Check out an exhibit of artifacts from our Lincolniana collection, located in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site Visitor Center.

"How Do We Know What We Know?"

How does the National Park Service staff and volunteers know what they know about the Lincolns and their lives here in Springfield?

They look at a variety of sources for information, like letters written to or by the Lincolns that mention an event, or newspaper stories. Sometimes, there is physical evidence that has been left behind, like broken dishes found in the backyard trash pile, that tells us what the Lincolns used in their everyday lives. Like solving a mystery, the National Park Service staff and volunteers look at all of the evidence and find the "proof" for the stories they tell.

The exhibit includes the following artifacts on loan from the Lincoln Presidential Foundation Lincolniana Collection: 

• Mary Todd Lincoln Cookbook
  • The cookbook opens to the gingerbread recipe pages almost automatically. Someone, possibly Mary, also wrote notes in pencil above the Gingerbread Nuts recipe to convert some of the measurements, for example, from 1 ½ pounds of flour to 6 cups, to make it easier to quickly mix up a batch. 
• Lincoln Home Housekeeping Book
  
  • The Manual contains over 10 pages of instructions on installing and removing carpets for cleaning, as well as adding straw matting as a summer covering. Small carpet tack marks from where the tacks were removed and later replaced are visible in the baseboards throughout the Lincoln Home, and remnants of straw matting were found under the same baseboards.
• Lincoln Herndon Law Office Clock
  
  • The clock, made by Chauncey Jerome in New Haven, Connecticut around 1845, is considered a 30-hour clock (meaning it could run 30 hours between windings), and is covered in mahogany veneer over pine and walnut. The lower glass window had a reverse-printed and hand-painted image of Westminster Abbey, which has deteriorated and flaked off, leaving only the hand-painted areas.
• Eyeglasses
  
  • Abraham Lincoln was photographed several times during his presidency wearing or holding wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

The exhibit is scheduled to be open through June 30, 2026.