Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum

This is a must for families or individuals.
Both presentations In the theaters are amazing. 2 – 3 hrs is about right. There’s areas for young children as well as older ones. Great balance of presentations, artifacts, written stories and pictures.

If you are American you will LOVE IT… If you Love History you will Love it … If you are a proud American you will Love it even More… Beautiful just enlightening, informative, what an experience. They spared no expenses with the details. The staff is professional and courteous … Must see if in the area…

I love visiting presidential libraries & museum.
This one is not so conveniently located but I drove 3 – 4 hours from Chicago.
The museum is high tech and have nice theater and displays.
The theater was entertaining just like Disneyland.
Although, I only spent 2 hours or so.
(other places, I spent more)
Also it’s overpriced admission and overpriced parking.
What made me disappointed the most was its café is SUBWAY.
Seriously??? It would be nice to have local business with local twist.
I also didn’t like the city. Other than museum and house designed by Frank Loyd Wright.
There is not much to see. Local restaurants and café, bars were really unattractive.
I think the city tourist office should promote more local flavor. Open Licoln café and offer presidential dinner course (then and now). Make more signs, make more free visitor parking.

Nice museum With great exhibitS and flow. Lots of volunteers some were a little too talkative. One of the volunteers attempted to scold my 2 year old daughter in the kids area for tossing a plate on the ground. Then lecture me about it. Because of this I give them 2 stars

Of all the historical museum’s I have visited, this has exceeded my expectations. From the design, layout, division of journey of time period, to the film productions. Wow! Just spectacular! The coffin exhibit will make you cry. The ability of bringing me back in time was just amazing. Thank you for all those involved financially and physically in the creation of this museum.

Great experience here with my 2 young kids… the Ghost of the Library is a huge A+++, using the new technology with the 3D screening made the whole experience speechless, must see items. The rest of the movies and stages/​exhibits are top notch. Definitely a place to go when you are in Springfield espeically with young children. I know alot more about our 16^th president after this trip.

This museum was very technologically advanced. There are five exhibits all dedicated to Lincoln’s life. It was very informative, succinct and interesting. I really like both the theaters. They were really good at storytelling and it was very patriotic.

I’m a huge fan of BRC Imagination Arts, the designers of this experience. Bob Rogers is a master storyteller, and this facility demonstrates the power of storytelling like few others I’ve encountered.
It’s amazing how much information you can retain when it is presented in a meaningful and moving context, and that’s what the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum is all about.
Both of the automated shows are real blockbusters, with amazing effects and immersive narration that really draws you in.
The «Holovision» show Ghosts of the Library uses a live performer and many of the effects developed for BRC’s famous Expo ’86 Spirit Lodge Show (and Knott’s Berry Farm’s Mystery Lodge), plus some new effects that will delight even jaded theme park goers like me.
The Lincoln’s Eyes show uses multiple screens and a lot of moving scrims and impressive theatrical sound to very effectively tell Lincoln’s story in an unconventional way.
Don’t let these elaborate shows fool you into thinking this is shallow theme park-​like entertainment. You’ll leave them with a truly deep knowledge of history, having learned many things you never knew you didn’t know about a seemingly familiar story.
Equally impressive to me was the way that Lincoln’s childhood and presidency were presented in two separate walkthrough exhibits. Signage didn’t overwhelm, but was just enough to invite reading and interpreting each stop. I wish all museum curators would learn how to do this.
Similarly, the displays of artifacts were perfectly interpreted, with just enough information to draw us in without overwhelming us with verbiage, yet with plenty of hard information that was easy to absorb. I certainly learned ten times as much as I expected to.
This museum is a delightful place to spend as little as a couple of hours, or as much as a full day. Highly recommended.

It’s a little pricey to get in. The exhibits do a good job of explaining Lincolns life and accomplishments.
I was happy to see them dispel the notion that the civil war was fought over slavery. It was not.
The movie was good and I especially liked their displays of old political cartoons.
I would have rated it higher other than the cost was high and tight security people were kind of annoying.
The prices of the goodies in the gift shop were very high. You can’t find free parking nearby and they have the gall to ask you if you want to make a donation.

I am a huge fan of museums and Abe Lincoln, here I got the best of both. It is $ 12 per person, but we got lucky and had free passes. I was shocked when I discovered that we spent about 2 hours in the museum. It is broken up into 5 sections, the early days, letters, his family (it is heart breaking how much sadness and sorrow he faced in his life) the civil war and his funeral. I am not ashamed to admit that I did cry a few times during the tour. This is a must visit place in Springfield.

Impressive informative library on life of Lincoln. You also get to know about rest of the 16^th family. Must visit!

I walked in and was greeted by wax replicas of the entire 16^th family to live in the white house. Impressive. Then I saw the Ghosts of the Museum stage show and knew. This is one the best places in America. Or, at least, one of the best places in Springfield.

I enjoyed this place. It actually my first time here. It was real cool! The holographic movies! And the gallery! If your looking for history in class. Go here! There’s a funny part. When we were about to leave. I saw the actor from the Ghost Library, walking to the café to get a Subway. «Do you have a job to do?» It was a funny 4. «This museum is cool… Wait. Is that… Wait!!! I need to snap a pic of you!»

Excellent museum, one of the best I’ve ever seen. The figures are positioned in a way that makes them incredibly real. The amount of detail in the exhibits is astounding. They set the scene with accurate figures, incredible detail, lighting and sound. I was blown away. Very nice staff. Clean and a great value for the money. I was very impressed overall by the hospitality of the city of Springfield.

This is really a great museum. There is really a lot of information here and I think the exhibits are staged to be very immersive. I loved the hallway showing the political cartoons that were critical of Lincoln. In the replica of the White House kitchen, go stand by the stove — it’s actually hot! That’s attention to detail! The video that shows the civil war battles and death count is a great way of representing data in a way that’s easy to understand. There’s really so much information here and lots of different ways that it’s presented so that it pulls you in and brings the subject to life.
I know everyone goes crazy for the hologram show, but to me that was the least interesting thing. Sure, it was cool to look at, but there was no actual informational content to it. I think they should re-​do the script for that one.

Every exhibit is incredible. If you know absolutely nothing about the 16^th US president, this is the place to go to learn almost every detail of his tough life, inspirational presidency and tragic death. The Ghosts of the Presidential Library exhibit is definitely a must see. It was almost like a Disney Theme Park show with all the special effects.

This is an incredible and beautiful place. Whether you know a lot or next to nothing about Abraham Lincoln, this place will amaze and inspire you. Located in lovely downtown Springfield, the museum’s exhibits show the great care, love and attention to detail that went into making them. It is perfect for adults and children alike. And aside from being very educational and fascinating, there are many personal stories about President Lincoln. A few exhibits even brought tears to my eyes.

We love exploring especially when it has to do with history. On our drive back from st. Louis to chicago, we noticed signs for this place. We quickly did a detour and was glad to find this! We had no idea this was only a couple hours away!
So much information and so much to see. It was interesting to learn about his beginnings up until his demise.

My second time in at the Lincoln Museum. I feel like two trips means I can definitely give it a good review.
This museum gives lots of info about Lincoln plus other historical happenings during the lifespan of Lincoln and the Civil War. Full of info and very interesting.
But the layout is awful. Godawful. On a Saturday when it’s packed you spend most of the time getting bottlenecked in between rooms. Large rooms open into small hallways and tiny rooms and you can’t see anything and you can’t walk through. It makes it a very painful experience.
Mary’s Attic is a cute place for kids to play and I was glad they had something for my 3 year old. All the standing around wore him down after a while.
Now that I’ve been through it twice and seen everything that is to be seen, I doubt I have much of a reason to go back.

If you don’t know much about Lincoln, you’ll probably learn a few things, but you may leave feeling confused. If you know a lot about Lincoln already, there’s not much here for you and you may leave feeling annoyed.
I expected more artifacts and primary sources here. Not so much. Instead, there’s lots of diorama-​style setups that all have annoying ambient audio piped through the walls. You get a weird full exhibit on the «many loves» of Abraham Lincoln and little on most of his major legislative achievements and conduct of the Civil War.
The scattershot approach is mirrored in how some of the exhibits are set up – a bunch of potentially interesting political cartoons on Lincoln are squashed and distorted for reasons unknown to the point where they’re unreadable, a kitchen diorama allegedly from the White House is shoe-​horned in, and the Civil War exhibit consists mainly of a bunch of random photographs that you have to go to a kiosk to get any description about.
The theme of the whole place seems to be «Emancipation,» but in doing so it ignores the many other sides of Lincoln and puts a weird focus on slavery that comes off as amateurish and not enlightening.
Aside from an interesting modern-​style broadcast on the 1860 presidential election and the occasional interesting artifact, there’s not much to recommend about this place. Didn’t bother to stay for the shows.