Lincoln: "I, too am a Kentuckian"

As the 2009 bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth approaches, America's sixteenth president remains one of the most recognizable and revered people in all of history. Only Kentucky has the honor of being the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. While Lincoln's family left Kentucky when he was just seven years old, throughout his life, Lincoln was surrounded and influenced by Kentuckians.

Lincoln: "I, too, am a Kentuckian" -- A Kentucky Life Special is scheduled for broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television on March 1, 2008. Host Dave Shuffett explores the life and career of Kentucky's most famous native son, introducing viewers to the many Kentucky people and places that had a profound impact on Abraham Lincoln throughout his life.

The program travels to the Jefferson County site where, in 1786, Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed by Native Americans; Lincoln’s birthplace and boyhood home near Hodgenville; the Hancock County house where he argued his first legal case (with himself as the defendant); and the Louisville home of Joshua Speed, who has been described as Lincoln’s only truly close friend.

Viewers will also travel to locations outside of Kentucky.  Viewers will visit the Lincoln family’s Indiana homestead where his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln is buried; Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln’s law career flourished and where he met and married Lexington, Kentucky native Mary Todd; and to Washington, D.C., where President Lincoln spent the final four years of his life working to keep the Union intact, and to keep Kentucky in the Union. 

Lincoln: “I, too, am a Kentuckian” – A Kentucky Life Special  is a KET production, funded in part by a grant from The Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Kentucky Historical Society.  The program is produced and directed by Joy Flynn and hosted by Dave Shuffett.  More about KET programs and educational services, and how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.