Talk:Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Untitled

I don't have the time to edit this at the moment, and might get back to it, but I have to say this article has serious style issues. These style issues are compounded and intertwined with an obvious lack of NPOV; the article reads like a combination of sensational magazine write-up and outright brochure. I recommend that the article be branded with style improvement and/or NPOV tags. Dawson 08:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)dawson

Good lord, yes. What on earth is a "full-immersion 'you-are-there'" display? I have no earthly idea. I suspect from the photos the writer means this is a "diorama". If so, why not just say "diorama". This isn't a travel brochure. I've made the appropriate edit. I honestly had no idea what the editor was talking about with the flowery language. 139.48.25.60 (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this article still looks just terrible - advertising, POV, etc. I'll do some editing in a bit, but if anybody wants to join in, just let me know. Smallbones (talk) 16:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Triva

I am not good at editing, but here's some trivia I got from some people working there...

In the theater scene, John Wilkes Booth is show opening the door with his right hand, and his left hand in his jacket, ready to pull out his gun. However, JWB is really right handed. The museum directors just wanted it that way because the look flowed really well. (66.190.139.140 (talk) 12:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC))

Poem about Gettysburg titled "HIS TURN" in honor of Sesquicenntenial Year

                         "HIS TURN" 
  On the nineteenth of November in eighteen sixty-three,
  a lenghty speech just ended, and the crowd stirred restlessly.

  As he sat on the podium that dedication day,
 he checked his notes to verify those words he'd chose to say.

 He wore black crepe around his hat in memory of his son.
 He thought of all the men who died and the battle that was won.

 A whiff of death breezed through the air as he steppped up to speak.
 Would they pay heed to his words? Would his message be too weak?

 His face was gaunt ,but he stood tall,and spoke with words sincere.
 They seemed impressed by what he said, he'd struck a chord so clear.

 His somber tone provoked their thoughts with feelings so profound.
 They sensed this was a special time upon that plot of ground.

 The crowd was hushed, made no response. He thought he'd failed that day.
 But truth be told he'd touched them all ,by what he had to say.

 It only took two minutes time to give a speech so great.
 And history has proven, it was well worth the wait...........

 I wrote this poem after reading about that day at Gettysburg.

Lincoln sat for over two hours awaiting "HIS TURN" .He was still in mourning for his son Wille. The noxious odor floated thru the air and he must have wondered if any of the remaining crowd would pay much attention to his brief remarks. They obviously were impressed....submitted by John P. Mc Geehan--11121 Wisconsin CT 2D Orland Park, Ill 60467 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.132.68 (talk) 20:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120925070541/http://www2.illinois.gov/alplm/library/aboutus/Pages/SteveNealReadingRoom.aspx to http://www2.illinois.gov/alplm/library/aboutus/Pages/SteveNealReadingRoom.aspx
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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110514030852/http://www.abrahamlincoln200.org/about-the-commission/commissioners/ryan/default.aspx to http://abrahamlincoln200.org/about-the-commission/commissioners/ryan/default.aspx
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050528054441/http://www.state.il.us/lincolncam/ to http://www.state.il.us/lincolncam/
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2010s craziness

I'm adding a {{update}} tag to the article. Since 2017, a lot of stuff has happened, which not only should be in the article, but also modifies some of the existing claims in the article. Some of the to-do list:

• There is an associated Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation (ALPLF), which has a separate board; this is not new and would not be particularly interesting, except that the Foundation funded much of the Museum and its holdings, and therefore had a significant effect on the Museum. Yet the Foundation and the Museum seem to have developed a dislike for each other, and each has had leadership issues related to at least one of the other items below. (The ALPLF is only mentioned in the article, unsourced, as "management", which I'm not sure is true. The article section for the Museum administration itself isn't very clear either, except in that it's clearly outdated. There should be some reliable source, not "partnership" marketing nonsense, about how the Foundation and the Museum are actually controlled.)
• 1,500 items, including some of the museum's "crown jewels", are part of the Louise and Barry Taper Collection, which the Foundation bought for $23 million in 2007; the purchase was likely . One of those items, a stovepipe hat, was $6.5 million of the purchase. The hat was already identified with Lincoln by the 1960s. Fast forward: The hat's authenticity became doubtful publicly by the early 2010s, and by 2018 the Foundation was still in debt $8.8 million and said it might have to sell parts of the collection to raise money. (The hat's "centerpiece" status is already implied in the article text, but none of the scandal around it. For some reason, the Taper collection isn't yet mentioned at all.)
• Before the physical museum was built, the ALPLM as a state bureau used to be called the Illinois State Historical Library and dates back to 1889. (The article text doesn't quite explain this. The article Illinois Historic Preservation Division mentions it but without citations. The OEIG report referenced below mentions the succession in footnote.)
• In 2016, the governor at the time appointed Alan Lowe as the executive director of the Museum. When the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency was broken up in 2017, the Museum was spun off as a separate agency and legally had its own board of trustees, but nobody was appointed to the board, so Lowe was left alone with no oversight. He forced the Museum's staff to ship the Gettysburg Address, likely the Museum's most valuable asset, to his pal Glenn Beck's office via FedEx in exchange for $50,000, so that Beck could have a "pop-up exhibit" at this own office for 3 days; Lowe also got to travel to the exhibit for free. The new governor fired Lowe in 2019. (None of this is in the article yet.)

References (all recent, but some touch on earlier background about the Museum and Foundation):

• "OEIG Final Report" (PDF). In re: Alan Lowe and Michael Little, OEIG Case #19-00300. Springfield, Illinois: Office of Executive Inspector General for the Agencies of the Illinois Governor. 2019-10-04. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
• O'Connor, John (2019-01-25). "If the $6.5M hat isn't Lincoln's, why not ask for a refund?". Northwest Herald. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2019-01-26. Retrieved 2019-01-27.
• Wheeler, Samuel (2019-12-16). "Status Update: Provenance Research on the Stovepipe Hat (TLR 001)". Springfield, Illinois: Ambraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 2020-01-27.

--Closeapple (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Closeapple, OK, but why tag? Why are you not being bold (see WP:BEBOLD)? Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:34, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Because most of the above points have significant details beyond what I put above, and I'm not sure when I'll have time to nail down the specific page citations for each fact, and word it neutrally. I thought about updating it today. Everyone else is free to be bolder than I am so far. Until then, it appears to be missing information, to the point of being outdated. (The last real fact update I see is that, after the IHPA was broken up, someone removed the claim of the ALPLM being part of the IHPA.) --Closeapple (talk) 21:01, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Lincoln Family.in Abraham Lincoln Museum.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)