The ambitious goal of the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project is to bring together digital versions of documents, images, and even music related to Abraham Lincoln's life in Illinois from institutions throughout that state. Users will be able to access materials via browsing chronological and thematic sections or searching database sets. Currently a pilot database of 70 campaign songs from the 1860 Lincoln-Douglas presidential race is available at the site. In keeping with the project goals, the site presents the campaign songs in three ways: digital images of sheet music pages, searchable text transcriptions, and digital audio recordings of selected songs. It is possible to search the collection for songs pertaining to specific topics or including specific words, browse by title, or select from a digital table of contents. Lincoln Digitization Project staff hope for users to "gain new insights into the campaign of 1860 and the antebellum period's fascinating political culture."
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