At the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Illinois, an iconic stovepipe hat has become a symbol in a fierce public relations effort to save an expansive collection of Lincoln artifacts.
But the question looms large: Was the stovepipe hat even Lincoln’s?
A private nonprofit that owns the $25 million collection, including the hat, is so deep in debt that it is considering selling some of the artifacts.
The group’s chief executive has warned that the hat was moving “ever closer to the auction block.”
The foundation paid $6.5 million for the hat in 2007.
Over the past five years, the nonprofit, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, has commissioned studies by the FBI and independent historians to determine whether the hat genuinely belonged to Lincoln.
The reports concluded that the evidence of Lincoln’s ownership was uncertain, but the results were never communicated to the public. A radio station in Chicago, WBEZ, first reported on the undisclosed findings.
Current and past leaders at the museum in Springfield, Ill., which displays part of the 1,400-piece collection, have said doubts about the provenance of the hat were never impressed upon them. However, the hat’s origin has
been clouded since at least 2012, when The Chicago SunTimes called it into question.
The first report, written by two outside museum authorities in 2013, found the documentation associated with the hat was “insufficient to claim” that it had belonged to Lincoln. The authors suggested that the museum “soften its claim about the hat.”
It didn’t.
Alan Lowe, the museum’s executive director, said that’s because he first saw the report last month. Lowe, who became the director in July 2016, said he was shocked no one had warned him about the hat’s questionable origin.
“I was assured everyone thought it was real,” Lowe said.