Honest Abe of the West, an exhibition organized by the Newberry Library, will open on October 10, 2009, to commemorate the 200th birthday of America’s sixteenth president. Lincoln-related artifacts from the Newberry’s collections will accompany the Library of Congress's traveling exhibition, With Malice Toward None, also on display at the Newberry beginning October 10.
Honest Abe of the West chronicles Lincoln’s early years in Illinois, focusing on his career as an attorney in Springfield and as a dedicated leader of the Whig Party. Rare copies of printed materials in the exhibition chronicle his important debates with Stephen A. Douglas during the race for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 1858. The exhibition also includes recently found ephemera from the 1860 presidential election and Republican Convention, held in Chicago at Lake Street and the Chicago River.
Visitors will learn about the day-to-day workings of Lincoln’s presidency through a number of letters he received while in the White House, including a request by an Indian chief to have a member of his tribe excused from service in the Civil War after a family tragedy, and an offer from a Union sympathizer to spy on General Robert E. Lee’s troop movements. Lincoln penned reactions in his own hand on both of these letters as well as on other items in the exhibition.
Honest Abe of the West also draws on the Newberry’s rich collections related to Lincoln’s assassination and the nation’s mourning, from memorial sheet music published in 1865 to one of the earliest printings of Walt Whitman’s famous poem, “O Captain! My Captain!” written for the fallen leader.
The exhibition will also display items from the Alfred Orendorff Collection, on generous loan to the Newberry. These include a docket book Lincoln used in the late 1830s and 1840 to track his legal cases and fees; a list of his office expenses from 1846, and various legal documents in Lincoln's hand, among others.
Image Caption: Republican Standard Bearers: Abraham Lincoln, Hannibal Hamlin. Illinois?: 1860. Newberry Library Vault Graff 2490 no. 2. Bequest of Everett D. Graff