New Online Map of Lincoln Sculptures

[STS Lincolnite]

Hello Friends!

Just wanted to take a minute to alert you to an online map that fellow Lincoln Discussion Symposium member Dave Wiegers and I have created.

In part, what we are calling “The Lincoln Sculptures Project,” involves a map created with Google maps that illustrates the locations of over 500 Lincoln sculptures in the United States and around the world. We have been talking about this and working on it (in starts and stops) for several years now. We have very fundamental goals. Those goals: to have an easily accessible map with the sculpture locations, to provide some basic information about each sculpture, and to produce something relatively easy to manage and operate behind the scenes.

This map is not a finished product. Nor will it ever be. Our intention is to continue to update it regularly. That being said, we do feel like we have gotten to a point where we are ready to share it with the public.

When you access the map, you will see on the left-hand side, a box with an overview description. The bulk of the page is a world map with our custom designed icon (a pushpin with a little Lincoln hat on it ) that indicates the location of the various Lincoln sculptures. Using the available controls, you can also zoom in and out of the map. By clicking on an individual icon, you can call up photos (if we have them) as well as some information about each sculpture.

Another item you will notice is that there is a naming convention that Dave has developed (incorporating the suggestions of several people) for each sculpture. The naming convention for sculptures was developed to serve the same general purpose as did the Ostendorf numbering system with Lincoln photographs - as well as provide a good method of cataloging and searching for the sculptures when used in other media formats and in other places.

The map can be accessed by clicking on this link (or by copying it into your web browser and going from there):

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1...sp=sharing

Please check out the map and let us know what you think. Also, let us know if there is a sculpture we may have missed so we can consider it for inclusion on the map as we do updates. We would love to hear your feedback! We are always looking to make the map better. You can of course leave comments here, or you can email us at lincolnsculpturesproject@gmail.com
Next, go back to the map again, and again, and again! We are hoping that by more and more views, it will start to show up when people do term searches in Google and other search engines.

We know that there are limitations with using Google maps. There are simply some things that this platform does not allow us to do (or that it does strangely). Some of those things we would have liked for it to have done or done differently. But when considering different platforms, this checked the most boxes for what we wanted to do along with a price point that worked best.

On May 14, 2022, in Springfield, IL, Dave and I did our first joint presentation titled “Finding Lincoln in Sculpture.” It combined "finding Lincoln" with a biography through sculpture and a literal approach by presenting an overview of the map we created.

Anyway, thanks so much in advance and we hope you may find some value and enjoyment in exploring the map!


Scott and Dave