#hoosieryouth

In early 1934, the Lincoln National Life Foundation, a department of Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, announced the first annual Boy Scout Lincoln Pilgrimage to take place on February 12^th, the 125^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Pilgrimages were to take place across the country, with Scouts gathering at the nearest statue of Abraham Lincoln. The company’s announcement provided a list of more than 40 cities where heroic statues of Lincoln were located and offered “an attractive award” for each Scout who participated: “It is a beautiful picture of ‘Abraham Lincoln the Hoosier Youth,’ the bronze statue by Paul Manship.” The statue stood outside the Lincoln Life Insurance Company’s headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

As these photographs show, the Pilgrimage proved to be a popular Scout event, with hundreds of Scouts turning out in the winter weather to march to the statue and participate in a wreath laying ceremony. The Scouts then attended an indoor program and enjoyed refreshments provided by the company. 

The 1937 Pilgrimage

The 1939 Pilgrimage

The 1942 Pilgrimage

The 1954 Pilgrimage

In 1962, the Lincoln National Life Foundation’s publication Lincoln Lore published a list of 81 heroic Lincoln statues and this “Editor’s Note” on the Pilgrimage with illustrations of the awards offered to the Scouts, each picturing an statue of Lincoln in a different location.

In 1970, the Boys Scouts began awarding patches to Pilgrimage participants, in addition to the company’s attendance awards. Several 1970s patches, like this one from 1973, featured the Hoosier Youth statue. 

In February 1981, the company’s newsletter reported that both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts attended the Pilgrimage. There were over 2,100 Scouts participating to learn about “Lincoln’s Midwest Years.”

In 1982 “over 1,400 area Scouts endured snow and cold weather to honor Abraham Lincoln at the 49^th Annual Lincoln Pilgrimage,” according to the newsletter.

Pilgrimage patches during the 1990s focused on a variety of themes in Lincoln’s life and presidency—Lincoln and education, Lincoln and the law, Lincoln’s family, and once again, Lincoln’s life in Indiana.

The 1993 Pilgrimage commemorated the signing of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

The Pilgrimage continued into the new century, with the patch for 2001 featuring “Long Tall Lincoln” from an 1864 Harper’s Weeklycartoon.

2008 marked the 75^th Annual Lincoln Pilgrimage and once again featured the Hoosier Youth statue on the Scout patch.

The 2009 Pilgrimage celebrated the bicentennial of Lincoln’ birth with an illustration of Daniel Chester French’s Lincoln Memorial statue on the patch.

2009 also marked the transferal of the collection from the Lincoln Financial Foundation’s Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne to the State of Indiana and the collection’s renaming as the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (LFFC). That ended the company’s support for the Pilgrimage. In 2014, the Allen County Public Library, now co-curator of the LFFC, partnered with the Anthony Wayne Council of Boy Scouts to rejuvenate the Pilgrimage by moving it indoors to the library on the weekend closest to Lincoln’s birthday. Scout interest soon waned, however. The last Lincoln Pilgrimage in Fort Wayne—the 83^rd—was held at the library in 2016.