Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial: Cultural Landscape Report, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, National Park Service

McEnaney, Marla

This Cultural Landscape Report, titled A Noble Avenue, focuses on researching, documenting, and providing guidelines for Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, including a brief contextual study of the development of state parks from the late 1920s through the 1940s. The memorial was developed through a partnership between the National Park Service and Indiana’s state park program and built by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers. The landscape provides an opportunity to interpret the legacy of New Deal design and construction programs and the influence of generations of landscape architects on many of our nation’s public landscapes. Lincoln Boyhood’s designed landscape commemorates the pioneer farm where Abraham Lincoln lived from the age of seven to twenty-one. The site, located in southwestern Indiana, also served as the burial site of Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Although no physical traces of the original farm remain, the site has been developed as a memorial to Lincoln’s Indiana roots, and the park design and use has become a significant reflection of cultural and historic patterns. The period of significance, 1927-1945, spans the years of construction of the designed landscape and Memorial building. Both primary and secondary research materials were used to complete this study. The most notable sources included plans, sketches, and construction drawings, ranging from Olmsted’s early conceptual designs to the final planting plan installation completed by the state’s landscape architects. Historic photos were important for tracing the design evolution and comparing how the physical landscape deviated from those plans. The correspondence of and reports by members of the Indiana Lincoln Union, the Indiana Department of Conservation, and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. were essential to interpreting the rationale for commemorating Lincoln in Indiana. They provided insight into Olmsted’s integral role in designing both the landscape and the memorial building. Context studies completed by NPS historians were also helpful in preparing the site history. A comprehensive historical chronology appears in Appendix I at the report’s conclusion. Most written and photographic sources were located in park and regional office history files. NPS historian Jill York O’Bright, author of the 1987 Historic Grounds Report for Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, had previously gathered information from the Library of Congress and the Indiana State Library. Others, primarily drawings, were obtained from the Olmsted Archives at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts. Copies of files transferred from Northeast Regional Office to the Federal Archives in Philadelphia were ordered. These written documents provided limited information about activities at the park during the late 1960s through the early 1970s.

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial: Cultural Landscape Report, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, National Park Service

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