The readings started at 10 a.m. and continued hourly until 7 p.m.
Denis Clark read the Gettysburg Address to an audience of about a dozen at 5 p.m.
Clark began his presentation by repeating a line in Lincoln’s speech that turned out not to be true.
“The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here,” Clark said.
The reality is that 150 years later, his words have never been forgotten.
Lincoln’s original delivery of the Gettysburg Address differed greatly from the presentation at the Lane Public Library, said Clark. The Oxford audience was seated comfortably in a collection of chairs surrounding a podium. The Gettysburg Address followed a two-hour speech by Edward Everett, an orator from Massachusetts. The audience was standing, and had been, before Lincoln spoke.
After the reading, reference librarian Rebecca Evans invited the audience to step into a smaller room with a projector. There, she gave the audience more historical context surrounding the Gettysburg address.
At the 5 p.m. reading, the show was predominantly middle-school aged children. Evans changed her approach to appeal to those kids, pointing out features they’ll remember and focusing on the historical and rhetorical elements of the speech that they might be learning about in school. She talked about the different techniques that Lincoln used in his address.
Evans played a short clip about the Battle of Gettysburg from the PBS film, Death and the Civil War.
Over 7,000 soldiers died in the Battle of Gettysburg, which prompted the building and dedication of the cemetery in Pennsylvania.
According to Evans, the Gettysburg Address set a precedent and changed the way the federal government approached the casualties of war. Before the Civil War, soldiers were often unidentified and left in the field of battle, she said. Lincoln helped ensure that the government properly honored the servicemen.
“It applies to us every day,” said Clark. “It’s appropriate to read and keep in mind every day.”
In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln called on Americans to continue to the work of the fallen soldiers and strive for equality and freedom. Four score and seven years ago referred to the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men are created equal. Evans reminded the audience that his mission is not yet complete, and that Lincoln’s words ring true 150 years later.
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