The Lincoln Rocker

President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in this rocking chair during a production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Henry Ford purchased the chair in 1929 for the Museum, where it remains one of the most revered objects associated with the "man who saved the Union."

New York print makers Currier and Ives were well known for producing inexpensive lithographic prints of landscapes, famous people and scenes of everyday life. This was an inexpensive way for the middle classes to decorate their homes. This shocking scene of the Lincoln assassination was unusual for the firm and served to visually dramatize the event for a grieving nation.

President Abraham Lincoln happened to be sitting in this rocking chair when he was mortally wounded at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865. Mathew B. Brady made the photograph for his Brady's National Portrait Gallery. At a time before television and internet news, this carte-de-visite helped people visualize events surrounding President Lincoln's death.

President Abraham Lincoln happened to be sitting in this rocking chair when he was mortally wounded at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865. Mathew B. Brady made the photograph for his Brady's National Portrait Gallery. At a time before television and internet news, this stereograph view helped people visualize events surrounding President Lincoln's death.

President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in this rocking chair during a production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Henry Ford purchased the chair in 1929 for the Museum, where it remains one of the most revered objects associated with the "man who saved the Union."

Actor Raymond Massey portrayed Abraham Lincoln in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" first as a Broadway play in 1938-39, followed by a 1940 film. The story which traces Lincoln's early life through the 1860 election was written by noted playwright Robert Sherwood, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1939. In late 1943, Massey toured the Logan County Courthouse where this photograph was taken.

Irwin J. Clark made this hand-colored Tintype in April 1958. Clark was the Greenfield Village Tintypist from 1956 to 1968. It shows the Lincoln Chair on the theater stage of Henry Ford Museum. The Tintype was produced in preparation for a 1959 program commemorating the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth in 1809.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Henry Ford Museum in 1979, the Lincoln Chair was relocated to the Museum from the Logan County Courthouse. The Chair has since been prominently displayed, most recently as a centerpiece in the "With Liberty and Justice for All" exhibit. Here, Museum Curator Robert Eliason is shown with the chair in the Museum's Interpretive Center in 1980.