The new executive director of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum isn’t like her predecessors.
At 34, she’s younger. She isn’t white. And she says that glorifying Lincoln isn’t the best way to understand him.
“It’s oftentimes easy to put people in history on a pedestal, to glorify them, to make them external to the problems or challenges that they faced,” says Christina Shutt, who is scheduled to start work at the ALPLM in June. “When we think about history – when I think about history – I think about people just like us, who have to make decisions just like us.”
It’s that type of thinking that won over Kathryn Harris, retired director of the library side of the institution, who sits on the ALPLM board that last week made Shutt the museum’s new director. It also didn’t hurt, Harris says, that Shutt, who has degrees in history, also has a master’s degree in library science and archival management and so will pay attention to the library side of the institution, which serves as the state’s historical library as well as a repository of Lincoln materials.
Lincoln, Harris says, had warts, and she’s hoping that Shutt can bring a fuller picture of him to Springfield. The evolution of Lincoln’s views on race – how he grew from supporting calls for African Americans to establish a colony in Africa to becoming a president who suggested that African American men, particularly those who served in the military, should be allowed to vote – is one example of Lincoln history that the ALPLM can better explore, Harris said.
Shutt is coming from Little Rock, Arkansas, where she’s been executive director of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, which focuses on African American history, since 2016. While considerably smaller than the ALPLM, the Little Rock museum has some things in common with the Springfield institution. Both are run by state governments, and both have had turbulent histories.
Before Shutt arrived, the Little Rock museum had gone through five directors in eight years; the ALPLM has had five directors, plus a few acting ones, since opening in 2005. Through the years, the ALPLM has weathered politics, a strained relationship with the private foundation that serves as its fundraising arm and a string of embarrassments that include revelations that a stovepipe hat that purportedly graced Lincoln’s head might not be genuine. There also was an ill-advised loan of the Gettysburg Address to an organization run by conservative media personality Glenn Beck. The loan arranged by former ALPLM director Alan Lowe resulted in his termination in 2019.
Under Shutt, the Arkansas museum won accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, which has not accredited the ALPLM. Accreditation isn’t necessarily a goal, according to ALPLM board member Steven Beckett. But stability is.
“As a board, we will support her in any way that we can,” Harris said. “We want her to stay – we want her to have a long tenure. I don’t want to go down this path again.”
Shutt’s experience working for a government-owned museum, as opposed to a privately run institution, is a plus, Beckett says. Both he and Harris say that Shutt offers enthusiasm and vitality.
“She just has an energy about her that doesn’t quit,” Beckett says.
Shutt vows openness at an institution that has been accused of being steeped in politics and intrigue – Illinois Times has had to sue to obtain personnel records, and efforts to authenticate the stovepipe hat were once secret, with the institution initially insisting that the artifact, owned by the foundation, is real despite no solid evidence. “I want to bring trust and transparency,” Shutt says. “I don’t want people to feel like there’s something secretive going on, something fishy going on. People want to know where their tax dollars are going.”
Past directors have received compensation from the ALPLM’s foundation, which has also helped pick prior directors. Shutt, who will earn $175,000 a year, will not receive compensation from the foundation, according to ALPLM spokesman Chris Wills. While a member of the foundation board sat in on interviews, the decision to hire Shutt was made solely by the ALPLM board, with board chairman Ray LaHood declaring last week that politics, this time, played no role in picking a leader.
Beckett, who once served on an ALPLM advisory board, is upbeat.
“I’m about as happy as I could be,” he says. “For the first time, we’ve had a board pick an executive director instead of having an executive director pick a board.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2021.
