Stanton dealing with Lincoln's death

[Houmes]

(09-08-2013 12:57 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  In Bloody Crimes author James Swanson is very critical of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. From p. 392:

One museum has tried to re-create what it must have been like to experience the Lincoln death pageant and view his corpse. In Springfield, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum built a replica of the city’s Hall of Representatives, where the president lay in state. The original room, which still exists, is one block away in the Old State House, where it is fitted out as the legislative chamber Lincoln would recognize from his day. But in the museum’s facsimile chamber, it is forever May 3-4, 1865. Black crepe and bunting smother the space, and upon an inclined catafalque rests a replica of Lincoln’s coffin. The overall effect is somber and impressive, until one takes a closer look. The corpse is missing; the coffin is closed. How could a Lincoln museum, of all places, commit such a spectacular historical error? In Springfield, as in each city where a public viewing occurred, the coffin was open. The American people were desperate to see Lincoln’s remains.

At the museum’s grand opening, a visitor pointed out the error to an employee. “We know,” the official replied. “We did it on purpose. We can’t show what it was really like. We can’t have an open coffin with a wax figure inside. It would upset the children."

Perhaps the children of 1865 were hardier than today’s generation — during the national obsequies, tens of thousands of children viewed Lincoln’s remains. Nonetheless, the museum chose to go to great effort and expense to create an exhibit that is not authentic. Strangely, the museum was not reluctant to construct a replica of Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre, and to place in it a life-size figure of John Wilkes Booth assassinating the president. Nor was the gift shop reluctant to sell to children a plastic, toy replica of the Deringer pistol Booth used to murder Abraham Lincoln, or to place a second life-size figure of Booth not far from the main entrance, within sight of other figures of Lincoln and his family, and Frederick Douglass. It is bizarre that in the city where Lincoln lies buried, multiple effigies of his assassin stand erect. Thus, the Lincoln museum there enjoys the singular distinction of being the only presidential library and museum in America to boast a waxworks devoted to an assassin.

I believe Mr. Swanson has missed the point. Anyone today knows what President Lincoln looked like and with a modicum of research can learn what he looked like after death. Many (if not most) citizens in 1865 had never seen him alive, let alone viewed for any length of time a simple Brady photograph of him. Rather than a "spectacular historical error" the intent of these displays in the presidential museum today is to create a mood for reflection of the nation's loss and venerate him, a far different design than in the lobby where the corny wax model stands, available for tourists to be photographed next to it. In regards to Booth, his figure there is a little odd and ironic, but I've never seen or heard of anyone paying tribute to him inside or outside the building. The museum was designed as an evolutionary process, starting out providing visitors with simple, almost innocent displays, then showing the challenges of life in the 19th century and how it affected the nation, his life, and his legacy.