Purdue Libraries exhibit features Lincoln, with photos, copied documents

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A traveling exhibition that examines how President Abraham Lincoln dealt with issues surrounding the Civil War is on display through April 5 in Purdue University's John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library.

"Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War" features how the 16th president used the U.S. Constitution to confront three intertwined crises during the war: the secession of Southern states, slavery and wartime civil liberties, said Ann O'Donnell, who coordinated the exhibit with Kristen Twardowski. The exhibit will be accompanied by several lecture presentations.

"The exhibit and the lectures provide an insight into President Lincoln's internal conflicts and how he reconciled them to American ideas of liberty and equality," said Beth McNeil, Purdue Libraries Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. "We're very fortunate to have this exhibit at Purdue."

The exhibit will feature photographic reproductions of original documents, including a draft of Lincoln's first inaugural speech, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. The National Constitution Center and American Library Association Public Programs Office organized the exhibition with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The exhibit and presentations are free and open to the public. The exhibit opened Thursday (Feb. 21) with the presentation "The Constitutional Aspects of Lincoln and the Emancipation," by Anderson University history professor Brian Dirck.

All presentations will be in Room G980D in the Hicks Library. Remaining presentations include:

* March 4. 7 p.m. "Lincoln, Blacks, and the Colonization in the Tropics: Racism or Misguided Philanthropy?" by Purdue history professor Robert May.

* March 18. 7 p.m. "Lincoln: Martial Law and Public Dissent," by Purdue history professor Yvonne Pitts.

* March 26. 7 p.m. "Lincoln: Building the Nation-State in the Face of a Divisive South," by Purdue political science graduate student Toby Lauterbach.

Writer: Jim Bush, 765-494-2077, jsbush@purdue.edu

Contacts: Ann O'Donnell, 765-496-1498, atodonne@purdue.edu