Atiny piece of straw-colored twine attached the right stem of Abraham Lincoln’s eyeglasses to the bow — and wrenched Carla Hayden’s heart.

The spectacles were in Lincoln’s pockets when he was fatally shot at Washington’s Ford Theatre on April 14, 1865, and are on display to the public for free in the Library of Congress’ newly opened David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery.

The gallery opened in June following a $40 million renovation, 25% of which was donated by Rubenstein, the Orioles’ owner and Baltimore native.

The bit of thread from Lincoln’s pocket is knotted tightly and trimmed neatly. It was hard not to speculate how the glasses might have been damaged. Did Lincoln knock them off his desk? Or, did the 16th president, working late at night, read while sprawled on one side, weakening the stems?

“You can imagine yourself doing something like that,” said Hayden, the longtime Baltimore resident who for the past eight years has presided over the Library of Congress. “The contents of Lincoln’s pockets humanize him.”

Lincoln’s glasses are among the roughly 120 artifacts on display in “Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress,” an exhibit that gives the public access for the first time to highlights of the roughly 178 million objects in the institution’s collection.

Rubenstein didn’t respond to a request for an interview, but said in a news release that it’s “important to preserve America’s treasures because the human brain still operates more effectively when it sees something for real.”

There’s a handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address, but also the golden record sent aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977 with greetings in 55 languages to whatever intelligent life might someday find it.

There’s a crystal flute that former First Lady Dolley Madison is thought to have saved as the British set the White House ablaze in The War of 1812, but also Oscar Hammerstein II’s not entirely successful early stab at writing the lyrics for “Do-Re-Mi” from “The Sound of Music.”

“Sow is what farmers do with wheat,” does not flow trippingly off the tongue.

Hayden said that Rubenstein told her that his lifelong love of books began at the Forest Park branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library — the system Hayden ran for more than two decades before taking the job in Washington.

“Mr. Rubenstein told me he would take 12 books out at one time,” she said. “That was the limit. He would read them all in a week, and then come back and take out 12 more.”

The idea for the gallery came to Hayden in 2016 when she was interviewing for her current job. She was told that many of the library’s treasures were too old and fragile to be exhibited publicly.

There had to be a way, Hayden thought, to make these artifacts available to the American taxpayers who own them — and not just digital images, but the worn, frayed, unassuming objects themselves.

“This is the people’s library,” Hayden said, “and I wanted to open up the treasure chest. I thought, ‘What if we had a permanent gallery where we could rotate treasures in and out to protect them?”

She knew she already had a jewel box to display the treasures. The Library of Congress — filled with light and marble and columns and statues and surfaces embellished with gold leaf — has been described as one of the most beautiful buildings in Washington.

“The Library of Congress was modeled on an Italian palace to show that in this country, we build palaces to knowledge, not monarchy,” Hayden said.

The artifacts are exhibited in specially built display cases controlled for temperature and humidity and open in the back so that items can be swapped out easily. The lighting in the gallery is kept intentionally low.

“Staff members nominated items they thought would fit into the inaugural exhibit,” curator Cheryl Regan said. “After a while, we started to sense synergies between objects.”

Below is half a dozen highlights of the collection — including some Maryland visitors won’t want to miss:

Contents of Lincoln’s pockets: In addition to his eyeglasses, the personal items Lincoln had stuffed into his pockets the night he was assassinated include a Confederate $5 bill, a white linen handkerchief —used — with “A. Lincoln” embroidered in red and a newspaper clipping praising Lincoln’s leadership. The 16th president, it seems, needed an occasional pat on the back as much as the rest of us.

The Gettysburg Address: On view is the original, handwritten draft that historians think the president carried when he made his historic remarks. The first and second pages are written on different types of paper, possibly indicating that they were written at various times. The first page bears the letterhead “Executive Mansion,” (the former name for The White House), and is beige, while the unadorned second page is white. “By the time Lincoln got to the battlefield, he had already prepared what he was going to say,” Hayden said. “After the tour, he went back to the hotel, wrote the second page and returned later to deliver the address.”

James Madison’s crystal flute: The crystal flute was presented to the fourth president in 1813 in honor of his second inauguration — but wasn’t destined to remain at the White House for long. In 1814, as the British troops advanced on Washington, First Lady Dolley Madison is thought to have rescued the flute, possibly by packing it in a wagon containing household goods. More than 208 years later, the rap artist Lizzo, a classically-trained flautist, borrowed the instrument for a 2022 concert in Washington. “Now we know the flute can be played,” Regan said. “It sounded pretty good.”

Ancient Cuneiform tablets: These unfired clay tablets, roughly the size of a human palm, are about 4,000 years old and date from the area that is modern-day Iraq. Regan said these tablets were used by Sumerian scribes learning the cuneiform writing system. The tablets weren’t fired, so the clay impressions could be dissolved with a little water and reused — not unlike a modern blackboard. “We have transcribed some of the cuneiform writing,” Regan said. “It was all about counting pints and barrels of beer.”

1880s Baltimore Orioles scorecard: According to the yellowing scorecard on view, Jack Manning lead off for the Baltimore Orioles in a game played on April 8 sometime in the 1880s and Joe Sommer batted clean-up. Their opponent? A Brooklyn team possibly known as the Grays, the Bridegrooms, or Trolley Dodgers. Admission cost 25 cents. While the scorecard is difficult to read, it appears that Brooklyn defeated The Birds six to three.

Frances B. Johnston’s wooden view camera: This 1893 universal camera with its accordion-like bellows, was frequently used by Johnston, a former Baltimorean and pioneering female photographer. During her half-century career, Johnston frequently photographed intimate family scenes at the White House, and took portraits of such famous folk as author Mark Twain and suffragette Susan B. Anthony. “She graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland,” Hayden said, and her mother wrote for The Baltimore Sun.”