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Abe's Youth
Shaping the Future President
by William Bartelt and Joshua Claybourn
Published by: Indiana University Press
320 Pages, 20 b&w illus., 2 maps
- eBook
- 9780253043924
- Published: October 2019
$9.99
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Since his death, Abraham Lincoln has been celebrated as savior of the Union, proponent for emancipation, president of the United States, and skilled statesman. Although Lincoln's adult life has been well documented and analyzed, most biographers have regarded his early years as inconsequential to his career and accomplishments.
In 1920 a group of historians known as the Lincoln Inquiry were determined to give Lincoln's formative years their due. Abe's Youth takes a look into their writings, which focus on Lincoln's life between 7 and 21 years of age. By filling in the gaps on Lincoln's childhood, these authors shed light on how his experiences growing up influenced the man he became. As the first fully annotated edition of the Lincoln Inquiry papers, Abe's Youth offers indispensable reading for anyone hoping to learn about Lincoln's early life.
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Works from Indiana's Lincoln Inquiry
Part 1: Lincoln's Hoosier Influences
1. Lincoln's Boyhood Days in Indiana / Roscoe Kiper
2. Lincoln's Environment in Indiana / Roscoe Kiper
3. Lincoln in Indiana / William Fortune
Part 2: Lincoln's Neighbors and Influences
4. Lincoln's Indiana Neighbors / Bess V. Ehrmann
5. Life of James Gentry Jr. / J. Helen Rhoades
6. The Grigsbys / Calder (Bess) Ehrmann
7. More Lincoln Memories / Nancy Grigsby Inco
8. Biographical Sketch of Josiah and Elizabeth (Anderson) Crawford / Will Adams
9. Daniel Grass / Laura Mercy Wright
10. The Athe Meeks Sr. Tragedy / Aaron Meeks
11. The Mystery of Lincoln's Melancholy / Louis A. Warren
12. Lincoln and the Wool-Carder's Beautiful Niece / Jesse N. Weik
13. Word Pictures of Pioneer Families and Lincoln Contemporaries / Bess V. Ehrmann
14. Interviews with Spencer County Pioneers about 1895 / T. H. Masterson
15. Early Days in Spencer County / Daniel Hayford
Part 3: Lincoln's Neighborhood and Environment
16. The Lincolns and Their Home in Spencer County, Indiana / C. C. Scheeder
17. An Interview with James Atlas Jones on the Lincoln Cabin in Spencer County / George H. Honig
18. The Lincolns' Eastward Environment / Thomas James de la Hunt
19. Some Early Troy History / Sallie Bergenroth
20. Early Agriculture in Spencer County, Indiana / David H. Morgan
21. Materia Medica of Pioneer Indiana / H. C. Knapp
Part 4: Lincoln and the Law
22. Environment and Opportunities of Lincoln in Indiana / Elbert Hayford
23. John A. Brackenridge / Eldora Minor Raleigh
24. John Pitcher / Alice L. Harper Hanby
25. Judge John Pitcher / John E. Cox
Part 5: The Lincoln Inquiry
26. The Environments of Abraham Lincoln in Indiana: The Best Witnesses / Anna C. O'Flynn
27. The Lincolns in Spencer County / Ida D. Armstrong
28. The Artist's Ideal of Lincoln / George H. Honig
29. What Indiana Did for Lincoln / Bess V. Ehrmann
30. Correspondence Between Lincoln Historians and This Society / John H. Iglehart
Lincoln and Southwestern Indiana Chronology
Index
William E. "Bill" Bartelt is a Lincoln historian and author of There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indiana Youth and other books. For many years Bartelt worked as a ranger and historian at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. He is a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Indiana Historical Society, and received the Indiana Historical Society's "Hoosier Historian" award in 2003.
Joshua A. Claybourn is an attorney and author or editor of several books, including Our American Story: The Search for a Shared National Narrative. A widely published commentator on legal, political, and historical topics, Claybourn has also appeared as a guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NHK. He is a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Association.
""Abe's Youth is positively fascinating, and not just for those who are interested in Abraham Lincoln. This book in many ways provides a history of the first 100 years of Spencer County, IN.""
~Kathy Tretter, The Spencer County Leader
"
The editors have at last made easily available a host of sources, barely known or unknown even to Lincoln experts, and this compactness alone provides their purpose. Yet for the casual reader interested in the springtime of Lincoln's life, these now-uncovered tales also trot along at a summertime clip. It is fine reading — what Herndon missed, the Indiana historians found. Among these 30 short sections, we find rich clues to such questions as 'Why did Lincoln become a Henry Clay Whig rather than an Andrew Jackson Democrat?' and 'Was his background a burden, or an inspiration, to his later greatness?' Women like Ida Tarbell and Bess V. Ehrmann; men like John Iglehart and Roscoe Kiper now blaze our path anew. Here you will even find precise details from a settler on how to make a fire, and the fascinating terms those folk used for the tools.
" ~James M. Cornelius, Ph.D., Editor, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
"
William Bartelt and Joshua Claybourn have done Lincoln scholars and the general public an immensely valuable service. Aware of both the value and the limitations of the Lincoln Inquiry's evidence regarding Lincoln's Hoosier roots, they have here produced a careful, meticulous and balanced volume of primary source material that will be indispensable for anyone who wishes to investigate Lincoln's Indiana years.
" ~Brian Dirck, Professor of History, Anderson University, and author of Lincoln in Indiana
""Abe's Youth offers a fascinating, in-depth examination of the future president and the time and environment in which he grew up.""
~Johnson County Historical Society
"Abe's Youth provides a convenient way to access some of the important work of the Indiana Lincoln Inquiry."
~Indiana Magazine of History
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