Lincoln Research

[davg2000]

Begin with #3. You have to read widely. That's really essential. If you are interested in Lincoln, then you need to become grounded in basic Lincoln facts. Read recent biographies of Lincoln--my favorite is David Herbert Donald's. Once you feel familiar with Lincoln's life, read several biographers, from different times. A good start for this is Portrait for Posterity, by Benjamin Thomas, 1947. Thomas introduces the reader to all of the Lincoln biographers from Josiah Holland to Carl Sandburg. (Of course there have been many since then, including my favorite.) By reading Thomas you will come to understand that Lincoln's life has been interpreted differently by writers almost from the first. You will also begin to learn why Lincoln continues to fascinate writers. (As you read about Lincoln, his times, and his contemporaries, ideas for further research will begin to occur to you. Write these down! Don't trust to memory.)

So, what can you do? You almost certainly aren't going to find anything new about Lincoln's life, but you may be able to provide a new perspective on some established fact. Perhaps you will cause a reader to question something that he thought he already knew. That's one thing that made teaching fun for me--a pupil's question might cause me to reconsider my take on something.

Google can be helpful, but be careful about what you find on the Web. Wikkepedia can be a blessing and a curse.

If you are interested in Lincoln's assassination, these are essential reads: American Brutus, by Kauffman; Blood on the Moon, by Steers; Manhunt, by Swanson; They Have Killed Papa Dead, by Pitch; The Lincoln Conspiracies, by Hanchett; and Fortune's Fool, by Alford. If you can find a copy of The Mad Booths of Maryland, by Kimmel, that's good, too. Finally, another one referred to often by writers on the Symposium is Twenty Days, by Kuhnhardt and Kuhnhardt.