pens as he was writing. During his presidency he was using, you know, quite modern pens to do his eloquent writing. Found theen they quill pen on his death at the time of the assassination, it was sitting close by a beautiful gold pen. Now why did he have a quill pen and a gold and sitting right next to each other on his task as president . Its a matter of speculation, but consider this. Maybe represents where he began in life, in that log cabin with a dirt floor, less than a year of formal education. Maybe the gold pen symbolizes what he had achieved, president of the United States and at the time of his death hes one of the most powerful man in the world. Its that evolution that he talked about during his presidency when he talked to as he was reviewing soldiers at the end of the war and was pleading with them to continue on with fighting until the war was finally over. Thats the lesson that he would have told of those soldiers that he had achieved and it didnt matter where he started in life. That is the american dream. It is why america is worth fighting for and probably also a hint as to why to hated why he hated slavery so much. Its an artificial barrier. It only allowed a slave in america to arise so far and growth. Their ultimate robert e lee surrendered on april 9, 1865 at appomattox. The virtual end to the american civil war. There were other confederate armies in the field, but this was the big one, signaling the end of the war. Five days later Abraham Lincoln, as you might imagine, was in pretty good spirits. He and his wife decided to see a play. They went to ford theater and that evening they saw a play called our american cousin. I think its significant that it wasnt a tragedy they went to go see. They wanted to see a comedy, they wanted to laugh and be in good spirits. At one quarter after 10 00, a wellknown actor made his way into the president ial box and brutally murdered the president of the United States as he was Holding Hands with his wife. Helps to illustrate the real tragedy of that evening. Thatwas a fan, the fan mary lincoln brought with her to fords theater that night. When it was brandnew it was probably quite striking. Ivory, ivory base with a silk fan. It had ostrich plumes that came off the top. This was a brutal reminder to about the worst night of her life. As you can imagine, mary did not want to keep the fan in her possession after the tragedy at fords theater. She got rid of it and it became really a collectors item to from the 19th century through to today, where it has its place in our museum. Mary lincoln had a fascinating life. She is americas most controversial first lady. Mary had a really tragic widowhood as well, the remaining years of her life were not happy, pleasant ones. She had lost a little boy before the presidency. She lost another little boy during the white house years. And then in widowhood she lost a third little boy, thad, who was her constant companion. Things went down hill for her after that and in 1875 or 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. So, a tragic, a tragic episode in the life of mary lincoln. This is another relic from the assassination. These are the gloves that were in Abraham Lincolns pocket on the night of the assassination. He kept gloves, it was the custom of the time to have these in your pocket when you shook the hands of people at official events. You would have on kid gloves. These are a pair of white leather gloves over time, where they have probably shrunk a bit. A sense of his hand. Hes six feet four inches, still president in American History. He kept these gloves in his pockets and when booth fired the the back of mr. Lincolns head to that horrible night at fords theater, the doctors that enter the box couldnt immediately identify where the wound was. It took several minutes for a doctor prodding around before he found a entry wound on the back of mr. Lincolns head. Blood wasnt coming out of the until the doctor placed his finger inside and then the blood began to flow freely. Mr. Lincoln was laid out on the president ial box and as the blood began to flow out of his hair, it went down the length of his body and into his pocket, where it made its way onto these gloves and you can see the remnants of the gloves of the blood on the gloves today. And of this artifact is really a reminder of the brutal and that mr. Lincoln met. Its important for the visitors to see original pieces on display. It a document that lincoln wrote, and everyday piece that he may have interacted with as he got ready for the day, those pieces are incredibly important through thelk museum. Because there is power and magic in a museum artifact. There is something to be said for standing in front of the actual object. You can read about the object, you can see it in a different format, maybe a picture in a book, but when you are standing right in front of it there is power in the piece and i think the greatest power the pieces have is to remind us that figures like Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln himself, he is just a human being and when you stand in front of those pieces, you understand that Abraham Lincoln was a human being. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] and other watch this programs on the history of communities across the country on the cspan. Org citiestour. This is American History tv on cspan3. Crises than on the front lines as a prominent member of the Coronavirus Task force. When you deal with the interface it in politics, and medicine, the thing i have found to be effective is to be consistent, because the honest, and dont tell people things they think they might want to hear. Tell them the truth that is based on evidence. Even though politicians, in the administration or the congress, may not happy with you tell them because it disappoints them, they will respect you if after a while its clear to them that you are telling them the truth based on scientific evidence. We will profile dr. Anthony of theprofile institute of Infectious Diseases looking at his personal life, relationships with past president s, and his career Infectious Diseases like hiv, sars, h1n1, and now the global coronavirus pandemic. Watch the profile tonight at 8 p. M. Eastern on q a. Histories,oral James Salerno joined the marine corps for pearl harbor and serve through the end of world war ii, including fighting in the battles of water cannot guadalcanal and iwo jima. The National World War Ii Museum conducted this interview in 2007 for its oral history collection. Today is october the 16th, 2007. Im here with the National World War Ii Museum. I am here with mr. James salerno. For the record, sir, please tell me your full name. James anthony salerno. Interviewer when and where were you born . James i was born in summit, new jersey, in 1918
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