Press release from the Forbes House Museum
Forbes House Museum will hold its annual Lincoln Day on Sunday, 3 March 2013, from 1-4pm, at 215 Adams Street, Milton, MA. In addition to the traditional reenactor demonstrations and hot chocolate, a rededication ceremony will take place for the newly restored Lincoln Cabin lead by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. The FHM’s Museum Educator, Paolo DiGregorio, will give a talk on the Emancipation Proclamation, delving into its meaning and effect on the Civil War.
Drills and demonstrations will be done by the A Company 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the 22nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the United States Sanitary Commission Boston Branch (the 22nd Massachusetts ladies civilian group).
A special exhibit, highlighting the 1940 visit of Carl Sandburg to Forbes House, will also be on view.
Mary Bowditch Forbes invited the Pulitzer Prize winner, Carl Sandburg, for a luncheon at the Forbes Estate on February 17, 1940. Ms. Forbes met Sandburg at Thayer Academy, after a presentation on the latest chapter in his Lincoln biographical work, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (Harcourt, 1939).
photo by Ben Wright
Sandburg visited the Forbes Estate, toured the Lincoln Cabin and examined Ms. Forbes’ expansive Lincoln and Civil War collection. He was impressed by the collection, and commented on how he wished he could include some artifacts in his books. During the luncheon, Sandburg sat for a portrait with Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, of Boston, and signed Ms. Forbes’ copy of Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.
Shortly after his visit to Mary Bowditch Forbes’ home, Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize in History for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. He also won Pulitzer Prizes in Poetry in 1919 and 1951.
Forbes, Browne and Sandburg each left historical legacies. The portrait of Carl Sandburg and signed copies of his books are now part of the FHM’s Lincoln Collection. The diaries and sketches of Margaret Fitzhugh Browne can be found in the collections of the Boston Public Library. Sandburg’s birth home in Illinois and resting home in North Carolina are both preserved as historic sites