Q&A Question & Answer

26 February 1999 Illinois Issues

Susan Mogerman on the Lincoln Presidential Library

As director of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency during outgoing Gov. Jim Edgar's tenure, Susan Mogerman witnessed some false starts on the Lincoln Presidential Library. Now the project appears to be underway. Commitments have been made for half of the construction costs. An architect has been chosen, as well as an exhibit designer. And a panel of historians is at the ready. Peggy Boyer Long talked with Mogerman about what's in store for the project.

Q. It's been a long haul for this idea. What was the hang-up?

I think for a long time people thought it would be easy.

When I worked for [former Gov.] Jim Thompson as a press aide, people used to regularly march into our office and say, "We need to have a Lincoln presidential library. What is wrong with this state?" And we'd say, "Yeah, it's a really good idea. How will we finance that?" They'd say, "You have the [federal] Presidential Library Act." And when you'd inform them that Lincoln doesn't fall under that act, that it starts with [late 19th century President Rutherford B.] Hayes, they would immediately leave the office.

Other than that, I think the concern locally has been the involvement of the federal government. They really did not want the federal government involved in this project. There's a long memory of how the Lincoln Home [in Springfield] was transferred to the federal government. And a lot of people who had worked long and hard over decades to preserve that home were kind of frozen out. There was this fear that if the library was turned over to the feds the community would be frozen out again.

Q. How many presidential libraries are there?

There are 12, if you don't count — and I imagine no one does — the [President of the Confederacy] Jeff Davis Library, which opened last year.

Q. You got a chance to take tours. What worked and what didn't?

What the other presidential libraries do is very different from what we intend to do.

They are all the destination. And for the most part, there's not a lot more to see. It's a library and museum exhibits. And some of them have the burial place of the president and his family. But that's pretty much it.

We have a city that is chock-full of things to see related to Abraham Lincoln. We have a region of the state where you practically can't walk a mile without hitting on something that was walked or attended to by Abraham Lincoln. And we have a state that, from end-to-end, is filled with Lincoln and his history. So what we're proposing is an introduction to all the rest. This is meant to be a gateway, not the end of the visit.

In truth, what we'd like it to be, eventually, is the beginning of a regional visit, because we have a three-state pact with the tourism entities in Kentucky and Indiana.

Q. What kinds of things do you envision this library doing?

There are some givens.
In terms of the archival part, we're also different. Most of these libraries deal only with the presidential papers. We have a state [historical] library [beneath the Old State Capitol in Springfield] that is going to move [into the new library]. When you talk to people who do research on Lincoln, the fact that we have [Lincoln research materials] as part of the state historical library is an enormous boon.

We recently got a letter from [scholar] Michael Burlingame, who had spent almost all of last summer with us doing research for a multivolume Lincoln biography that he's working on. And he said it is wonderful to be able to get so much background information at the same place, so you're not going from building to building, town to town, state to state.

If you want the demographics of Illinois at the time Lincoln was a legislator in Vandalia, or in Springfield, or when he was in New Salem, all of that information is here. All of the information about the people that he knew and worked with when he was in Illinois, and beyond that, is here.

So that will all be part of the new center.

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Q. Will there he access for members of the general public who want to do research?

Absolutely. There are certain materials that will not be available to everyone, obviously, and we'll need to know you have a need to handle these rare materials. But this library has always been open to the public.

A large part of the population that visits are not Lincoln researchers. A large part of them are genealogists and students and people who just love history.

So we have, maybe, a broader patronage than the other presidential libraries as well.

Q. So there are two parts. There's the research part. Then there's a center for the public. What do you see in that?

That's a more public space. That's the space where people will start their journey and get an overall picture.

You know, we're 150 years later, now. The story has been told and told and told and told. And it's still being told and reinterpreted. There's certainly no diminishment of the interest in Lincoln and the Civil War and the principles that he espoused.

Why is that? I mean there are more than 16,000 titles concerning Lincoln. More than any other American. The third most written about person in all of human history. So I think it's our obligation to explore that. What is the legacy? What is the relevance in your life today, to the third-grade student and seventh-grade student and college student and Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Des Moines and people who are coming from Amsterdam and the Orient.

Why are they coming? I think people are searching for information, searching for principles and ideas of what his life meant, what his contributions meant, what his martyrdom meant. And what would have happened had he not been here. And what would have happened if the union had been lost. And what does it mean to emerging democracies? And what does it mean to you and me?

So we want to tell that story. We want to tell it in a way that is engaging. Which means that it's more than just displaying things in glass boxes.

Sometimes it's interactive. And sometimes it's emotional. And sometimes it's just seeing the real thing that I think has more wallop than anything else you can do.

We have a lot of "stuff," as we call it technically. Historical stuff that's packed away that people don't get to see. And they should be able to see it. It's their history. It's their heritage.

Q. History is becoming more of a tourism draw. Has there been a discussion about how to balance scholarship with tourism?

Springfield has always dealt with that. And central Illinois and the other locations that deal with Lincoln have always been concerned with both things.

It most certainly is a tourism draw. It's a big business in Illinois, a huge business in Illinois. And growing.

And I think the way that you handle it is by making it engaging but accurate. And to that end, we have a wonderful panel of historians that is going to be working with us — both in person, coming to meetings — and those who will be reviewing texts [for exhibits] as they are written.

So I'm very confident that we're going to be able to protect the accuracy and the historical content. But still make it wonderfully interesting and fun.

Q. History is, essentially, a construct. There was the real Lincoln. And then there is the historical Lincoln. There are many historical Lincolns. Granted, you'll have a panel of historians who will have different interpretations of Lincoln. But what do you see as the way to present Lincoln in this presidential library environment?

Well, I think we want, to the best of our ability, to present all of the Lincolns. Both the Lincoln of lore, of popular culture. The Lincoln of historical interpretation. The Lincoln that is still in question. Because there are still many, many questions that are being asked and reasked. And we want to deal with some of the negatives. As long as you label them as such. Lincoln was known for this and such. What is the truth of this?

And you don't always have the answers. Sometimes what you have are questions. And sometimes those are the best things to present because it keeps people thinking about it after they leave.

And really, that's what you want to do. You want to whet their appetite. You want people to leave here thinking, "Oh, I think I'll visit more places. And read more books." If you give them all the answers, then maybe they don't do that when they leave.

So I think it's important to pose questions that we don't answer as well as some that we do.

Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L.Wilson of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg were among the historians assembled. The state could foot as much as $20 million of the estimated $60 million construction costs. The city of Springfield has promised another $10 million if the library is located in a Tax Increment Financing district. Meanwhile, state officials are hoping to raise another $30 million from the federal government. The state, which will operate the library, must also establish an endowment for operating costs. Architect Gyo Obata of the St. Louis firm, Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, was scouting possible sites for the library.

28  February 1999 Illinois Issues