Abraham Lincoln greeted the public at the White House on New Year's Day of 1863, the same day he freed slaves who lived in states still controlled by the Confederacy during the Civil War.
At a reception that day, the 16th president spent three hours meeting people ranging from congressmen to society matrons to a widow whose husband died fighting for the Union. Now you can be there, too, shaking the president's hand, admiring the White House decorations and trying to avoid the president's prank-pulling son, Tad.
"A Virtual Visit to Abraham Lincoln's White House" (www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_tours/lincoln_whitehouse/) is an interactive computer game that immerses the user in the social and political atmosphere of the White House on the day Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The site was created to mark the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth and was designed by Argentine Productions, Inc. a Mount Lebanon, Pa.-based film company run by Peter Argentine and Todd Waits, a game designer and founder of the Pittsburgh-based company Semiotic Technologies. The target audience is middle-school students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades.
"It's not so much about where was this table in the White House or what Abraham Lincoln was wearing that day, but what the social context of the Emancipation Proclamation was," Argentine said.
"It's much more important to understand that. Lincoln just decided to do it. A lot of people disagreed with that decision. It's just like modern-day politics," he added.
Lincoln was so exhausted by the reception that his hand shook as he was signing the historic document, according to "Abraham Lincoln: A Life," a two-volume biography by Michael Burlingame. Lincoln regained his composure and told Secretary of State William Seward and Seward's son Frederick, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right."
Internet users can choose to be one of five avatars -- a congressman, widow, messenger, diplomat and spying society woman who's trying to gather intelligence about Union troop movements.
"If you're the spy, the doorman might say something to you," Argentine said, adding that the avatars are based on composite characters.
During the virtual visit, your avatar will meet 10 people, including the president and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a White House doorman, a journalist, some Cabinet officials and Tad, the Lincoln's youngest son, who is a troublemaker.
Your avatar starts at the north entrance, where you'll hear the sound of the Bucktail Brigade, Pennsylvania guards who protected the president. Each area your avatar visits contains hidden facts. On the front grounds, you can learn about Tad Lincoln's goats. In the library, you can find out what Lincoln liked to read.
Eighth-grade students at Jefferson Middle School in Mount Lebanon tested the game two weeks ago. Mark Kramer, a social-studies teacher, said the game was ideal for fifth-grade students, the grade at which U.S. history is the focus in Mount Lebanon.
"There was a lot of interesting trivia, but I thought the animation was more geared toward a fifth-grade audience because they get to move the visitors around. The kids liked the fact that they got to see it first," Kramer said.
The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit that preserves the art and furnishings of the mansion, commissioned the online tour of the 19th-century White House.
"The difficulty was that we didn't have a lot of artwork or photographs at the time," said Argentine. "This is kind of a pilot. We're hoping to expand it even more, depending on how it's received by the schools. The idea is to lead you to want to find out more."
The association may use the game as a prototype for other online experiences. Argentine said they will gauge the site's success by how many hits it receives and how long users stay.
(Marylynne Pitz can be reached at mpitz(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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