We recently received the following communication regarding a new project involving a subject of interest to living historians in general and Civil War living historians in particular:
Abraham Lincoln is turning 200 in February, and we want you to celebrate his bicentennial with us!
My name is Alexis Lerro and I work for a company called Lime Projects based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the last month or so, we have been collaborating with the Rosenbach Museum & Library to launch an exciting new project called “21st Century Abe: Finding Abe†to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abe Lincoln’s birth.
21st-Century Abe grew out of an awareness that there is an intense interest in Lincoln among the great number of web savvy folks who spend much of their days surfing the net, as the abundance of Lincoln-themed YouTube videos and MySpace pages will attest, but that he is almost exclusively represented and discussed in a mythical and clichéd way. The goal of Twenty-first Century Abe is to engage this audience in exploring a nuanced and complex view of Lincoln and to create a community of dialogue (both textual and artistic) around contemporary issues that grow out an understanding of Lincoln’s historical materials. The organizing themes of the project include Lincoln’s views on race, his patterns of thought and rhetoric, and his role as a celebrity, both in his own day and ours.
In addition to the blog the Rosenbach has started, there will be a full website launch in February and exciting contributions from scholar and author Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center and respected Lincoln academic; visual artist Maira Kalman, author and illustrator of numerous children’s books and illustrator of the illustrated version of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style; composer and rock musician Bryce Dessner, (member of the band The National); and multi-media artists Archive (Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick) as they reflect on Lincoln documents and provide their own creative interpretations.
But let’s not stop there! Your responses—in words, songs, videos, photos, drawings, web links, whatever — define 21st-Century Abe. Together we’ll find our Abe!
After researching many blogs on the subjects of history, civil war reenactment, art, politics, art and education, we are excited to share the 21st Century Abe at the Rosenbach with your website, The Reenactor Post.
The 21st Century Abe blog is located at the following URL: http://www.21stcenturyabe.org
Plus there are great supplementary Abe media sites like:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/21stCenturyAbe
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/abe21stcentury
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/21stCenturyAbe
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/21stcenturyabe
Viddler: http://www.viddler.com/21stCenturyAbe
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1586996051&ref=profile&pub=2309869772Twitter: http://twitter.com/21stCenturyAbe
Let us know what you think about it! If you like it, pass it along and tell a friend, or even post about it on your blog.
Thanks for your time—we hope to see you at the Rosenbach’s festivities!
Sincerely,
Alexis
Alexis Lerro
Production Manager and Research Coordinator
Lime Projects
abe21@limeprojects.com
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