Visiting Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, Springfield IL

Springfield, Illinois is perhaps best known for being the home of Abraham Lincoln before he became President.

As a result, the Illinois state capital is home to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. We visited while on our 50 state road trip and were extremely impressed, particularly with the museum.

Shae and I have been to many different types of museums over the years, but the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum now ranks among my favorites.

It’s an incredibly well-thought-out museum, with exhibits to keep visitors of all ages interested. They’ve paid attention to detail in so many ways to enhance the experience, so it’s definitely worth the entrance fee. (n.b. To save money elsewhere, check out our list of 18 free things to do in Springfield.)

Having purchased our tickets, we entered into the plaza with the exhibits set out in different zones around us.

There are a couple of theaters inside the museum that show movies / performances at different times. We arrived just as the Ghosts Of The Library show was about to start. It’s shown every 30 minutes from 9:15am to 4:15pm, with a final show at 4:30pm, although there are three occasions during the day – 10:15am, 12:15pm and 2:15pm – when it’s not shown for some reason.

Photography and videography isn’t allowed during the show, so I only got this photo just before it started.

That photo does nothing to convey how incredible the show was. Ghosts Of The Library is worth the museum’s admission price alone, even though it only lasts 10 minutes. I won’t say anything to spoil it, but it’s like a short theater show with some magic and optical illusions – not in a cheesy way though. Seriously – Shae and I have no clue how they achieved some of the effects.

Having watched Ghosts Of The Library, we made our way over to the Illinois Gallery. Inside was a limited-time exhibit to celebrate the Illinois Bicentennial called From Illinois To The White House. This focuses on the four Presidents that came from Illinois – Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant…

…Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

The Illinois Gallery has several displays about each of the Presidents, including some historical artifacts.

After making our way through that exhibit, we poked our head into Mrs Lincoln’s Attic. This is an exhibit aimed at children, so we didn’t spend long in there.

With older-style toys and clothes to dress up in, I’m sure it’d be fun and a different kind of experience for kids.

Next up was the zone called Journey 1: Pre-Presidential Years. You enter through the Carving A Family Home exhibit which is a replica of the home in which Lincoln grew up.

Inside the cabin, you get a better idea of how cramped living conditions were for Lincoln and his family as he was growing up. It was a one-room cabin, although there was a separate sleeping area upstairs.

Shae and I were a little confused by the snoring sound in the cabin as Lincoln looked like he was awake and reading next to the fire. As we walked around though, we noticed there was an arm dangling down from the sleeping area above.

That led through to a heart-rending exhibit called The Slave Auction. It’s thought that Lincoln witnessed a slave auction in 1831 and that the inhumanity of it reinforced his views on slavery.

Towards the end of the zone was a clever exhibit called Campaign 1860. This provides an imagining of what TV broadcasts about Lincoln’s 1860 Presidential campaign would’ve looked like. It includes pretend TV ads run by Lincoln’s opponent and also features a news report by the late broadcaster Tim Russert.

Having made our way through Journey 1: Pre-Presidential Years, we headed over to Journey 2: The White House Years.

This zone began with the What Are They Wearing in Washington? exhibit which features Mary Lincoln being fitted for a dress ready for her arrival on the social scene in Washington D.C.

Pre-internet, the media and general public don’t appear to have been any kinder. There was a zone in The White House Years called The Whispering Gallery that featured actual cartoons of Abraham Lincoln denigrating him as both a person and President.

Rather than simply displaying the illustrations in a plain fashion, they’ve been mounted in oddly shaped frames, with even the door frame being a haphazard shape. It’s attention to details like this that made the Abraham Lincoln President Museum even more enjoyable – it took what could have been a fairly plain exhibit and made it more artistic and eye-catching.

That gave way to other exhibits, a couple of which addressed the death of Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s son, Willie. The Hall Of Sorrows features Mary mourning their son’s death and is another example of how well the museum has thought through their exhibits. There’s an air conditioning vent above the exhibit that pumps out cold air, making it chilling in more ways than one.

The White House Years also features a scene from Lincoln’s Office in the White House with his cabinet discussing plans to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation was such a defining moment of his Presidency that there were a lot of strong feelings against it – from those who didn’t think it went far enough to those who thought it was an abomination in any form.

Those viewpoints are addressed in The Emancipation Proclamation exhibit which features dissenting voices from apparition-like people lining both sides of the room.

For me, one of the most impactful exhibits in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum was a video called The Civil War In Four Minutes. This contains an animated map that displays battle lines shifting throughout the war, along with scenes of major battles. In the bottom-right corner of the screen, the death tolls for the north and south increase as the war progresses.

Seeing the numbers rise in this way brought home how vast the fatalities were on both sides in a way I’d not quite appreciated before. I’d taken a video of it, but we don’t have the copyright and so sadly can’t show it here.

Another interactive exhibit that’s part of The White House Years is The War Gallery. This wall contains ~150 framed photographs of people from the Civil War.

There are touchscreens with identical images of the wall. Touch one of the framed pictures on the screen and you’ll learn more about that person and their involvement in the war.

The Civil War theme continues later on with a painting of Lincoln giving The Gettysburg Address.

There were several other paintings of what life was like in the White House. The one below was my favorite due to its scene. Citizens used to be allowed to wander the White House grounds, so Abraham Lincoln gave a speech from an upper window. It’s hard to imagine a time when people could freely roam outside the White House without there being any significant security concerns.

Ultimately, Lincoln was safe at the White House, but that sadly wasn’t the case at Ford’s Theater. The museum has a recreation of that fateful night at the theater with John Wilkes Booth creeping in the side door.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum also covers the aftermath of his death, including a display showing the route of his funeral train that took his body from Washington D.C. back to Springfield IL on a prolonged route in order for people throughout the country to pay their respects.

The Lying In State exhibit is a recreation of the scene in Springfield once Lincoln’s body arrived.

Another nice feature of the museum is that non-flash photography is allowed throughout much of the museum. There are a few exceptions, including the Treasures Gallery…

…the Lincoln’s Eyes movie in Union Theater…

…and Ask Mr Lincoln. With the interactive Ask Mr Lincoln exhibit, you can choose a question from a list and learn the answer.

After spending a couple of hours in the museum, we made our way towards the exit through the gift shop.

That wasn’t the end of the experience though. For starters, we’d only been to the museum part of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. We therefore made our way across the street to the Presidential Library.

This was sadly nowhere near as impressive as the museum, but that’s because it serves a completely different function. The Presidential Library is a way for scholars to research Lincoln’s life and documents from the era along with other historical documents, so that section is off-limits to the general public.

The only exhibit we were therefore able to see were portraits of winners of the Lincoln Leadership Prize. Past winners include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Little Rock Nine, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and more.

This limited display meant we only spent a few minutes in the Presidential Library. When arriving at the museum earlier that morning though, we’d purchased a ticket package that included the Lincoln: From History To Hollywood display at Union Station.

Union Station is a former train station in Springfield which now houses Lincoln: From History To Hollywood. This is an exhibition featuring costumes, props and sets from Steven Spielberg’s movie featuring Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln.

Neither Shae nor I have watched the movie Lincoln, so some of the display was probably lost on us. If we’d seen it in the past, I’m sure the outfits and sets would’ve been more fascinating as we’d have recognized them from the movie scenes, similar to how visiting Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield OH was made more interesting seeing as we’ve seen The Shawshank Redemption (where several scenes from the movie were filmed) many times.

Final Thoughts

If you’ll be visiting – or live in – Springfield IL, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum should be top of your list of places to visit.

The museum has interactive exhibits that’ll interest people of all ages and enhances our knowledge and understanding of Lincoln and his life.

It’s extremely well-designed and laid out; you could easily spend more than two hours there if you wanted.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum Ticket Prices

When we visited on September 5, 2018, ticket prices were as follows:

• Adults – $12
• AAA members – $11
• Students (ID required) – $9
• Seniors – $9
• Military (ID required) – $7
• Child (5-15) – $6
• Child (4 and under) – Free

We also had the option to upgrade our tickets to include access to the Lincoln: From History To Hollywood exhibit at Union Station. The ticket prices for that option are as follows:

• Adults – $15
• AAA members – $14
• Students (ID required) – $12
• Seniors – $12
• Military (ID required) – $10
• Child (5-15) – $6 (i.e. no additional cost)
• Child (4 and under) – Free

Shae and I are AAA members and we wanted to check out the exhibit at Union Station, so we paid a total of $28 for our tickets.

Addresses

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum – 212 N 6th St, Springfield, IL 62701
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library – 112 N 6th St, Springfield, IL 62701
Union Station – 500 E Madison St, Springfield, IL 62701

Parking

There’s a dedicated parking lot for visitors to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum which is kitty-corner to the museum. The address of the parking lot is 500 E Madison St, Springfield, IL 62701 and costs $0.75 every half-hour.

You pay when exiting the parking lot and they accept credit cards.