Exhibitions

Lincoln's Contemporaries

May 13, 2016 – May 12, 2019

Phineas T. Barnum, Mathew Brady Studio

National Portrait Gallery
8th and G Streets, NW
Washington, DC

1st Floor, North Wing, Meserve Corridor

See on Map Floor Plan

Who were Abraham Lincoln’s contemporaries? They included many fascinating people beyond the politicians and military leaders of the Civil War. This exhibition features Mathew Brady’s portraits of twenty celebrities—from showman P.T. Barnum and inventor Samuel Morse to musician Teresa Carreño and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher—who reflect the diversity of American intellectual and cultural life during Lincoln’s presidency.