Lincoln library receives grant to digitize rare images
Nearly 8,000 individual items will be scanned for museum project
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A grant is helping the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield digitize thousands of rare images, including “broadsides,” or posters announcing the hunt for the 16th president’s assassin.
The “Picturing Lincoln” project will complement the presidential library and museum’s “Papers of Abraham Lincoln,” which is annotating and publishing all documents written by, written to, signed by and addressed by Lincoln during his lifetime.
A secondary scope of the “Papers” project is all documents deemed “complementary or supplemental to Lincoln’s life and public career.” The “Picturing Lincoln” project will create digital versions of nearly 8,000 individual items.
“Broadsides” that went out days after the April 14, 1865, assassination of Lincoln announced a reward of up to $100,000 for the apprehension of John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices, John H. Surratt and David E. Herold (listed as David C. Harold or Daniel C. Harrold).
Lincoln died of his wounds the next day.
Other items to be digitized include a Lincoln family photo album, a schedule for the funeral train carrying Lincoln’s body back to Springfield for burial and the only surviving photograph of Lincoln’s body lying in state.
The $100,000 grant for the digitization effort was made by the Illinois State Library, a division of the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office.
In addition to the images being made available to the public, the presidential library will use the digitized images to create educational resources, such as lesson plans and teaching guides.
“The depth and breadth of the collection is astounding and contains oneof-a-kind items not held in any other repository in the world,” project director Megan Klintworth wrote in the grant application. “By digitizing these materials, researchers and students from across the globe will be given unfettered access to the triumphs and tragedies that befell both the Lincoln family and the nation.”
The scanning process is expected to start early next year.