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| Photograph from Robert Todd Lincoln. (TLM# 0-92f.) |
In 1905, Arthur Hall and a group of business leaders from Fort Wayne, Indiana, founded The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company. Hall, a lifelong admirer of Abraham Lincoln, wrote to the president’s only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, to ask for a photograph that the company might use on its letterhead. Robert replied, “I find no objection whatever to the use of a portrait of my father upon the letterhead of such a life insurance company named after him as you describe; and I take pleasure in enclosing you, for that purpose, what I regard as a very good photograph of him.”
The company prospered, and in 1928 Hall took the opportunity to repay the Lincoln family by creating the Lincoln Historical Research Foundation, dedicated to the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. The Foundation, under the leadership of Dr. Louis A. Warren, began to collect Lincoln-related material in 1928, published Lincoln Lore in 1929, and opened The Lincoln Museum to the public in 1931 in the basement of Lincoln Life's headquarters on Harrison Street in Fort Wayne.
In 1995, the Lincoln National Corporation, through the Lincoln National Foundation, funded the construction of a new Lincoln Museum at the corner of Clinton and Berry Streets in downtown Fort Wayne. State of the art exhibits were added in addition to interactive displays and four movie presentations.
Today, The Lincoln Museum houses the world’s largest private collection dedicated to the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. It includes: signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th amendment; 7,000 19th century prints, engravings and 19th century newspapers; 5,000 original nineteenth-century photographs; 200,000 newspapers and magazine clippings; 340 nineteenth century sheet music titles; scores of period artifacts; Lincoln family belongings; and manuscript collections.
Its mission is to interpret and preserve the history and legacy of Abraham Lincoln through research, preservation, exhibitry, and education. Tens of thousands of visitors of all ages from throughout the United States and many other countries visit The Lincoln Museum each year.
Museum programs include the permanent exhibit Abraham Lincoln and the American Experiment, temporary exhibits, lectures, and special events. The Museum operates an active volunteer program, speaker’s bureau, museum store, and a research library holding nearly 18,000 published volumes and thousands of manuscripts, including more than 300 documents signed by Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln Financial Foundation announced March 3, 2008 that it would close The Lincoln Museum to the public on June 30, 2008.
