Croquet with Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass

Tuesday July 27, 2010 at 7:00 PM 
Horatio Colony House Museum, 199 Main Street

Join Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in a game of croquet and get in the mood for Keene Chautauqua.
 
Many believe that the Irish brought croquet to America. By the mid 1860s, the game was immensely popular.  There are pictures of croquet games on the White House lawn during Lincoln's presidency.  Frederick Douglass loved croquet so much that he built his own court at his Virginia home.  In 1877, he said that that it was a sign of the great progress in race relations that he could enjoy 'a game of croquet with ladies and gentlemen of a different race.'  
 
This program is funded through a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities Council and is part of the library's 'Forever Free' programming. 'Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation' has been organized by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York City, in cooperation with the American Library Association Public Programs Office.  This exhibition was made possible by major grants from the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, created by Congress and charged with planning the national celebration of Lincoln 's 200th birthday.