Special Exhibits at the OSC

Special Exhibits at the OSC

We’re celebrating President’s Day throughout the month of February with a temporary Museums to Go exhibit, Discovering Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln. Come check it out and wish Honest Abe a Happy Birthday.

Abraham Lincoln had a perfectly ordinary childhood. Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky, he lived in a one-room log cabin, did chores, hunted, played and rarely went to school. These were all common experiences for frontier children in the 1810s and 1820s. Kentucky played a primary role in forging Lincoln’s family and political life. Although he left the Bluegrass State as a boy, his wife, in-laws, and many of his friends, law partners, political associates and mentors were Kentuckians. During the Civil War, Lincoln’s relationship with his native state was crucial to Union chances for winning the war.
 
Learn more when you visit Kentucky’s Turning Point: The Civil War. Discover what happened at the Old State Capitol when Confederates attacked Frankfort!
 
Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Dr. James M. McPherson summarized Kentucky’s role during the American Civil War (1861-1865): “It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the Confederacy would have won the war if it could have gained Kentucky,” McPherson writes, “and, conversely, that the Union’s success in retaining Kentucky as a base for invasions of the Confederate heartland brought eventual Union victory.”