Building the Digital Lincoln  •  digital history project, september 2009

Google SketchUp provides a free software platform for the development of three-dimensional models and can be used by historians to reconstruct the physical world of the past. Google also offers a public domain marketplace of these models called 3D Warehouse from where we obtained models of the Old State Capitol in Springfield (where Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech on June 16, 1858) and the Lincoln home in Springfield on Eighth and Jackson streets. Nathan Kohrmann and Jin Pak contributed the designs. These exterior models represent just the first stage of physical reconstruction that might help inspire scholars. It is also possible to re-create interiors using SketchUp and future historians might benefit from writing about subjects whose physical world they can experience in virtual re-creation right down to the layout of homes and offices.

Old State Capitol

Abraham Lincoln Family Home