Museum Director Fired Over Gettysburg Address Loan

The new director of a Tennessee museum was fired from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum for lending out an irreplaceable copy of the Gettysburg Address. The Illinois Inspector General says Alan Lowe lent the document to Mercury One for a "pop-up museum" last year, the AP reports. Mercury One is a nonprofit founded by political pundit Glenn Beck. The document is one of five known copies of the Gettysburg Address written in Lincoln’s hand. It wasn’t supposed to be lent out without a unanimous vote by the Historic Preservation Agency Board of Trustees.

The inspector general's report says Lowe and Michael Little, the museum's former chief operating officer, had the document packed just eight days after Beck contacted Lowe, Capitol News Illinois reports. Both men "travelled to Texas at Mercury One’s expense in June 2018; neither took the time to oversee the Gettysburg Address and other artifacts being uncrated, installed, or repacked while they were there, but rather were there in 'marketing mode,'" the report states. "These networking opportunities may have provided Mr. Lowe connections for his consulting business." The Knoxville News Sentinel reports Lowe started Monday with the American Museum of Science and Energy. Little now works at Mercury One.

(More Gettysburg Address stories.)