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Contact: Mike Litterest, 202-245-4676 Contact: Lauren Beyea, 202-434-9543
National Park Service and Ford’s Theatre Society announced a new Voices of Petersen House TimeLooper app is now available, free of charge, to daytime visitors at Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site.
Voices of Petersen House provides a virtual reality experience including interactive photographs taken inside the Petersen House and first-person accounts of the men and women who witnessed Abraham Lincoln’s final hours.
Developed and donated to the National Park Service and Ford’s Theatre Society by TimeLooper, the app moves virtually through each room of the Petersen House. Users will experience the front parlor where Mary Lincoln waited inconsolably for news of her husband’s condition, the back parlor where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton launched the manhunt for the president’s assassin, and the “death room” where Lincoln drew his final breath.
Following his assassination at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, the mortally wounded Abraham Lincoln was carried across the street to the home of William and Anna Petersen. While doctors cared for the president, the Petersen family and some of their boarders spent the night in the basement. At 7:22 a.m., April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died in the back bedroom of the house.
Located at 516 10th Street NW, the Petersen House (House Where Lincoln Died) is currently closed for preservation work until June of 2018. Scheduled work at the house includes replacing the existing fire suppression system, updating historic furnishings and wallpaper and general preservation and maintenance work on the historic structure. The Petersen House closure does not affect Ford’s Theatre, the Ford’s Theatre Museum or the Aftermath Exhibits in the Center for Education and Leadership. Lines to enter the Aftermath Exhibits will likely be longer during the Petersen House closure. Petersen House project and schedule updates will be posted on www.fords.org, the Ford’s Theatre Twitter (@FordsTheatreNPS, @FordsTheatre) and Facebook (FordsTheatreNPS and FordsTheatre) pages.
National Park Service and Ford’s Theatre Society Partnership Since reopening in 1968, more than 100 years after the April 14, 1865, assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Ford’s Theatre has been one of the most visited sites in the nation’s capital. Operated through a partnership between the private non-profit 501(c)(3) Ford’s Theatre Society and the National Park Service, Ford’s Theatre is the premier destination in the nation’s capital to explore and celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s ideals and leadership principles: courage, integrity, tolerance, equality and creative expression.
Ford’s Theatre Society was founded under the guidance of executive producer Frankie Hewitt, who, during her 35-year tenure, established Ford’s as a living, working theatre producing performances that highlighted the diversity of the American experience. Since the arrival of Paul R. Tetreault as Director, critics and the theatregoing public have recognized Ford’s for the superior quality of its artistic programming. With works from the Tony-nominated “Come From Away” and the nationally acclaimed “Big River” to the world premieres of “Meet John Doe,” “The Heavens Are Hung In Black,” “Liberty Smith,” “Necessary Sacrifices,” “The Widow Lincoln” and “The Guard,” Ford’s Theatre is making its mark on the American theatre landscape. In the past decade, the mission of Ford’s Theatre Society expanded to include education as a central pillar. This expansion led to the creation and construction of the Center for Education and Leadership, which opened in February 2012. Currently, under the leadership of Board of Trustees Chairman Eric A. Spiegel, the Society is building Ford’s Theatre into a national destination for exploring Lincoln’s ideas and leadership principles and finding new ways to bring Lincoln’s legacy to life for the 21st-century learner.
For more information on Ford’s Theatre and the Ford’s Theatre Society, please visit www.fords.org.
For more information on the Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, please visit www.nps.gov/foth.
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Last updated: February 9, 2018