 Paid museum admission is required to view the document.There are
five original handwritten versions of the Gettysburg Address. Two
incomplete versions are in the Library of Congress, a finished
version at Cornell University, and the only one Abraham Lincoln
signed and dated is in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum's copy,
written at the request of Edward Everett, the main speaker on Nov.
19, 1863, at the Gettysburg Cemetery dedication, came to the state
of Illinois in 1944, thanks to the contributions of pennies by
Illinois schoolchildren plus a donation by department store magnate
Marshall Field III. Illinois' copy contains the two famous
additional words "under God" that Lincoln had not included in his
two original draft copies.
Displayed nearby will be an original 1880 letter written by
Thomas Edison, never before shown, in which the famed inventor
praises Lincoln's greatness.
Beginning on Sept. 5, a signed copy of the Emancipation
Proclamation will go on display through January 2013. This display
will mark the 150th anniversary of the presidential order that freed
all slaves in rebel-held territory.
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 The Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation are part of
the 52,000-item Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library and Museum. Pieces from the collection are
displayed on a rotating basis in the museum's Treasures Gallery.
They range from the earliest known document written by Lincoln to
items belonging to his wife and children.
For more information, visit
www.presidentlincoln.org.
[Text from
Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
file received from the
Illinois Historic
Preservation Agency] |
