| PRESS RELEASE: GILDER LEHRMAN INSTITUTE SELECTS FORTY SITES TO HOST LINCOLN EXHIBITION |
NEW YORK, NY (May 5, 2008) – The Gilder Lehrman Institute has selected forty sites—including public libraries, academic libraries, and national park sites—to host its new Abraham Lincoln Traveling Exhibition, offered free through a grant from the NEH. “Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time, a Man for All Times” comes with an exhibition brochure and multimedia resource kit, as well as programming for public audiences and online access. It will also include an interactive DVD, “Decoding Lincoln’s Legacy,” produced by the History Channel for the exhibition and featuring historians David Blight, James O. Horton, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Richard Norton Smith.
The National Endowment for the Humanities is supporting the exhibition as part of its We the People program aimed at reinvigorating the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. The Gilder Lehrman Institute developed the exhibition to mark the 2009 bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The exhibition will travel to communities across the nation, including sites in Maryland, Michigan, and Oregon.
“Public knowledge about Lincoln is dominated by a series of iconic images,” said Lesley Herrmann, Executive Director of the Gilder Lehrman Institute. “This exhibition will encourage a deeper understanding of Lincoln’s life, policies, accomplishments, and legacy by drawing on Lincoln’s own words.”
Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. The Institute serves teachers, students, scholars, and the general public. It helps create history-centered schools, organizes seminars and programs for educators, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, sponsors lectures by eminent historians, and administers a History Teacher of the Year Award in every state through its partnership with Preserve America. The Institute also conducts awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and George Washington Book Prizes, and offers fellowships for scholars to work in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. The Institute maintains two websites, www.gilderlehrman.org and the quarterly online journal www.historynow.org.
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