Artifacts detailing ordinary americans responses to the death of the president. Sarah jencks welcome to fords theater. I am the director of education programming here at fort. David mckenzie i am david mckenzie, the Digital Projects manager. Sarah jencks and we are so excited to share a project with you today. We have been working for the last year and half to create remembering lincoln. It allows us to take resources primary source resources from around the country and around the world and digitize them and put them online so that anyone anywhere in the world can learn more about how regular people responded to abraham lincolns assassination. David mckenzie when lincoln was assassinated, of course this was five days after general robert e. Lee surrendered to general Ulysses S Grant down at appomattox courthouse, and this is, going back and the moment, the first president ial assassination in the countrys history. It is something that americans had never experienced before. They had also experienced four years of death and warfare. It was a terrible time. And it is really getting back into the moment is what we are trying to do here. Sarah jencks there is real value, we feel, and we have learned this from watching our visitors, and finding out what in finding out what they can what regular people experience with the lincoln assassination. So often, we really only care about the assassination through the stories of the people who were Major Players that night. And even sometimes then we will then about the stories of the people who were secondary players on the night of the assassination, like the doctor but we dont get to hear what regular people experienced. And that was what the project was meant to solve. And we have been so lucky because we found partners in historical societies and libraries and institutions across the country that are allowing us that have allowed us to digitize their items from their collections. And put them together so that you can explore them and learn about these responses on your own. David mckenzie now, we will tie tell you about some of our favorite things that we have in this collection. Now, lincoln was assassinated at 10 15 p. M. No one knows the exact moment, across the street from us, at fords theater. Now, word got out pretty quickly of the assassination attempt. And then forgot out when lincoln word got out when lincoln died the next morning at 7 22 a. M. And that day, a lot of the country actually found a pretty quickly because they were telegraph lines in many places. A lot of the major u. S. Cities were on telegraph lines. Not everywhere was, though. Somewhere that was was st. Paul, minnesota. Where a journalist found out that morning. And he wrote a letter to his wife, where he simply said weep, weep , weep, for the slain of the daughters of my people. Most of the items we have are just the letters, but the Minnesota Historical society included the envelope on which the letter in which the letter was put because his son actually put a note on the outside of the envelope. It says, fathers note to mother when lincoln was assassinated. He told me that he was with father when the news came and that he staggered across the room, sank down, and burst into tears. Now, a lot of americans reacted reacted very strongly in this way. A strong sense of mourning. Not everybody did though. And in a lot of cities, the mayors issued proclamations as soon as they found out about lincolns assassination. The mayor of cleveland, for example, issued a proclamation instructing citizens to come together in the citys main square at 3 00 that afternoon. And sarah can tell you a bit more about what happened. Sarah jencks well, this photograph right here is from the western reserve Historical Society, which is the Historical Society in cleveland, ohio. And they have this photograph and actually have this stone in their collection. The reason is because of the special story that is behind it. There was a gentleman who had been an architect of the courthouse who was not as sad as others about lincolns assassination. In fact, when everyone gathered together, this gentleman said, this is not a moment for crime. Cry. Crying. This is not a moment to be said. And the rest of the crowd turned on him. He ended up spending the night in jail for his own safety, and left town the next day. And because his name had been in the cornerstone of the courthouse, the regular people of the town who were mourning lincoln chiseled it out. And you can see right here in the image that, in fact, one of the names of the architects is chiseled out of the cornerstone. You wont know who it was because of his response to the lincoln assassination. David mckenzie another ordinary person who was strongly affected by the assassination was a guy named willie clark. Now, willie clark actually lived in the Peterson House. He was a boarder, a soldier, and he had a room in the back on the first floor. On that morning, willie clark, like many in washington, was out and partying. He was celebrating the near end of the civil war. Lee surrendered five days before. So, that night around 10 15 across the street, the president is shot. And soldiers carry the wounded president out, looked around where to bring him. A gentleman in the Peterson House said bring him in here because there was an empty bedroom in the back. That was willie clarks bedroom. So they bring lincoln in there. Lincoln dies there the next morning. Willie clark comes back after lincolns body is cleared out. And, essentially, you can only imagine the scene there. You are told, by the way, the president of the United States died in your bed last night. What would you do . Sarah, do you think you would would you ever go into that room again . Sarah jencks you know, i cant imagine what willie clark must have been feeling. He was a young guy. He was a clerk at the war department. And he was this was his room. This was the room he knew. And it was his bed. And he paid for the room. His response was, he slept in the bed. And honestly, while we might have chosen not to do that, i think in other ways, it is understandable that that is what he did. It was his home. So, willie clark is not a famous name, but he guided the interpretation of that space his bedroom for the immediate aftermath of the assassination because people came to visit him and they bothered him. They knocked on his door. It was his room. David mckenzie in fact, one of the items that we have here in the lincoln collection is willie clarks letter to his sister back in massachusetts from a few days later. He wrote this actually on wednesday, april 19, 1865. Four days after lincolns death. And the big day of the funeral in washington. He talks about his life in the previous few days since the president died in his bed. He talks about all of the souvenir hunters that are coming into his house, day and night, to try and get some kind of relic. Now, willie wasnt completely blameless in this because he also sent a few relics to his sister. He talks about sending even a piece of mary lincolns cloak. I believe it is her cloak. Also, he he talks about some of what else has been going on. People at that time you werent really able to see, get images into the newspapers. So he had been working with an engraver, portions that we have highlighted here. I was engaged nearly all of sunday with one special artist aiding him making a correct drawing of the last moments of mr. Lincoln, as i knew the position of everyone present, he succeeded in executing a fine sketch, which will appear in their paper the last of this week. He intends from the same drawing to have some fine, large steel gratings executed. So sunday, sunday is the day after president lincolns death. It is easter sunday. And already, there is an artist in the Peterson House. To sketch the scene. In fact, that is another item that we are including in remembering lincoln. This is the sketch that appeared in an illustrated newspaper on april 29, 1865, 2 weeks after lincolns death. Sarah jencks and this is from the collection at the d. C. Public library, although many, many copies of it exist. David mckenzie this sketch is from one of the originals. You will see a lot of different images of the death of lincoln. Some of them came out right after the assassination, some of them came out years later. The room is nicknamed the rubber room. Anyone who has been in there, it is a tiny, tiny space. But in a lot of these images it grows, as if the walls are made of rubber. This one even show some of the boarders from the Peterson House, standing around the deceased president. Sarah jencks and you can see not only the boarders, but also members of the cabinet at the same time. The boarders are all the way on the left. The little boy who stands at the foot of the bed is a member of the household. David mckenzie in fact, one of the peterson children. Sarah jencks but if you look at the head of the bed, you will see both wells and stanton, two of the members of the cabinet. So this shows a wide range of the people who would have been in the Peterson House that night. And there is something that is really tender about the portrait of the president. He looks very small, in many ways, and the cover on top of him is very detailed. You get a sense of what this room might have been like, although certainly, the number of people in it is pretty hard to imagine when you are standing in the room now. David mckenzie we were mentioning that the news spread relatively quickly across the country, depending on who is on who was on the telegraph line. Now, in the south, in the defeated confederacy, that wasnt quite defeated yet, there were a lot of news going around in different ways. So this right here is another one of my favorite items. This headline is absolutely amazing. This is from the alabama begin beacon. Four days after lincoln was assassinated, the news is getting into alabama. Lincoln and stewart assassinated. Something to remember that not all people in the United States were mourning at that time. Some and the union in the union were rejoicing. There were a lot of factors that went into peoples responses. This shows that this information isnt simply an artifact. Many of you around on september 11, 2001 may remember the rumors that were flying. I was in pittsburgh in college. And i went to class that morning after hearing radio on the shuttle to campus that in addition to the twin towers have a collapsed and the pentagon having had a plane crash into it, that the National Mall was on fire and the state department had been bombed. A lot of news was spreading at that time. This story has a similar piece to that as well. Not only does it say that both lincoln and stewart were assassinated, by that point, people who that stewart would live. But that robert e lee had defeated Ulysses S Grant. When, in fact, 10 days before the original version, lee had surrendered to grant. This article is also transparent about its sources. Essentially, a guy passing through town passed on the rumor that lee had defeated grant. Sarah jencks you can see in the first paragraph of the article that it says we have been favored with the following dispatch, which we hasten to lay before our readers with the hope that it may prove true. So, there was so little access to information at the time because of the burning of the rail lines and telegraph lines that this was enough to publish, with the understanding that it might not prove true. David mckenzie speaking of news getting out relatively slowly, across the country telegraph , lines got the news immediately. The New York Herald printed seven special editions that day. However, other places took up a little bit longer to find up find out and make it on the telegraph line. On april 15, 1865, the salt lake newspapers printed a special edition and loaded it onto a stage coach boise, idaho. This newspaper right here is from 10 days later when that news actually arrived and idaho in the idaho territory. Immediately the newspaper went into in the into an extra edition, saying president lincoln and secretary stewart assassinated. The overland mail brings a large number of extras from this from the daily salt lake telegraph. Can you imagine being in that town and you dont find out for 10 days . In the aftermath of the lincoln assassination, what if a couple of major things were going on. One, the search for the killers, particularly john wilkes booth. He evaded capture for 12 days. Also was burying the president. Sarah jencks and the funeral train that took the president through washington dc to his final resting place in springfield, illinois was captured in many photographs in moving ways. One of the images we have on our site is from columbus, ohio. This is a true victorian funeral. Take a look at this image from columbus and you will see many horses pulling a cart with the coffin in the middle, black draped fabric, tassels. This was going through town so it could be set in its own special place waiting for a crowd of people in columbus to come and pay their respects to the president. David mckenzie in fact, in many cities there were these day long funeral processions. And then in cleveland when lincolns body was put in the main square and people lined up for miles, even along the train tracks as the train passed through, people lined up all the way to springfield. The president was buried on may 4 in Oak Ridge Cemetery in springville, illinois. Sarah jencks but many people say that these funerals were not just for president lincoln. They also represented the mourning of the boys and men who never got their own funerals because they lay dying or buried in the battlefields around the country. And if so, president lincolns funeral was for more than just president lincoln in many ways. David mckenzie now, right after lincolns death he became for many a martyr. Lets not forget, lincoln was assassinated on good friday. So many ministers made comparisons between lincoln and christ. Also, a lot of rabbis brought up the fact that this is occurring this was right during passover. We are working with the archives the American Jewish archives for translated sermons that were previously available just in german and putting that on the remembering lincoln site. A series of cards images came out showing lincoln a ascending into heaven. Sarah jencks this is the other side of the coin. We have documentation of the funerals that really happened, then we have the beginning of the iconography of abraham lincoln. This is very early on. Until that time, as we know, by the fact that George Washington, his lithograph sits in front of the president ial box in fords theatre. Until this time, washingtons image was synonymous with the presidency, but at this point , something very interesting begins to happen. Lincoln is being raised in the image we have in front of us to the same status as washington. The apotheosis of George Washington is the mural in the dome of the u. S. Capitol which was being finished during the civil war. David mckenzie that image Shows Washington coming into heaven. So this image is the sequel to it, showing washington receiving lincoln into heaven. Sarah jencks and you can even see the angels up to the left welcoming the two men. David mckenzie so, our hope with this site is that it really helps people to connect with how ordinary people like them, like us, experience an event of this magnitude. Sarah jencks and the beauty of the internet is that we dont have to do it only in an exhibit here at fords theater. We can make it available to everyone, and in fact making it available to everyone, we can have a much bigger collection and a much bigger exhibit than we would ever be able to have if we just brought it together for six weeks or a year here at fords theater. David mckenzie if we can make this permanent, we can show a lot of different places. So, on the remembering lincoln website we have a map of the different responses. Now, you will see on this map that there are a lot of blank spaces in the country. We have been working with a lot of different organizations and individuals who have items. However, there are a lot of blanks. So, we are relying on a lot of different people. Do you know about something in your community . Do you have your greatgreatgrandmothers diary that shows how he or she responded . Sarah jencks maybe you work or volunteer in an Historical Society with a local connection and you know of a diary or are interested in doing the research to find diaries or newspapers or items from that time. And just find out what the response is like in your community. We want to know. We are eager for this map to be covered with representations. Of how the country and the world responded. David mckenzie in fact, on our website we have a webpage for submitting an item. Its a very simple form. Fill it out, tell us about it, and then i will get in touch with you. I check that email box very frequently. I will get in touch and ask you some more information, and then we will ask you or the Historical Society or whoever has this item about getting into remembering lincoln. So that, as sarah says, we can fill in this map and really have the representation of the country and even the world. 150 years ago this weekend, a grieving nation got that along the route of abraham lincolns funeral train as it made its way from washington dc to its final resting place in springfield illinois. We live from Oak Ridge Cemetery in springfield to commemorate the anniversary of president lincolns funeral. With over 1000 reenactors, and every creation of the eulogy, speeches, and performances. And a tour of the newly recreated lincoln funeral car. Also on cspan this weekend, the festivities of the state visit of the japanese prime minister, including his arrival at the white house and the post at the dinner and the toast at the dinner in his honor. And the oral arguments on samesex marriage, whether the 14th amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex. And tonight at 10 00, author peter