Honest Abe's Modern Showplace

Abraham Lincoln is getting his own state-of-the-art showplace, a museum designed to generate new interest in the 16th president's life through a mix of showmanship and scholarship.

It brings the life and accomplishments of Honest Abe real with multimedia interactive exhibits and realistic depictions of scenes from his life.

With President Bush on hand for the dedication, the museum was to open Tuesday after years of planning. It completes the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a $145 million institution devoted to researching Lincoln and explaining his life and legacy.

"This may be the first great library of the 21st century," says its director, Richard Norton Smith.

The facility's Lincoln historian, Tom Schwartz,

"He believed that the Declaration of Independence's principles that all men are created equal included blacks," Schwartz says. "And he was elected president on that principle."

The new museum uses "immersives," Schwartz says, where "you can actually go into the setting. We try to personalize Lincoln," but make education and history a fun learning experience.

Seats shake and cannons belch smoke during a movie about Lincoln. Holographic "ghosts" haunt a presentation on the library's research. Fake campaign commercials illustrate Lincoln's political career.

Then there are the statues — latex figures replicating scenes from Lincoln's life. Some would be right at home in a Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride.

Douglas Wilson, a Lincoln scholar at Knox College in Galesburg, is not thrilled by such gimmicks. But he acknowledged the museum isn't aimed at 69-year-old historians.

"It's very deliberately aimed at a much broader audience," he said. "If the kids or the patrons get a sense of the issues ... then maybe the ends justify the means. That's the hope."

He noted that visitors can see important Lincoln artifacts and documents, including a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and a handwritten version of the Gettysburg Address.

The museum also addresses the political and moral issues confronting Lincoln, making it clear that he was an unpopular president and would make enemies, no matter what he did about slavery and the Civil War.

The library half of the facility opened in October. The museum's dedication wraps up nearly 25 years of effort to establish a Lincoln center.

Unlike most presidential libraries, this one isn't operated by the National Archives and it isn't the official repository of documents from Lincoln's presidency. The state of Illinois runs the library and museum, and the federal government has agreed to provide up to $50 million.