Nation's Library Celebrates Lincoln's 200th Birthday
Recipes from the 2009 inauguration lunch and Mary Todd Lincoln's apple cake.
Jan. 19, 2009 — -- When Barack Obama on Tuesday places his hand on the same Bible Abraham Lincoln used for his March 1861 inauguration, not only will the 44th president be paying homage to his Illinois predecessor, but also, in a small way, the Library of Congress.
It's the home of the historic book and also where some of Obama's papers likely will land one day, as the 209-year-old federal institution compiles and records the cultural and creative history of Americans.
The show will use the intricately constructed Great Hall and some of the reading rooms for its broadcasts.
Some of the nation's and world's top treasures lie in the Library of Congress, including two drafts of Lincoln's Gettysburg address as well as the one he used on Nov. 16, 1863.
A special exhibit celebrating the 16th president's 200th birthday begins on Feb. 12 at the Library of Congress.
"We have a vast Lincoln collection," said Library of Congress communications director Matt Raymond.
The collection includes more than 200 rarely displayed items that offer a very personal glimpse into the life of the frontiersman who had only one year of formal education.
Among the items on display will be a grammar book that Lincoln, at the age of 21, walked miles to borrow from an Illinois farmer so he could truly master English, as well as the letter 11-year-old Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln suggesting more people would vote for him if he let his whiskers grow.
The Library of Congress also has the contents of Lincoln's pockets from the day John Wilkes Booth shot him in Ford's Theater.
But much of library's collections pre-date anything Lincolnesque by decades and centuries.
"We have the papers of 23 presidents — from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge," Raymond said.
The library also includes the original Declaration of Independence including edits by Ben Franklin and John Adams; George Washington's copy of the Constitution and the original Bill of Rights.
But the Library of Congress isn't just dedicated to historic relics from eras past. It's an active and functional library which always is looking for and storing current material.
"We get about 22,000 items a day. We keep about 10,000 of those," said Raymond, who added that curators decide what stays and what goes. "The size and the scope of our collection is really quite astounding. "
One of the most recent and most popular items to show up is what Raymond described as "Spiderman's birth certificate."
One of the most photographed items in the library is the first comic book in which Spiderman appeared.
