Outstanding Lincoln Exhibit In Oregon

Since this past December (2007), the Oregon Historical Society (Portland) has been putting on an exhibit which appears to be outstanding. The exhibit, titled "A House Divided, Lincoln: In His Own Words" features priceless Lincoln letters, campaign memorabilia, political cartoons, rare plaster casts of his face and hands, and a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The reader might wonder, as I did, about what ties Lincoln could have had to Oregon. I didn't know that Lincoln was actually offered the governorship of Oregon Territory in 1849, an offer which he turned down.

I would encourage the reader to look at a very entertaining and informative video about this exhibit on the Society's exhibit homepage. In this video, a Lincoln re-enactor is seen strolling along the sidewalk in front of the Society museum, sees his own statue and walks inside. There, a local Lincoln scholar gives "Mr. Lincoln" a quick tour of the exhibit, while "Lincoln" offers various comments about the items on display. The re-enactor doesn't appear to have the height of the original, but he looks pretty close to the original. And the re-enactor is wise enough to use an approximation of Lincoln's frontier dialect, not quite "hillbilly," but definitely using terms like "reckon." At the end of the video, the scholar asks "Mr. Lincoln" to not be so long between visits and states "we need you here." How right he is!

The video is about 8-10 minutes long and is well-done. I wish Ohio wasn't so far from Oregon, because I'd love to see the exhibit in person. It runs through April 27, 2008, so there's still a month left to see it. Here is a local review of the exhibit, taken from OregonLive.com