Abraham Lincoln Exhibition Coming To Worcester Public Library
Monday, September 23, 2013
“Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War" focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the constitutional challenges of the Civil War, and will open at the Worcester Public Library on Friday, October 4th.
“Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War" focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the constitutional challenges of the Civil War, and will open at the Worcester Public Library on Friday, October 4th.
The National Constitution Center and the American Library Association Public Programs Office organized the exhibit with the help of a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The traveling exhibition is based on an exhibition of the same name developed by the National Constitution Center.
Lincoln, the war, and the Constitution
Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth President of the United States in 1860, at a time when the nation was falling apart. By the time he took the oath of office, seven states had already seceded from the Union. The exhibition vividly evokes Lincoln’s struggle to resolve the basic questions that divided Americans at the most perilous moment in the nation’s history: Was the United States truly one nation, or was it a confederacy of sovereign and separate states? How could a country founded on the belief that “all men are created equal” tolerate slavery? In a national crisis, would civil liberties be secure?
Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War illuminates how President Abraham Lincoln’s leadership and constitutional vision steered the nation through its most turbulent years and into a future that forever changed America. The exhibition explores how Lincoln used the Constitution to confront three intertwined crises of the war: the secession of Southern states, slavery, and wartime civil liberties. Visitors will leave the exhibition with a more complete understanding of Lincoln as president and the Civil War as the nation’s gravest constitutional crisis.
The exhibition is organized into six main exhibit areas: “Secession Winter,” “Oath of Office,” “Crisis of Secession,” “Crisis of Slavery,” “Crisis of Civil Liberties,” and “Lincoln’s Legacy: The Gettysburg Address in His Time and Ours.”
Through the exhibition’s media and interactive elements, visitors can:
- Stand alongside Lincoln as he is sworn in as president
- View Civil War military conflicts and President Lincoln portraits through a replicated 1860s box camera
- Play a genuine 1862 board game called “The Secession Game”
- Use clues to solve an electronic jigsaw puzzle
- Experience a re-created jail cell for citizens arrested for dissent or disloyalty
For more information on the coming exhibit, contact the Worcester Public Library: 508-799-1655.
Related Articles
- Cancer Society: Look Good, Feel Better at Worcester Public Library
- Personal Development Book Club to Start at Providence Public Library
- Don’t Miss: Gala for Central Falls’ Historic Adams Library
- Providence Public Library Brings Classic Hitchcock to Sunday Matinee Series
- John Monfredo: Worcester’s One City, One Library Launches
- Providence Public Library Celebrates Providence’s 375th, Announces Programs
- Abraham Lincoln Exhibition Coming To Worcester Public Library
- Tracy Novick: Bringing Library Access Back to Children
- Miriam & Providence Community Library Seek RI “Women of Hope” Nominations
- UPDATE: Worcester Library and Senior Center to Close at 3PM
- NEW: Central Falls Library Gets Boost from Alec Baldwin’s Foundation
- Vartan Gregorian to Speak at Brown’s John Hay Library
- NEW: Worcester Library and Holy Cross Unveil Mobile Library
- Worcester Public Library Hosts Harlem Renaissance Night
- 5 Things Besides Books You Can Get at the Worcester Public Library
- NEW:Union Hill Elementary Dedicates New $100,000 Library
- Worcester Public Library to Host Award-Winning Authors
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It