“Remembering Lincoln” Website is now Award Winning!
Our website Remembering Lincoln, which brings together primary sources with reactions to the Lincoln assassination for everyone to explore from anywhere, has won two awards!
American Alliance of Museums
On May 26, the American Alliance of Museums Media and Technology Committee presented Remembering Lincoln with the bronze Muse Award in the “online presence” category. We are extremely proud to be part of the distinguished lineup of award winners.
As I walked toward the stage to accept the award, it warmed my heart to hear the presenter describing the website this way:
Remembering Lincoln is a well-packaged website that provides an engaging interface to a deep archive of content. It should be an inspiration for re-imagining the interesting and mysterious stories museums’ documents have to tell.
American Association for State and Local History
We are also excited to learn that we are among the winners of the American Association for State and Local History’s Leadership in History Award. Sarah Jencks, our Director of Education and Leadership and the person who first conceived of the project, will accept the award at AASLH’s annual meeting in Detroit in September.
A Big Thank-You
These two awards—one recognizing technological achievement in the museum field and the other recognizing public-facing historical scholarship—are a testament to the hard work of all of the people involved with this project and the many institutions who contributed materials (as well as individuals). Thank you everyone!
What Do You Think?
While we’re proud of the awards, we’re not resting on our laurels.
We want to make Remembering Lincoln an even better resource for teachers, students, enthusiasts and scholars. This fall we talked with small groups of teachers and recent museum visitors to gain their feedback. Then, another group of 100 other teachers filled out a survey. From all of this feedback, we’ve made changes to the website.
We’re continuing to look for materials to add to the collection. Do you have any family heirlooms or documents—like a great-great-grandparent’s diary or family letters—that mention the Lincoln assassination? Or maybe you know of something that we should include? Let us know by filling out this form on the website.
We want your feedback, too. What do you think of Remembering Lincoln? What can we do better? Please comment below and let us know!
David McKenzie is Associate Director for Digital Resources in the Education Department at Ford’s Theatre, and was the project manager for Remembering Lincoln. He also is currently a part-time History Ph.D. student at George Mason University, studying 19th-century U.S. and Latin American history, as well as digital history
