Adin Baber on Nancy Hanks

[Rob Wick]

I think it is imperative to point out that Ida Tarbell wrote this book almost 100 years ago without the benefit of modern science and who admitted often in private that she found the whole Hanks history to be confusing and full of tradition and little in the way of concrete facts. Did Tarbell make mistakes? Of course she did. She would be the first to admit such a thing, and she was also the first to admit when new evidence proved a point she had defended to be wrong. It's patently unfair (at least in my mind) to castigate Tarbell for holding on to beliefs she thought to be true. I think the term character assassination is highly unfair to the serious work that she did.

Tarbell lived and studied Lincoln for almost another 20 years after the Footsteps book was written. Would she have written it the same way at that point than she did in the 1920s? Who knows, but I doubt it. It's a fair criticism to point out where someone is wrong, but to accuse her of character assassination is character assassination in itself, and totally unfair.

Best
Rob