Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America
by Andrew Ferguson. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007.
As the journalist Andrew Ferguson notes in the preface to his engaging and entertaining Land of Lincoln, nearly fourteen thousand books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, more than about any other American, living or dead. Despite this seeming glut of information (and in many cases misinformation and myth), Ferguson boldly adds to the literature by examining how the legacy of our sixteenth President has been, and continues to be, presented in the realm of public history, broadly conceived.
Ferguson was himself a childhood Lincoln buff, but it had become his sense that the larger-than-life Lincoln of his youth in the 1960s was no longer such a significant part of the national consciousness. The “outrage” over the erection of a Lincoln sculpture in Richmond, Virginia, in 2003 made Ferguson realize that his childhood hero could still evoke strong, often mixed, feelings. His examination of that controversy led him to revisit “Abe’s America” in a series of chapters devoted to other public sculptures, the Lincoln Monument, the Chicago Historical Society’s evolving presentation of its incredible Lincoln collection, the fascinating lifestyle of some 175 members of the Abraham Lincoln Presenters, the collecting of Lincoln documents and memorabilia, and related topics. (A dozen or so large illustrations would have enhanced the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of these object-centered discussions, which are only shown in small thumbnail images.) Most of these case studies tell a complex story of modern revisionism, as the image of Lincoln has been used by people in a variety of ways ranging from on-going exaltation to efforts aimed at debunking and demystifying the man. Ferguson is even-handed in his reporting, although one can sense that, to him, Lincoln remains a hero.
A section devoted to the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) in Springfield, Illinois, will be of especial interest to those involved in museum education and interpretation. Ferguson notes that the trustees and administrators responsible for this lavishly funded project secretly consulted Disney “imagineers” to help plan their exhibitions, and then hired an ex-Disney employee’s firm to make their shrine “fun” through “immersive” displays and other modern marvels. However, one space—a so-called Treasures Gallery—is devoted to the museum’s “most prized possessions,” such as autograph copies of the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s hat and briefcase, and other pieces of the true cross. Ferguson spent a good deal of time in this gallery, watching visitors. He notes that the tourists “had been pulled along effortlessly through the immersive galleries by [the designer’s] unerring visual clues. But here they lingered and gazed, their downturned faces still and steady in the reflected light, as though at last they’d come upon something substantial that might carry over the reality of the man: a book or a pen or a hat. Even the twenty-first-century museum, even immersive experiences—even fun—can’t kill the transcendent magic of stuff” (p. 119). As a curator, that phrase—“the transcendent magic of stuff”—has become part of my working vocabulary.
In Land of Lincoln, Ferguson laments the fact that our society is allowing history to be relegated or marginalized to theme-park methods of interpretation. It also seems that he is somewhat disturbed that, in our cynical age, the presentation of any historical figure in a positive manner is usually suspect as evidence of filiopietism or hero worship. Although such weighty issues are raised by Ferguson, he plants them in the reader’s mind in a thoroughly enjoyable way. Land of Lincoln is not a dry historiographical study of the Lincoln literature, but rather an entertaining (and often amusing) series of essays that will be of interest to all Proprietors, especially to those involved with the interpretation of historic houses, sites, and collections.For more along these lines, see the equally entertaining book by Karal Ann Marling entitled George Washington Slept Here: Colonial Revivals and American Culture, 1876–1986 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), also in the Athenaeum library.