It's unfinished!
"Funds dwindle for Lincoln papers project; Without money, archival research at risk of ending" by Michael E. Ruane | Washington Post, August 04, 2013
WASHINGTON —As the country approaches the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in November, the project’s work at the archives might soon end.
David J. Gerleman, assistant editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, and Daniel W. Stowell, the project’s director, said that, barring new funding, money for their National Archives research will run out next June, and their work there could stop well before then.
The overall project, based at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., would continue. But the digging in the archives, where the vast majority of Lincoln documents are located, would be suspended.
Stowell said a five-year, $1.4 million charitable grant ran out recently, and the project’s Illinois state funding has been more than halved. The project, which has an annual budget of $775,000 to gather all things Lincoln, gets funding from federal and other private sources, he said, which make up only about 60 percent of its budget.
‘‘We need to replace that [charitable] funding . . . and the now-missing portion of our state funding,’’ Stowell said. If not, he said, the project would retrench and focus mainly on its work in Springfield.
The project began work in 1985 searching for Lincoln’s legal papers. It published them in four volumes and posted them online in 2008. Meanwhile, it expanded its scope in 2001 to include all Lincoln papers. It is transcribing and annotating Lincoln documents from the years before his presidency. Many of them are online. And it is still searching out papers from his war years.
An estimated 75,000 documents at the National Archives remain to be examined, Stowell said.
But why search for Lincoln papers at all?
With hundreds of books written about the assassinated president, don’t we know everything?
‘‘No,’’ Stowell said. A similar project in the 1950s, by historian Roy P. Basler, focused primarily on things Lincoln wrote, he said. This time, researchers are also looking for, among other things, documents Lincoln received.
This ‘‘enriches Lincoln so much by giving the full cast of characters, by giving all of the people who are writing to him, giving their voices,’’ he said.
‘‘Some of them are hilarious, a lot of them are poignant, a lot of them are tragic, some of them are noble. . . . You get this swath of humanity.’’
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I'm sorry, readers. I love history, but I don't care what's in Lincoln's papers. Bad enough I saw the movie.
Also see:
Sunday Globe Special: The Lincoln Lie
Sunday Globe Special: For the Love of Lincoln
Nominated For Your Consideration: Hollywood as History
They are the guys that make things up, yeah.
"Splattered with paint, Lincoln Memorial closes temporarily for cleanup" Associated Press, July 27, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Lincoln Memorial was temporarily closed Friday after someone splattered a splash of green paint on the statue, its pedestal, and the floor nearby.
The apparent vandalism was discovered around 1:30 a.m. Friday, US Park Police said.
No words, letters, or symbols were visible in the paint.
Police Captain Steven Booker said the paint spill appeared to be intentional, and investigators are reviewing security camera footage to try to identify possible suspects. No suspects had been identified by midday Friday.
The memorial was closed until a National Park Service maintenance crew could finish cleaning up the paint....
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Also see:
Lincoln Memorial vandalized with green paint
Woman arrested in DC cathedral vandalism
"Prosecutors: Woman had soda can with green paint" by ERIC TUCKER / Associated Press / July 30, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — A woman charged with defacing the Washington National Cathedral had a soda can of green paint with her when she was arrested, and she has been linked to at least four other incidents of vandalism, including at the Lincoln Memorial, according to prosecutors and court documents.
Jiamei Tian, 58, appeared alongside a Mandarin translator on Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court, where a judge ordered her held pending a hearing later this week. Prosecutors had previously identified her as Jia M. Tian.
Tian was arrested Monday at the cathedral, where she is accused of using green paint to deface an organ and decorative woodwork in two separate chapels. She’s been charged with destroying private property, a crime that carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
The cathedral has said the damage to its chapels, including to a gilded wood altarpiece, will cost thousands of dollars to fix.
Authorities believe the green paint vandalism was part of a pattern of similar acts. Green paint was discovered splattered onto the Lincoln Memorial early Friday morning, and symbols were later found painted in green on a statue outside the Smithsonian headquarters on the National Mall.
The woman, who has a Chinese passport, arrived in Washington a few days ago and was traveling on an expired visa, prosecutors said. Police said she had no fixed address but that she told officers she lived in Los Angeles. She refused to give her phone number, email address or home address, police said, and a language barrier complicated initial efforts to interview her.
Prosecutors asked the judge to keep Tian locked up, calling her a flight risk and a danger to the community. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Chambers said there was no way to guarantee her presence at future court appearances without jailing her.
‘‘While that danger to the community is not violent, it is nonetheless serious,’’ he said.
Tian was arrested inside the cathedral’s Children’s Chapel on Monday afternoon, shortly after the still-wet green paint was discovered there. When a police officer approached her, she walked away and placed the soda can with green paint inside one of three bags that were sitting on chairs in the chapel, documents show. She also had green paint on her clothing, shoes and body, authorities say.
She was wearing a multicolored sock on her right arm, and a similar sock was found in a trash can in a bathroom at the cathedral on top of a can of green paint, according to the documents. The bags placed in the chapel also had cans of green paint in them, police said.
Tian is also suspected of vandalizing a statue of Martin Luther on Thomas Circle in downtown Washington, which was also hit with green paint, prosecutors say.
Following her arrest, a witness contacted police and reported that the woman had been seen attending a service at a church less than a block from Thomas Circle, according to court documents. The witness reported that the woman was carrying three bags with her. After she left, the witness found that a pipe organ in the church had been splattered with white paint, urine and feces, police say.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Tuesday on a news talk show on NewsChannel 8 that the incidents all appear to be connected. She said Tian has potential ‘‘mental health issues’’ and it’s still not clear what inspired the vandalism.
‘‘What the motive is for the incidents, we don’t really know,’’ she said. ‘‘I guess that will all start to unfold as we go through the courts.’’
A lawyer for Tian argued that her client could be appropriately dealt with by immigration authorities instead of going to jail, but Chambers disagreed.
She would be better off in a regular jail rather than those invisible immigration hell holes.
‘‘We have her here now,’’ he said. ‘‘We want her to answer for these alleged offenses.’’
Cleanup crews have been working for the past few days to remove the paint from the Lincoln Memorial. An estimated $15,000 in repair work has already begun at the Episcopal cathedral, which serves as the nation’s spiritual home and has hosted state funerals and inaugural prayer services.
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