Abraham Lincoln Comes to New York

New York City He’s the most written-about president in U.S. history, but Abraham Lincoln remains, for many, more myth than man. The exhibition “Lincoln and New York” at the New York Historical Society (October 9-March 25, 2010), which examines the relationship between America’s 16th chief executive and its largest metropolis, may bridge the gap. Artifacts, including the lectern from Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union speech, iconic portraits, and contemporary newspaper clippings (“He possessed no personal popularity in New York,” wrote Walt Whitman in 1861), make vivid the man, and remind us that the lionized president was once another striving politician.