From the Field: HPP Travels Lincoln’s Commute—From the White House to the Cottage

We were lost. Though signs pointed to a nearby entrance to Lincoln’s Cottage, we drove the perimeter of a cemetery once, and again. I peered at rows of similar tombstones: thin, white, standing close in the grass. This was not a Victorian cemetery of eclectic monuments, not The Woodlands of my West Philadelphia neighborhood, a cemetery I wander to see competing obelisks and ornate crypts of prominent Philadelphians. Our tour group was driving the bounds of a burial ground for military comrades, the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, adjacent to Lincoln’s Cottage. Our tour guide described a Lincoln who wandered among these tombstones while reciting poetry.

This cemetery detour was actually a most appropriate, though dour, “pre-trip experience” that informed my visit to Lincoln’s Cottage. On the way to an historic site, a traveler often finds clues that illuminate and juxtapose present and past. In a more light-hearted example, the pilgrim seeking Walt Whitman’s Birthplace on Long Island will first pass the bustle of cars entering the Walt Whitman Mall, before arriving at the quiet of the Whitman family farmhouse. These reminders of the past orient and disorient a visitor before a traveller arrives at an historic site.

Our path to Lincoln’s Cottage, beginning in downtown Washington, was similar in direction and even length to the route Lincoln took to arrive at the Cottage in Northwest D.C. In 2009, Washington traffic slows a bus to the speed of a horse. During warm months of 1862 through 1864, Lincoln commuted about four miles to the White House and returned to the Cottage at night. The Cottage provided a respite in which he could work with full concentration, and relax in moments.

Lincoln needed to get away. At that most famous home-office on Pennsylvania Avenue, Lincoln received delegations of visitors and worked in a house of possessions and pomp. Additionally, the Capital was a busy center of war preparations; caravans of artillery and militia passed through the streets. Present too, were the consequences of war: hospitals full of wounded men. This is the Washington of Lincoln and also of Whitman as nurse, who wrote of his tending to soldiers in The Wound-Dresser, “Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals....”

Lincoln’s path to respite at the Cottage was inherently dangerous, and Lincoln preferred to ride alone, leaving in advance of his cavalry. A sniper shot at Lincoln on his path to the White House in August of 1864. After the attack, Lincoln’s Secretary of War implored him to ride with guards. Once at the Cottage, Lincoln did not escape the Civil War. In this retreat, Lincoln wrote much of the Emancipation Proclamation in the summer of 1863. The Cottage is on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home; veterans sometimes joined Lincoln for breakfast.

Lincoln’s Cottage has been restored by the National Trust, who chose to keep furnishings spare and supplement architecture with sound installations and video. The bare wall of the study reveals horizontal marks of light wood where the President’s bookshelves once stood. From these bookshelves, the President pulled Shakespeare, which Lincoln read to Secretary John Hay until “...my heavy eyelids caught his considerate notice & he sent me to bed.”

Lincoln’s nights at the Cottage were also full of uncertainty. “I couldn’t rest and thought I’d take a walk,” said the brooding Lincoln to Lieutenant Ashmun, an officer who saw the President wandering beyond the guarded grounds of the Cottage and encouraged him to return to the house. These anecdotes about Lincoln, revealed by the interpretation at Lincoln’s Cottage, describe a human president at his most restless, diligent, and even relaxed, a range of states that may be familiar to many of us who have faced personal and professional challenges.

Christy Schneider works in museum education and administration in Philadelphia.

From the Field: The District's Many Interpretations of Lincoln

As newcomer to the museum field, I was not sure what to expect when HPP invited a group of local museum professionals on an overnight study trip to Washington, D. C. The opportunity to see museums selected by the HPP staff—from well-established institutions to the brand-new—was enticing, as was the chance to meet some of my colleagues.

Although the itinerary included museums of varying sizes and missions, the general theme of the trip was Abraham Lincoln. Of the five institutions we toured, four featured a Lincoln exhibit, which allowed an opportunity to see how different museums handled the subject in their own fashion.

Our first stop was the National Portrait Gallery, which staged a show called “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln.” The exhibit presented photographs and artistic renderings illustrating how the trials of Lincoln’s presidency changed him physically and discussed Lincoln’s canny understanding of his public image. The exhibit also offered commentary by the curator, available via cell phone (though the subsequent text message urging me to “Save 20% in our Museum Stores” did not add much to my visitor experience.).

We then viewed the National Museum of American History’s new Star Spangled Banner gallery and “Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life.” It offered a standard narrative of the Lincoln story from beginning to end, with a liberal use of objects from the Smithsonian’s exceptional collection. Lincoln’s famous hat, for example, greeted visitors as they entered. The presentation of the hanged assassins’ hoods and manacles as we exited was a striking way to address Lincoln’s story after his “extraordinary life” ended and provided a standout feature in an exhibit crowded with information.

After spending a comfortable night at the eclectic Hotel Helix, we visited the Newseum. Their exhibit “Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln’s Killer,” delivered exactly what it advertised. It dealt very little with Lincoln himself— except in the manner of his death—and instead tracked the motives and methods of John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices. Since the Newseum specializes in the history of journalism, they told much of the story through newspaper accounts and photographs. Media-centric in its mission, the Newseum also highlighted the importance of Alexander Gardner, often referred to as “Lincoln’s Photographer,” who was featured to varying degrees in all of the Lincoln exhibits.

From the Newseum we traveled to our last stop, Lincoln’s Cottage. After all of the exhibits we visited, stuffed with mementos of Lincoln’s remarkable life and tragic death, the sparseness of the Cottage was refreshing. The museum staff made the conscious decision not to display any furniture or belongings, and yet successfully overcame the lack of interpretive material by synthesizing audiovisual technology and seamless old-fashioned tour guiding. The guide kept us in situ with expert efficiency, rarely mentioning Lincoln’s life before becoming president, and never mentioning his death, thus bucking the trend set by the other exhibits.

This trip gave us all ideas about the different ways that a specific subject might be presented, and will hopefully provide food for thought when planning our own exhibits.

Jennifer Green is the Visitor Experience Coordinator at The Mill at Anselma Preservation and Educational Trust.

Museum of American History Re-Opens!

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History re-opened on November 21 after two years and $85 million worth of renovations. Get a behind-the-scenes peek at their Star-Spangled Banner Gallery here: