Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The museum has sparked debate within the field of museum design and among historians for its use of theatrics and reproductions to tell the Lincoln story. Public response has been positive, delivering larger than expected attendance, enthusiastic visitors and a boost to the regional economy, including increased attendance at surrounding historical attractions.

However, museum traditionalists have disapproved of this departure from the display and interpretation of real artifacts. Southern Illinois University Carbondale historian John Y. Simon has said the museum's approach, which borrows presentation technologies from entertainment, trivializes the subject matter. Suggesting that it is more like a theme park than a museum, Simon called the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum a "Six Flags Over Lincoln" and architecture critic Blair Kamin referred to it as "Lincoln Land".

Other academics applaud the Lincoln Museum's approach. John R. Decker wrote in the Journal of American History:

Like any other modern collection [the Lincoln Presidential Museum] has an audience base that extends far beyond specialists and academics. Rather than merely pandering to the public or dumbing down history, the ALPLM intelligently and compellingly uses visual culture to meet its mission as a public pedagogical institution. The museum addresses complex historical material and opens the historical discourse to a wider audience than would be possible through more conventional means.

The scholarship behind the content and design for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum was a collaboration between international exhibit designers, BRC Imagination Arts, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA), and a content team assembled by State Historian Thomas H. Schwartz. This content team included the world's leading Lincoln scholars, Pulitzer Prize winning historians, and Illinois school teachers representing the fourth, seventh and eleventh grades. A key goal of this collective was that exhibits promote a greater level of personal interest in Abraham Lincoln. The museum's gift shop has seen record sales of history books. Overall sales in the gift shop hit $1 million within three months of the museum's opening to the public.

Controversies

Questions have been raised over the provenance of a stovepipe hat in the museum's collection said to have been worn by Lincoln and valued at $6.5 million. In 2019, the library director was fired after he sent a copy of the Gettysburg Address written by Lincoln himself to Texas for an exhibit by political commentator Glenn Beck without prior clearance. In 2024, the museum's acquisition of a 21-star US flag said to date from 1818 marking Illinois's statehood was placed under scrutiny after vexillologists said the flag may have actually dated from the American Civil War. An investigation was also opened by state authorities over irregularities in funding for its purchase, which cost the museum $15,625.