Museum guards can be pretty tough critics of the spectacular and special exhibits and artifacts that visit their institutions. More than most, they have the time and opportunity to look closely and judge the public’s reaction to these events.
Though it never caught the wave of attention and popularity of a Monet retrospective or a King Tut exhibit, one quiet show residing at the Chicago Historical Society has captured the hearts and minds of the people who watch over it. It is the “The Last Best Hope, Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America,” a yearlong display at the society, 1601 N. Clark St.
A one-time only assemblage of Lincoln handwritten documents and manuscripts and personal effects of the 16th president, the exhibit opened Feb. 12 and closes next Feb. 13. It has been drawing a steady but not spectacular 2,500 to 3,000 people a week compared to the Monet, which drew 50,000 a week.
“Right away, when people first go into the exhibit, they stop and read that little poem he wrote when he was a schoolboy,” says Richard McGill, a museum security officer. “You can hear them giggle, because it kind of tickles you. (Lincoln) had that humor, and you see it in his own, actual handwriting.”
McGill is referring to a piece of doggerel Lincoln wrote on a scrap of paper as a teenager, practicing his penmanship:
Abraham Lincoln is my name
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast(e) and speed
and left it here for fools to read
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“I think people spend more time at this exhibit than any other that I’ve seen,” says McGill’s colleague, Danny Bell. “I’ve seen them spend hours leaning over display cases, reading what Lincoln wrote, often out loud to their children.
“It’s like they get an understanding of what kind of person he really was. For me, it’s an exhibit that is fun to watch how people react and respond.”
McGill tells of seeing expressions of horror and disbelief on children as parents read to them old posters announcing slave sales.
“Those things make Lincoln’s words good to hear,” says McGill, “when you watch a mama reading to her kids what he wrote back then.”
McGill offers one of several of Lincoln’s anti-slavery arguments displayed in letters in the exhibit the guard has pretty well committed to memory, indicating he’s lingered some himself over them:
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
The document that everybody stops to read, one that often brings tears to eyes, according to museum director Douglas Greenberg, is a copy of the Gettysburg Address written in longhand by Lincoln.
“He had a very clear hand,” says Greenberg, “so it is very easy for people to read. It’s that kind of thing that is extraordinarily moving.”
The documents and personal effects were pulled together from two institutions, the Illinois State Historical Society and the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., and from the private collection of Californians Louise and Barry Taper.
The personal effects of Lincoln, his wife, Mary, and their three sons on display, including locks of hair from each, also move people, says guard Shirley Ostrowski. The most popular may be Lincoln’s top hat, which he wore as a sort of portable office, tucking documents into its inner band.
“People love the top hat,” says Ostrowski, “especially the children. They see the bare spots on the brim and say `Oh, that’s where he put his fingers.’ I find that fascinating.”
Michael Krebs is a 40-year-old actor and remarkable Lincoln lookalike who is at the exhibit every Thursday and Sunday. Krebs recreates a speech Lincoln made to supporters the night he was re-elected in 1864.
After his 20-minute re-enactment, people approach him almost as if he were Lincoln himself.
“Black children are the most demonstrative,” he says. “They are more apt to want to touch me or hug me.
“Parents shyly come up and introduce me to their kids, telling me, `This is Billy, Mr. Lincoln, one of your biggest fans.’ The respect people have for Lincoln is pretty remarkable.”
When the exhibit ends, its artifacts will return to their individual collections, unlikely to be pulled together again.
“It’s amazing that it’s here in Chicago,” says Bell.