Ford’s Theater and Lincoln Museum

Newly renovated Ford's Theater. Photo courtesy of NPS

If you have never been to the Ford’s Theater and Lincoln museum, now is the time to go. If you have visited, think about visiting again. The Ford’s Theater and Lincoln museum reopened recently after an extensive renovation and the result is spectacular. Gone is the shabby exhibition cabinet highlighting Lincoln’s top hat and the gun that killed the 16th president of the United States. The gun remains as part of the exhibition space, but the museum designers knew how to capture the imagination of visitors young and old alike.

Visiting the museum is different from the moment of arrival. The National Park Service contracted with Ticketmaster to distribute free, timed tickets to the exhibit. The entrance to the exhibit space was moved. You now enter through an entrance separate from the theater. The stairwell down to the museum was transformed to re-create the mood of Lincoln’s time.

The exhibition space itself is divided into areas explaining Lincoln’s life and death. You can look through a file cabinet drawer and view biographies of Lincoln’s cabinet members. OK, it is a little on the cheesy side, but the kids look through and read the material in a way you do not often see in museums. Each area of the museum has a running clip from the history channel embellishing the vast written content of the exhibit.

The museum space is well thought out and well used. It takes about the time given to go through and thoroughly take advantage of the exhibition space. Once time is up, the time ticketed group is invited up into the theater where a park ranger explains the significance of the theater and what happened on the day of Lincoln’s death. The stairwell and hallway toward the entrance of the theater has descriptions of what both Lincoln and Booth were doing throughout the day on the fateful day Lincoln was shot. The sound of a clock ticking in the hall adds to the visitors' experience and is illustrative of the thoughtful multimedia approach taken throughout the museum.

Ford's Theater National Historic Site is open for tours by reservation from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The Petersen House located directly across the street from Ford's Theater (also called the "House Where Lincoln Died") is open 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. and also requires a ticket.

To investigate some of the many other sites in the Washington, DC that explore President Lincoln and his legacy see the Lincoln tour of Washington, DC.