Through the doors of Olin Library, past the whir of busy fingers on keyboards, beyond the line of students waiting for coffee in Libe Café and down two flights of stairs, sits a piece of American history.

Locked inside a temperature-controlled case, a hand-written copy of the Gettysburg Address, in Abraham Lincoln’s slanted cursive scrawl, was mounted for a brief time for all to see as part of Carl A. Kroch Library’s newest exhibit titled, “The Lincoln Presidency: Last Full Measure of Devotion.”

The exhibit celebrates Lincoln’s 200th birthday and showcases other rare artifacts such as original manuscripts of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. These artifacts chronicle Lincoln’s campaign and presidency, his views on slavery and his assassination, according to Katherine Reagan, the curator of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

The exhibit opened on Oct. 20 to a line of 50 people that extended up two flights of stairs and attracted a total of 300 people that day, Reagan said. Although Lincoln’s hand-written copy of the Gettysburg Address was on display on that day, it has since been put away for security and preservation purposes, according to library staff.Peering into history: A vistor explores the documents on display at the Lincoln exhibit in Kroch Library yesterday.

The library acquired this document and other items, such as historic newspaper articles and paintings of Lincoln, through donations from Cornell alumni and the university’s first president, A.D. White, Reagan said.

“[White] wanted Cornell’s library to preserve original documents and historical books for the enjoyment and inspiration of future generations of students, scholars and members of the public,” Reagan said

With the same idea in mind, the wife of Nicholas H. Noyes presented Cornell with a large donation in 1949 called the Collection of Historical Americana, to commemorate her husband’s contributions to the University and its founding principles, according to the Cornell website.

Included in this donation was Cornell’s copy of the Gettysburg Address, also known as the “Bancroft Copy,” because Lincoln wrote it at the request of friend and historian George Bancroft back in 1864.

The “Bancroft Copy” is one of only five manuscripts that Lincoln wrote himself, and Cornell is the only private institution in the country to own one. It is also the only copy to be accompanied by a hand-addressed envelope and personal letter from Lincoln, Reagan said.

The other four copies are owned by public institutions such as the Illinois State Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the Library of Congress, which houses two copies and the White House, according to Reagan.

The Noyes family bought the “Bancroft Copy” for $50,000 in 1935 from dealer Thomas Madigan, who originally purchased it from Prof. Wilder Bancroft, chemistry, in 1929, for close to $100,000, according to the exhibition’s website.

“Owning a historical document like this is a high point for Cornell,” said Prof. Edward Baptist, history, who believes that the ties Cornell has to Lincoln make this exhibit especially significant.

According to Baptist, when Lincoln was in office he passed the Morrill Act, which gave land grants to states to establish colleges focused on the teaching of agriculture and science; Cornell was one of the beneficiaries founded because of Lincoln’s passage of the act.

Furthermore, certain themes from the exhibit and from Lincoln’s presidency are still relevant today for the Obama administration, said Baptist, who is teaching a class this fall called “Lincoln and Obama”.

“Lincoln had to deal with seemingly intractable problems as Obama is dealing with now. The way that Lincoln dealt with those problems might hold a clue for how to deal with present day problems,” Baptist said.

The difference, however, is that the U.S. was not a world leader in Lincoln’s day as we are now, according to Baptist. Lincoln wanted universal freedom and liberty for all and the issue was finding a way to do that, but the issue today is how to exert our influence as a global superpower in a way that doesn’t compromise Lincoln’s ideals, Baptist said.

“Lincoln doesn’t have the answers, necessarily, but he reminds us to ask the question,” Baptist said.

By combining Cornell’s history with U.S. history, Reagan hopes that the exhibit will continue to attract students and other members of the community until its close on April 16, so that A.D. White’s ideal of integrating history with learning can live on.

“White knew that the enterprise of today’s collector makes the work of tomorrow’s historian possible,” Reagan said, “and the collections are still fulfilling that role he envisioned.”