"I, too, am a Kentuckian": Discover Your Community's Abraham Lincoln Story
Like all Kentuckians, Abraham Lincoln, the commonwealth’s most prominent native son, was proud of his Kentucky heritage. The sixteenth president spent his formative years in Kentucky and established many of his closest and most important friendships and alliances in the state. When Lincoln wrote, “I, too, am a Kentuckian,” he acknowledged his enduring connection to the Bluegrass State and the timeless values he shared with Kentuckians.
This year, as the nation recognizes Lincoln’s birth, all Kentucky communities have the unique opportunity to celebrate Lincoln’s Kentucky heritage and share their stories with the rest of the nation.
To commemorate Lincoln's 200th birthday, the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (KALBC) are working with communities across the commonwealth to plan a wide variety of public events and educational activities.
Use these resources, and join other cities and counties across the state in honoring the birth of Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln.
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Think You Don't Have a Lincoln Story? Think Again. |
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Although Lincoln wasn’t born in your community, the Lincoln Bicentennial offers all communities the opportunity to share their legacies with the world. So find out more about your community’s history and heritage!
• Use your local historical society or historic site to provide support for events and information about your area. These organizations can help with programming and provide the historical context about your community when Lincoln was born or when he was president.
• Kentucky’s Civil War communities dot the commonwealth, and Lincoln was Union commander-in-chief during the Civil War. Use the Bicentennial as an opportunity to explore your community’s Civil War heritage. What was your community like on the eve of the Civil War? Who were the soldiers from your area? Were there any battles or skirmishes fought there? What was happening to the home front as Union and Confederate troops moved through? What is your county’s African-American story during the Civil War? The questions are nearly endless, and the ties to Lincoln are strong.
• Look to the Kentucky Historical Society for more information. Our premiere Lincoln exhibition, Beyond the Log Cabin: Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln, collections, and resources on this Web site and the Kentucky Historical Society's Web site can help communities that are planning Lincoln events.
• Use the Kentucky Historical Society’s Digital Collections Catalog (DCC) to help you with community planning. This easily searchable online catalog contains images of people and items from the period, which can help you research your community history. From the DCC homepage, you can search for Lincoln-related images as well as the Civil War and the era of Lincoln’s birth, 1800-1820.
• Take advantage of the new Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail. Kentucky’s Lincoln sites can be a resource for your community while you plan Lincoln events. Furthermore, we hope that you will direct people in your area to explore Lincoln’s Kentucky connections along this trail.
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Next Step: Coordinate Your Efforts! |
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The KALBC is distributing similar kits to local schools, libraries, and history organizations, and adding most of those materials to the toolkit Web site. We hope you will all work together to make your community’s commemoration memorable.
Please keep us informed of plans for your community’s events so we can include your activities on the Kentucky Lincoln Commission's Calendar of Events. Lincoln sites and other communities have found this to be an effective tool for promoting their events.
This toolkit offers suggestions and ideas that can be implemented throughout the entire Lincoln Bicentennial, which ends in February 2010. In addition to celebrating Lincoln’s Kentucky birth in February 2009, we hope that you will plan events and activities throughout the entire year.
If you have any questions or need additional materials to plan your community’s Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial events, please contact Laura Coleman or Warren Greer, or call the Kentucky Historical Society at (502) 564-1792.
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