Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum documents the life of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and the course of the American Civil War. Combining traditional scholarship with 21st-century showmanship techniques, the museum ranks as one of the most visited presidential libraries. Its library, in addition to housing an extensive collection on Lincoln, also houses the collection of the Illinois State Historical Library, founded by the state in 1889. The library and museum is located in the state capital of Springfield, Illinois, and is overseen as an agency of the Illinois state government. Unlike the fifteen other presidential libraries and museums, it is not currently affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration.

The museum contains life-size dioramas of Lincoln's boyhood home, areas of the White House, the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, and the settings of key events in Lincoln's life, as well as pictures, artifacts and other memorabilia. Original artifacts are changed from time to time, but the collection usually includes items such as the original hand written Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, his glasses and shaving mirror, Mary Todd Lincoln's music box, items from her White House china, her wedding dress, and more. The permanent exhibits are divided into two stages of the president's life, called "Journey One: The Pre-Presidential Years", and "Journey Two: The Presidential Years", and a third, the "Treasures Gallery". Temporary exhibits are displayed in the "Illinois Gallery." Recent "Illinois Gallery" exhibits include "The Questioneers," a traveling exhibit inspired by Andrea Beaty's children's series on loan from the DuPage Children's Museum, as well as "Solidarity Now! The 1968 Poor People's Campaign," a traveling exhibit on loan from the Smithsonian Institution. Until April 20, 2025, the "Illinois Gallery" contained the exhibit "Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt." This exhibit, which includes works that are mostly on loan from the Richard Hunt Trust, is the first in Illinois since Hunt's passing in December of 2023. It was re-installed at the Loyola University of Art Museum in Chicago on July 11, 2025 and ran through November 15, 2025. One of the museum's permanent exhibits, "Campaign of 1860", includes modern-style television updates on the campaign's progress from the late Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. Another of the permanent exhibits, "The Civil War in Four Minutes," displays a large animated map which displays the changing battle lines of the Civil War in four minutes. In addition to its exhibits, the Lincoln Museum runs two theater shows with special effects: Lincoln's Eyes and Ghosts of the Library. The "Under His Hat: Discovering Lincoln's Story From Primary Sources", is the home of the Lincoln Collection Digitization Project, a thematic online resource that features a 360-degree online view of his hat (the actual hat is, as of May 2013, also on display at the museum). Burbank, California-based BRC Imagination Arts, led by Bob Rogers, was responsible for all of the permanent exhibits and presentations, music, theaters, lifelike figures and full-immersion historical settings.

Library data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).