Springfield

This past weekend I took a trip to Springfield with a few other members of the NEH institute. Its not a long trip from Champaign-Urbana to Springfield, just under 2 hours. However, we started the day late and so arrived around noon. First we went to the Lincoln home. The home and many of the homes and area around it are part of a national park. Because of this our tour guide was a national park ranger. A bit of a funny guy. The Lincoln home is fairly small when compared with today's homes. We were reminded again and again about not touching things and which parts of the home were authentic and which were not. I had a bit of a flash back to being on the Fox Glacier in NZ. Every time the guide asked a question I answered it, no one else did. It occurred to me after the first few that perhaps the questions were rhetorical so I stopped answering, but I don't think they were. My impression was that the house was not that big or fancy. Then again, Mr. Lincoln was not that fancy (but certainly was big at 6ft 4inch). I remember seeing a billboard one time that had a picture of Lincoln. Underneath it said, "Fail, Fail, Fail, Succeed" Implying that you should not give up on your dreams. The meaning in the Lincoln connection was that he lost three other elections before accepting the nomination to run for president in 1860. As the guide told us over and over, Mr. Lincoln was a lawyer in Springfield when delegates visited him to ask him to accept the nomination. Another striking thing was that on election night Mr. Lincoln was out until 4am waiting for results. Today we have so much in the way of technology to keep us connected. Back then the best way to talk to someone was to knock on their door. Along with the couch that Lincoln reclined on and other interesting items I also saw the Lincoln outhouse. Presumably it once contained some Lincoln logs. Ba'dam Ching! After looking around the Lincoln house and neighborhood we went to the Lincoln museum. We didn't have too much time but I was impressed with the detail and presentation. There were two main sections, one devoted to his early life and one devoted to his presidency. Both were very interesting. I found the sections on cartoons drawn of Lincoln and the room made to seem like he was lying in state to be the best. The cartoons were funny mostly because those were probably the only images that most Americans saw of Mr. Lincoln. There was one little series where portraits of him went from haggard looking to handsome with a quote underneath that said, "The closer he gets to being elected the more handsome he becomes". Luckily today we have 24/7 television to remind us of which candidate we should vote for, based on their looks. Probably the neatest fact that I learned at the museum was that the picture of Lincoln lying in state was not even discovered until the 20th century between the pages of an old book. Makes you wonder what is still out there or what has tragically been lost. My overall impression after seeing both places was that Lincoln was just a man. A very witty, probably smart, freakishly tall for the time, ordinary man. His kids busted up his house, his wife gave him hell from time to time, and he sometimes did things just because he knew he should.