Lincoln's Contemporaries

May 13, 2016 - May 12, 2019
First floor, Meserve Corridor

Who were Abraham Lincoln’s contemporaries? They included many fascinating people beyond the politicians and military leaders of the Civil War. This exhibition features Mathew Brady’s portraits of twenty celebrities—from showman P.T. Barnum and inventor Samuel Morse to musician Teresa Carreño and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher—who reflect the diversity of American intellectual and cultural life during Lincoln’s presidency.

19th century man in a suit seated in a chair
little girl in a white dress standing by a piano
19th century man in a suit standing by a column
19th century man with white hair and a beard seated in a chair
19th century woman in a long dark dress standing against a landscape