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Shane Dunlap / The Evening Sun
A John Wilkes Booth bobblehead doll is shown for sale alongside an Abraham Lincoln bobblehead at the Gettysburg Museum & Visitor Center.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., is no longer selling a bobblehead doll of Lincoln’s assassin at its gift shop, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The move follows news that the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania pulled the John Wilkes Booth dolls from its stores earlier this week, Lincoln museum spokesman Dave Blanchette told the Tribune.
Blanchette told the newspaper that the museum’s administrators has not received any complaints about the dolls, but that they agreed with the Gettysburg Park’s assessment that they were not appropriate for sale. “It seems to be in bad taste,” he said.
"This was the first time that we really took a hard look at having these items for sale," Blanchette told the Tribune.
The dolls of Booth with a handgun were removed from Gettysburg shelves on Saturday, a day after a reporter for Hanover's The Evening Sun newspaper asked about them, officials said.
"On rare occasions, there's an item that might cause concern, and obviously the bobbleheads appeared to be doing that," Gettysburg Foundation spokeswoman Dru Anne Neil said Tuesday.
The dolls were available for only about a week before the park superintendent, the foundation president and the bookstore manager decided they shouldn't be for sale, Neil said.
The Booth dolls, which are about 7 inches tall and come in boxes that look like the inside of the theater where Lincoln was killed, sell online for about $20 each. They have proved to be popular, as more than 150 of the original run of 250 have been sold, and more are being made, Kansas City, Mo.-based manufacturer BobbleHead LLC said.
"There's a market there," sales manager Matt Powers said. "We like to let the customer decide if it's a good item or not."
The company sells dolls of many controversial figures, including Kim Jong-il, the recently deceased leader of North Korea, The Evening Sun reported. But Powers told the paper, "I don't think we'd do Hitler."
Confederate sympathizer Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington in April 1865, as the Civil War was ending. He fled and was tracked into Virginia, where he was killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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that happened to long ago to really be offensive
It may seem to have been long ago to you, but to those in the South it is still considered an open wound. In my opinion a bobblehead doll of John W. Booth is an insult to the memory of one of the best, if not the best, presidents we have ever had.
I’m sure those that feel the South will rise again; those that have formed militias due to the election of a black president, the Ku Klux Klan and other right wing extremist groups take pleasure in obtaining this bobblehead. To some I’m sure that it serves to illustrate that though they may be small and insignificant in history they can change all that with a cheap pistol and a cheaper bullet.
LOL! I'm surprised they even made them in the first place.
Not really offensive, but probably unnecessary at the Lincoln Museum. Hitler bobblehead at the Holocaust Museum, now that would be offensive.
It's in bad taste - I mean, the guy *was* a presidential assassin, so selling his doll, period, is bad enough, but cest la vie, First Amendment and all - so alright, even if he's a POS who deprived the country of its greatest person, ever.
But to then sell his doll in the museum dedicated to the very guy he murdered?
Like I said - really bad taste.
Hey man, nice shot.
Lincoln was far from the "greatest person ever". This is someone who commited crimes against his own citizens. He suspended the constitution, arrested and held citizens without trials, confiscated peoples private property without warrants or any other legal proceedings to show cause, used the military AGAINST his own citizens to include hireing forien mercenaries to help, he also commited multiple other crimes all of which people scream and yell about other leaders in this world doing they same thing. This is also the person most responsible for the federal government having so much power over the lives of people today.And Booth a P.O.S.? before claiming what a great person he was why not consider what you would think of if a president today decided to suspend habeas corpus and started locking up citizens without trials or due process and start confiscating personal property, and bring the military into towns walking the streets to enforce unconstitutional rules. locking up anyone who made any statements disagreeing with him?
The South lost the Civil War. Deal with it.
You really need to stop smoking whatever it is you smoke first thing in the morning.
In very poor taste.
A BOBBLEHEAD, for God's sake!
It IS history you fools. Lets just rewrite all of it. Why stop here.
It has already been rewritten by the GOP and mythology has become fact.
NO ONE is trying to re-write history, for God's sake.
Where do you get that hair-brained idea?
It doesn't even make sense.
So, now John Wilkes Booth is no longer a part of history. Shall we pretend that Henry V111, Adolph Hitler and Guy Faux never existed. You cannot change history despite numerous attempts -- i.e. Blacks in Africa, corralled fellow Blacks and sold them to the slavers -- a piece of history that many people want to bury-- i.e. it didn't exist.
Pathetic paranoids. Get a life!
Gil
NO ONE is trying to change history!!!
WTF are you even babbling on about? Don't you even know what the discussion is about?
Boiling history down to the lowest common denominator... For people who don't really give a crap about history.
sure, he was an assassin, but is a Lincoln bobblehead really that much better taste?
only if it come complete with hole through the noggin!
Don't see anything wrong with a toy that might actually spark an interest in history to a child. It might even help them remember.
Anything done in "bobblehead" seems a bit tacky, IMO. Why not just a plain figurine???
In the meantime, wonder if the price of the JWB bobblehead will go up???
And for those who wish they were famous enough to have a bobblehead designed for them - why wait for fame??? Go for it.
http://www.whoopassenterprises.com/
http://www.bobbleheads.com/
http://www.headbobble.com/
John Wilkes Booth should be a national hero!
DAK
What a moronic statement.
Why would you even post it?
because he is a moron and that's what they do
What they should have been selling is John Wilkes Booth toilet paper with his likeness on every square.
no more so than Christian gift shops selling crucifixes...
I hope they don't pull the James Earl Ray Bobble-heads at the MLK Museum.
Or the Oswald bobble-head at the JFK library.
Look at it this way-- he's a murderer. You want to glorify that? I've been to Ford's Theater and Dealey Plaza in Dallas. While sitting in Ford's Theater, looking up at the nearby presidential box, it occurred to me that if nothing else, it's the scene of a murder. A politically motivated and history changing murder, yes, but boil it down, it's a murder.
Seems to me, you don't want to glorify anything like that with a bobblehead of the killer. What's next, bobbleheads of Charlie Manson, Ed Gein, Richard Speck, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc?
Yes, and get over it, the South was defeated. It's over, move on.
As macabre as it might be, I think it shows why we live in a free country. I think the company would do WELL to make a notorious set of bobbleheads- Oswald, Hinckley, Manson, Hitler, Ray, etc. And why not? They were a part of history as well...