He was born in Kentucky, grew to manhood in Indiana,
and became the nation’s leader as an Illinoisan.
Now, all three states that lay claim to Abraham
Lincoln’s life story are preparing events, commemorations, and
exhibits to honor his legacy during a national two-year bicentennial
celebration. The celebrations officially begin next week and
continue through Feb. 12, 2010.
Hundreds of events are in the works, including
a kickoff in Kentucky, a Mother’s Day celebration in Indiana, and
everything from a reenactment of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates to an
1860 Period Ball at the Executive Mansion in Illinois, with countless
others to come.
For organizers of these events, competition between
homesteads doesn’t even play a role. Instead, they emphasize that the
goal of the bicentennial celebration is to retrace Lincoln’s life
from beginning to end on a grand scale in ways that have never before been
imagined.
Sandy Brue, a key planner with the Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace National Historic Site, in Hodgenville, Ky., puts it simply: “Not in any way are we trying to compete with
Indiana or Illinois, but the bicentennial is instead giving all three
states a chance to work together to tell Lincoln’s whole
story.”
It seems fitting that the
bicentennial will officially get under way in the place where
Lincoln’s life began — in the small town of Hodgenville,
located 376 miles from Springfield. It was here that Lincoln was born and lived with his
family in a 16-by-18-foot one-room cabin on a hillside overlooking Sinking
Spring, and it is here that a symbolic cabin and memorial now stand in
honor of such humble beginnings.
During the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Inaugural
Event, on Feb. 12, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, and
Law and Order star
Sam Waterston will speak from the steps of the Memorial Building —
the first Lincoln monument — to an anticipated crowd of thousands.
President George W. Bush has been invited to deliver
the keynote address, and if he attends he will join other presidents,
including Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, who
have traveled to Hodgenville to honor their predecessor.
Brue, who moved back to her home state in 2004 to
join in the planning efforts, says the kickoff will allow Kentuckians to
reclaim their connection to Lincoln. Since her return she has worked to
ready his birthplace for the expected flood of visitors by renovating
exhibits and refocusing on education to help them relate to Lincoln’s
early life.
“The message we have been trying to convey in
Kentucky is the forgotten story: that the influence of Kentucky on Abraham
Lincoln affected his later policies and politics,” Brue says.
Over the next two years, Brue says, the Birthplace
staff hopes to remind visitors that Lincoln’s decision to become a
lawyer may have been rooted in the watching of his father’s long
court battle over the title to the family farm, which he eventually lost. Also, they will point out that Lincoln first saw his
parents take a stand against slavery — which was not only accepted,
but promoted in the small, border state town — here and will note
that Kentuckians can now celebrate this story’s importance for the
first time.
“One of the things that caused disconnect
during the centennial celebration was that there were still hard feelings
over the Civil War and still hard feelings toward Abraham Lincoln,”
Brue says, “but now we’re 100 years forward and we’re
ready to celebrate our native son and talk about the hard
issues.”
In addition to the Feb. 12 inaugural ceremony,
Hodgenville will unveil the first wayside marker on Kentucky’s
Lincoln Heritage Trail. The Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky
Heritage Council, along with other commissions, have been revitalizing
Kentucky’s piece of the Lincoln journey and will eventually install
12 primary interpretive exhibits through 11 of the state’s counties.
Other cities in Kentucky are jumping on the
bicentennial bandwagon next week, hosting musical and dramatic events in
Elizabethtown and Lexington on Feb. 9, 10, and 12 and a Champagne reception
and “Kentucky Salute to Abraham Lincoln,” featuring soprano
Angela Brown, in Louisville on Feb. 11.
The story continues just
across the Ohio River in Lincoln City, Ind., 133 miles from Hodgenville and
nearly 264 miles from Springfield.
Thomas Lincoln moved his family to this area, which
later was named for his famous son, in 1816 and stayed until 1830 when they
moved on to Illinois. Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died in
Indiana, and his widowed father, Thomas, married Sarah Bush Johnson here.
The Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial now commemorates Lincoln’s
years of learning about life and growing up.
Randy Wester, the memorial’s superintendent,
has worked at the Boyhood Home for six years and has spent the better part
of five years planning for the 200th-birthday celebration.
He says the
Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission will honor Lincoln in a
different way from the other states: by celebrating the time during which
books and reading became a major force in Lincoln’s life. Because Lincoln’s mother and stepmother were
both key influences on Lincoln’s education, Indiana’s signature
event for the bicentennial will be a Mother’s Day ceremony, in May.
Wester says the commission wanted to hold its
celebration after the Kentucky Inaugural, and Mother’s Day seemed to
make sense, especially because Nancy Hanks Lincoln is buried nearby and the
site was once called the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Memorial Park.
“We will be celebrating Lincoln’s mother
and stepmother and their influence on his education and getting him to
read,” Wester says. “We’re going by a quote that Lincoln
once said: ‘All I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel
mother.’ ”
The event’s plans are not entirely finished,
Wester says, but they have a relevant keynote speaker in mind and hope to
have Indiana’s governor, senators, and congressmen in attendance.
They are expecting nearly 3,000 guests and are keeping their fingers
crossed for good weather, he adds — especially because May is the
area’s rainiest month.
Another historic event will take place one day before
the Mother’s Day ceremony: a Lincoln bicentennial encampment. Boy
Scouts and Girl Scouts from around the Hoosier state have been invited by
the National Park Service to observe Abe’s 200th by participating in
a weekend-long encampment in nearby Lincoln State Park.
Scouts will take part in such hands-on pioneer
activities as rail-splitting, campfire building, black-powder shooting, and
meal preparation. As part of the weekend’s event, they’ll also
visit the Boyhood Home’s living-history farm and meet Lincoln, Civil
War, and Native American re-enactors. Wester says that the encampment is a re-creation of a
similar event held in 1959, the sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s birth,
and that one of the Boy Scouts who attended that event is helping organize
the bicentennial plans.
Other Indiana events are planned throughout 2010,
including a Civil War Era Ball, a Lincoln Thanksgiving Dinner, and
Christmas with Lincoln. In September the state will also take part in
Lincoln’s Journey of Remembrance, a re-enactment of Lincoln’s
1828 journey from Rockport, Ind., to New Orleans in a replica flatboat.
There is no shortage of
events planned for Lincoln’s bicentennial in Illinois — the
state where he lived, worked, and became our nation’s 16th president.
In anticipation of Lincoln’s 200th birthday,
says Kay Smith, the Lincoln-bicentennial coordinator for the Illinois
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, her commission received $500,000
last year and $1 million this year in state grants, which are then awarded
to any Illinois community that chooses to host or participate any
Lincoln-related activity.
Of the 34 applications the commission received last
year, Smith says, they funded 14 projects, including a new Lincoln statue
in Jonesboro, a Lincoln music contest at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago,
and the Lincoln Road Scholars — a group of Lincoln speakers who
travel to events around the state. The second cycle is complete, she says,
and she’s excited to announce the newest project winners at a press
conference next week.
“It’s important that we’re reaching
out to these communities who wouldn’t be able to be doing what
they’re doing,” Smith says. “I’m so excited to
speak to people from around the state who are doing so much in their own
towns.”
Another statewide event funded by the Illinois
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is the commemoration of the
sesquicentennial of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Beginning on Aug. 22 in
Ottawa, Ill., and ending on Oct. 19 in Alton, actors portraying Lincoln and
Douglas will reenact the historical debates in each community on a weekend nearest to
the actual date. The “Reunion Tour 2008” will be the heart of a
weekend-long celebration in each community. Before these debates, the historic “House
Divided Speech” will be re-enacted during a series of events June
14-16 at the Old State Capitol Historic Site in Springfield, and the
Lincoln-Douglas Debate Sesquicentennial Grand Opening Event will be held on
July 26 at Bryant Cottage State Historic Site, in Bement, Ill.
One of the state’s first planned activities to
celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth will be held on
Feb. 9 in the form of an 1860 period ball at the Executive Mansion. The
10th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry Regiment and Band, a group that performs in
full period dress, will provide music, and re-enactors will portray Lincoln
and his wife.
In conjunction with its own 100th anniversary, the
Abraham Lincoln Association will also begin its celebration of
Lincoln’s birthday next week. During a special two-day program, the
ALA will host an Abraham Lincoln Symposium at the Old State Capitol and the
ALA centennial banquet at Springfield’s Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The ALA will also partner with the Springfield and
Bloomington branches of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People to co-commemorate the 1908 Springfield race riot by hosting
an evening symphony concert in the Sangamon Auditorium on Feb. 11. The
concert, which will feature music and the written works of Lincoln,
Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. DuBois, will be repeated in
Bloomington on Feb. 13.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
recently announced activities commemorating Lincoln’s birthday,
including children’s activities, theatrical performances, and a
discussion and book-signing with Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, author of the newest
book on the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Additionally, the museum will host its
first trivia night on Feb. 15. Contestants will be asked: How well do you
know Lincoln?
The Lincoln Home National Historic Site will also
host birthday programs on Feb. 12, including the beginning of the George L.
Painter Lincoln Lectures. Diane Miller and James Hill of the National Park
Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom will be on hand to
formally announce the designation of the Jameson Jenkins lot as a site on
the Underground Railroad.
Jim Sanders, the Lincoln Home superintendent, says
the staff of the national site is planning more bicentennial events for the
next two years, including a series of programs that will highlight
significant times in Lincoln’s life in Springfield.
For now, he says,
the staff is working on renovating the site and installing new exhibits in
preparation for anticipated increase in visitor numbers.
“We will be given national importance,”
Sanders says, “so we want to be ready for that.”
If these single events
aren’t enough, other events, such as the Lincoln Bicentennial Bike
Tour, have been created so that visitors can travel through all three of
Lincoln’s home states in one sweep.
In 2008 and 2009, two organized bike tours —
the “Tour de Lincoln” — will closely follow the original
pioneering trek of the Lincoln family over 360 miles of prairies, rolling
hills, and riverside bluffs. Cyclists will begin at the Birthplace site in
Hodgenville, make their way to the Boyhood Home in Lincoln City, and then
arrive in Springfield for a multiple-destination tour of spots such as the
Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices State Historic Site and the Lincoln Tomb.
Todd Volker, the tour’s director, says he
started planning the event a year ago to give people a chance to make the
full journey through Lincoln’s life.
“People pick up bits and pieces here or there,
but this is the full story,” Volker says. “You get the birth,
the boyhood, and the grown man — this is a pretty comprehensive
look.”
For more information on these events and others,
visit the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission’s Web
site, www.lincoln200.net; the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
Commission’s Web site, www.kylincoln.org; and the Indiana Abraham
Lincoln Bicentennial Commission’s Web site, www.in.gov/lincoln.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2008.
