Exhibit celebrates Lincoln bicentennial
ON THE GREEN | An exhibition on view in the Morris Library through June 5 marks the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and features some extremely rare items, including two different books that were the personal copies from the 16th president’s own library.
“Abraham Lincoln: A Bicentennial Celebration,” in the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery of Morris Library, is drawn from the Library’s Lincoln Collection, donated to the University by the Lincoln Club of Delaware in 1972. The collection contains more than 2,000 books and pamphlets, photographs, artwork, sculpture, artifacts, historic documents and miscellaneous material pertaining to Lincoln’s life. Included in the collection are copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, signed by Lincoln.
Thomas Herlihy III, vice chair of the Delaware Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, calls the exhibit a “wonderful experience” that brings Lincoln to life.
Timothy Murray, head of the Special Collections Department, who co-curated the exhibit with Iris Snyder, associate librarian, says the exhibit is designed to show the complexities of Lincoln and the Civil War era.
In other Lincoln news, the Library has announced the addition of 13 unique digitized documents signed or written by Lincoln and added as a component of the UD Library Digital Collections as “American Civil War Digital Collections: Autograph Abraham Lincoln Documents.” Included are the copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.
To see the documents and others in the Library’s digital collections, visit http://fletcher.lib.udel.edu.
