now, see, we are removing the lid to the specially made box. there is protective tissue paper lining. and we're removing that tissue paper and revealing the famous great coat. as you can see, the left arm is detached from the coat. it is in a separate box. and, if you look closely, there are some small but visible bloodstains from the night that lincoln was assassinated in this

very theater on april 14, 1865. it is a wool great coat. custom made by the brooks brothers for lincoln's second inaugural in march 1865. silk lining. very special coat. lincoln loved this coat very much. wore it on very special occasions, including his night out to the theater. as you can see, we are treating this coat very, very delicately. it is in very delicate condition. >> get behind it on the right side. >> yep. >> thank you.

okay. just try to flip around. >> now you can see we are placing the great coat on the special mount. >> how does this guy work in the back here? oh, i see, yep.

>> does this go around the cushion? >> yeah, i'm pretty sure. >> now, it's draping over -- >> i think it needs to be a little higher. yeah. >> kind of folded. >> can you get the whole shoulder in there? >> yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. >> how's the tension on that? that all right? we sure about this guy right here? i think if we can pad the shoulder and then adjust the collar. >> that shoulder, it's weak but it's still heavier than the other side, so it's -- >> there we go. >> is that better? does that feel better? >> it feels better.

>> is there some way that we can -- >> does it need to go over a little bit? and then maybe this goes down. this here. is that first pin, is that -- >> yeah. >> " -- taut? how does it feel? i'm just concerned that if we leave that down, you're really going to pull it back. you want to just try it just quickly? >> i think it looks good. >> you think it looks good? not to worry about it. >> it looks all right. >> i think it's laying how it's supposed to be. >> yeah. no, it is. >> can you flatten that little middle piece right there? the mount there. where the tissue paper is. >> there we go. >> how are you?

what tissue? can you see the tissue from any angle? that's what i'm worried about. >> no. >> we're all right. >> i think it looks good. >> it looks all right? >> yeah. >> now you can see we are uncovering the second box. this is the one that has the detached left sleeve. detached as a result of the many relic hunters from the late 1800s.

it's being placed separately in the display next to the great coat that it was once attached to. this is the way the park service received the sleeve and the coat in 1968. there's a silk stitching. this was custom made for lincoln, and it's the stitching of an eagle. inside the eagle's mouth there's a banner that says "one country one destiny" which is the

infamous motto that guided our country through four years of war, and lincoln had that motto with him on his last night at ford's theater. in the past century as lincoln's legacy has grown as we've come to appreciate who this man was, this coat took on a very special symbolism, part of that being the one country one destiny logo. this is the logo lincoln lived with for four years, guided our country through war, and had it with him on the night that he was shot here. and for that many, many reasons, it is a very, very special coat, and that is why we have taken every single precaution to make present and future generations.

>> do you see any fingerprints or are we good? >> i'm not seeing any on this side. >> i think we're going to actually lock it first and then -- >> okay. >> we can do a shot here. a little happy shot. okay. come on. turn, turn. cooperate a little bit here. thank you. >> did you get rene in? >> everybody say lincoln.

>> lincoln. >> very good. >> yay! okay. >> that was a nice idea. so when visitors first enter our site, they walk in through those doors, and the display case that we just put the original great coat in is the first thing that they see. there is a wall panel describing it, and they do have to go around. it is protected against the light so -- and then once they get their ticket, they go down this ramp and they go into either the museum or the theater itself. and so we are heading downstairs to the museum which is where

most visitors start their visit and their journey through lincoln's presidency. and one of the first things they see before they get into the museum is this replica life mask which we do encourage them to touch. this is a very interesting life mask. it was made in 1860, so just months before he started his first term as the 16th president of the united states. and so we see a much younger, fresher-looking lincoln. now we are entering the museum. it is in the basement of the theater itself. our museum does not just focus on lincoln's last day and last night. we do seek to make sure that visitors know who lincoln was as a man, as a human. and so our museum goes through the four years of his presidency, of his time in the

white house and ends with the theater itself. we are standing next to one of the most important glass artifact cases in our museum. this is the case that has the rest of the clothing that lincoln was wearing the night that he was here. we can see there's a suit jacket which would have gone underneath the great coat, the vest, pants, trousers, and boots and a tie as well. and these are on display year round in the museum. they are not in as delicate condition as the great coat which can only be on display a few months out of the year. fortunately, relic hunters did not seem to want small pieces of the rest of the suit as much as they did his great coat, and so that's why the suit is in much

better condition. and, because of that, we can have it on display more than we can the great coat. we can also see there is one little spot of blood on the knees of the trousers because when -- after lincoln was shot, his body did slump forward and so that is why there would be some blood there. that pillow is one of several pillows in the peterson house where lincoln died nine hours after being shot here. he was brought to the house and he died there at 7:22 a.m. the next morning, and there were a few pillows underneath his head. this is one of them. we do have others. not all of them are in such good condition, and so we have it here. people can see some of those bloodstains. lincoln came to the theater that

night in a very celebratory mood. as we know, general lee had surrendered to general grant that week, one of the most important military victories in the war. the entire city was celebrating, and lincoln also was celebrating a very important victory. and so he came here to ford's theater to see the performance of "our american cousin." loved the theater very much. had been here about 12 times in the previous year. so we are standing in the theater itself where lincoln was shot the night that he was here on april 14, 1865. across from me, behind me is the box itself, the presidential box decorated specifically for lincoln's visit that night with the flags, the original portrait of george washington. and lincoln got here around 8:30

for the play. the play had already begun about 30 minutes before, and we know that lincoln was a very humble, modest man and so he really just wanted to kind of sneak in here. he wanted to go completely unnoticed and just go in, sit down and watch the play. unfortunately for him, the moment that he arrived, there was a famous actress on stage, miss laura keen, and she noticed him sneaking by, and she stopped the play. she instructed the orchestra to play "hail to the chief." everybody in this theater, between 1,700 and 2,500 people, all stood up and gave the president a standing ovation. people were cheering. they were very, very excited and happy to see their president who

had just helped them win this big victory in the civil war. and then he would finally go in, sit down, and enjoy the rest of the play until, of course, the tragic moment that he was shot about two hours after he came in. all the clothing items went with lincoln to the peterson house where he was brought to live out his final hours. and, after lincoln was taken from the house, his body was removed back to the white house. those items stayed there, but then they were returned to mrs. lincoln. mrs. lincoln is then the one who gave that great coat to alfonso dunn who was a favorite doorkeeper, a kind of usher. he's the one who kept it for many years. he kept it in his family for over two generations. he had many offers to have that

coat bought from him, including a very generous offer from the famous p.t. barnum. and he refused all those offers, and that coat was in his family's hands until it came to 68. national park service in since 1968, ford's theater national historic site has been run through a very special public/private partnership. the public part is the national park service. the private is ford's theater society. and that's been since 1968 that we've run this site together. we run it both as a national historic site where we have thousands of visitors come in and we interpret the events that happened here. at the same time, this is still an active working theater. and so in that way we get to preserve lincoln's memory and it

is a living memorial that pays tribute to his love of the performing arts. so that's the way the theater still is today, and we're very proud of that partnership. so we are about to open boxes of two items that are going to be in our center for education and learning that is going to be opened up in february 2012 across the street from the theater. these are two items in our collection that are not in the museum. we are going to open a tassel that was part of the catafaulk that surrounded lincoln's casket when he was on public viewing in the days after the assassination. we keep these in protective storage in our museum and resources center. and then also we have the tools

used to seal the casket 13 days after lincoln's body left washington, d.c., and arrived in springfield, illinois, where he would finally be buried on may 4, 1865. and these are the items used to seal the casket on may 4, 1865, original from 19th century, created by s.s. elder, the person who helped seal the casket. here we see a state officer's pass that he needed to get access to the casket itself, and then the tools are used to solder the casket shut. you can see the tools, the iron solder tools with wooden handles. so we can see the tools are in a

tin-framed case that s.s. elder created so that he could display it. likely he was very proud of his work. this would have been a very important task for him to seal that famous casket shut. the peterson house is a part of our site. it is currently under renovation, will not be open until late spring because next door to it we are currently constructing a center for education and leadership that will be opened in february of 2012 that will continue some of the exhibits from the museum and help the public learn more about president lincoln, not just his assassination and his death here, but also his life which is also very important for us to understand who abraham lincoln was as a person.

>> you can learn more about ford's theater and take a virtual tour of their facilities at fordstheater.org. you can view additional american artifacts program by visiting c-spanvideo.org and search for "american artifacts." next week on american art you facts, we visit the center for leadership across the street from where president lincoln was killed. visitors can learn about the life death and legacy of abraham lincoln. ford's theater society director paul tatro talks about the center's purpose and goals. and tcurator walks us through te

exhibits. >> behind me is the tower of books which is a concept that really started about five years ago to visualize and showcase the unending quest to learn more about abraham lincoln. so this tower of books represents, as we all know, that abraham lincoln is the most written-about figure in world history next to jesus christ. >> over the past couple of years we've been working with the ford's theater society on developing the new exhibits here at the ford's theater center for education and leadership. public space in the lobby has to be fireproof so all these books are actually made out of aluminum for weight and flammability purposes. we've got a structure that goes onto this column and then we're building up with perforated

aluminum shelving and attaching the books to those as we go. we'll eventually work our way up to 35 feet. a lot of fasteners, high-temperature silicone and mitered cuts to make sure everything wraps we s well arou this column. won't be visible when the piece is finished but it will look like complete books all the way around the column. we've left spaces in 0 here. we have 200 unique titles, we've worked with over 50 publishers, getting pr ting permission to u books. we anticipate a lot of people coming forward after the piece is done and it's generatingxcit t thetheir book added.ough sculpture to add five to eight books a year of new titles and even books not written yet. thunique. i mean, we do a lot of different projects, everything from natural history museumscuural i

ford's theater but this is really a unique public art piece. >> we believe will become an iconic imagewaington especially young people, you think will come here and be able to see, wow, there really were a lot of books written about that guy. that in and of itself is not that interesting but that will spark them to stay, why? who was he? i want to know more about him. this is really the, as it stands at our entry point here, something to really spark especially young people, their imaginations, say, do i need to read some of those books? i need to know more about this guy. this building will be the extension of the understanding of who lincoln is today, lincoln's legacy. >> my name is tracy avant, the curator of xigss here at ford's theater society. we're standing in the entry way

for the center for education and lead heship, the fourth act of our four-act drama we've set up for our entire campus. our first act is our museum across the street underneath the theater and that looks at president lincoln's time here in washington. our second act is in the theater itself and is the assassination of lincoln. and our third act is the peterson house where lincoln's body was taken and where he did die. so those three acts have been in place since 2009. now we're just getting ready to open our center for education and leadership, which looks at our fourth act. the fourth act looks at the aftermath of lincoln's assassination and that includes his death and the funeral train journey home to illinois and the manhunt for john wilkes booth and the conspirators. and the second part of the act looks at the me moralial zation and memory of abraham lincoln and why he's still so important today.

so come with me and take eye look at what we've gone. at the mezzanine, this is actually where visitors to the site will enter the center and take the elevator to the fourth floor to experience the first exhibit. people will come through the peterson house, across the back porch and to this area, and this way it's a continuous flow from that third act to that fourth act. so people who come here, they'll learn a little bit about what the center is and then they'll load onto the elevator and take the elevator to the fourth floor, which is what we're going to do right now. >> going up. >> we like to think of our elevator as time travel. as the elevator doors open, we step out onto the washington streets of april 15, 1865. and visitors get an opportunity to hear the street sounds of horses and carriages traveling along, tolling bells, mourning lincoln's loss. and we also hear the telegraph

sending out confirmation of abraham lincoln's death. >> president lincoln died 22 minutes after 7:00. j. wilkes booth was the assassin. >> people learn about what the newspapers were saying and just the general state of affairs here in washington, d.c. and that takes us to our next stage of the exhibition where we step onto a train platform and into a funeral car, the replica of the car that carried abraham lincoln to springfield, illinois, to be buried. we learn a little bit about the funeral and the staging of the funeral in washington and at the white house. and here we have items on display from the national park service. some items in this case have actually never been on display before. and the items range from things that were related to the funeral

train itself, a handle to the coffin, to mourning ribbons, a ticket to the funeral at the white house, and even things like the tools that were used to seal abraham lincoln's coffin for the final time before he was buried in springfield, illinois. people who rode in the funeral car were security guards actually and they did -- the body of his son willie. so willie and lincoln's coffins were in this particular car. the funeral train itself was many cars long and all sorts of dignitaries and other people related to the train and the funeral train, morticians, president lincoln was the first president ever to be embalmed, which is what really made the funeral journey possible because he was embalmed so they did have an open casket over the 14-day journey in all of the cities. and these two gentlemen rode

along to touch him up along the way. robert lincoln rode on the train from washington to baltimore, but then he returned to washington to be with his mother, and he then later came out to springfield for the funeral. mary did not ride the train or attend his funeral. she was too distraught with grief to be part of the ceremonies. the flag is interesting in that it only has 34 stars even though there were 36 states in the union by the time of his death. we think this obviously was an older flag, but we think it probably came from a fort somewhere or a garr i son and it was one of many flags that draped his coffin along the way. as we step out of the train stepping back on the train platform to our first interactive, a really great opportunity for visitors to look in depth at this funeral train journey. and to try to get a better understanding of why something

like this -- nothing like this had ever happened. of course, the president had never been assassinated before, but a mourning train journey like this had never happened and a lot of historians posit that the reason the whole united states took such an interest in this was not only because of this unusual circumstances of the assassination of abraham lincoln but also it was a way for them to mourn the tremendous losses that had taken place in the civil war. so many people never saw their loved ones again. bodies were not necessarily returned from the battlefields. and this was a way that they could come to term with that grief openly in a period where that wasn't always necessarily the case. what is interesting about this is you get to look at some of the major cities along the route, and there are cards that talk briefly about what happened in each city and how each city might have mourned lincoln's passing. it talks a