For Immediate Release: Insert Date

Bond of Perpetuity: Oakland and the Lincoln Legacy
Oakland History Room Exhibit Runs Through March 20, 2009

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

( Oakland, CA.) -- February 12, 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, one of the nation’s most admired and most mythologized political figures. To commemorate this event, the Oakland History Room, a service of the Oakland Public Library located in its main library, has developed an exhibit of materials from its collections to illustrate the enduring impact of the Lincoln administration on the economy, geography, and political history of the Oakland metropolitan area. Bond of Perpetuity: Oakland and the Lincoln Legacy is currently on display in the Oakland History Room on the Main Library’s second floor, 125 14 th Street, through March 20, 2009.

Oakland was little more than a ferry stop and a scenic getaway from burgeoning San Francisco when Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. The policies and programs initiated while he served in that office would transform the city into one of the major transportation and telecommunications hubs on the Pacific Coast, a position it retains to this day. In addition, his passion for the values that define his place in American history would allow a small Oakland college to become a major public university, and a muddy outpost on the shores of San Francisco Bay to become a microcosm of the nation’s cultural diversity.

Photographs, documents, and extracts from published materials tell the story of Lincoln’s role in the earliest development and continuing progress of the city of Oakland, where his dreams of a cross-country railroad, high-speed transcontinental telecommunications, and a universal commitment to progress would converge.

For more information, please contact the Oakland History Room at (510) 238-3222 or visit the library’s Web site at www.oaklandlibrary.org. The Main Library’s hours are Mondays,

Tuesdays, Saturdays, 10:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays, 12:00-8:00 p.m., Fridays 12:00-5:30 p.m., and Sundays 1:00-5:00 p.m.

###

(Photograph Available Upon Request)