Abraham Lincoln Was Funnier Than His Photographs Make Him Look

Look at almost any photograph of Abraham Lincoln and you see a serious man. Sometimes a very tired man. You probably don’t look at that face and immediately think, There goes the funniest man in the room.

But humor was an important part of Lincoln’s personality long before he became president. One story from his younger years particularly makes you smile. A man Lincoln had worked for remembered him as someone who was always reading and thinking–and who didn’t seem especially enthusiastic about physical labor. According to the recollection, Lincoln would laugh, talk, crack jokes and tell stories while he worked.

His employer wasn’t particularly impressed. He complained that Lincoln didn’t love work nearly as much as he loved getting paid for it. Lincoln had an answer. His father, he said, had taught him how to work. He had never taught him to love it.

Very Lincoln. Not because he was lazy, but because of the way he answered the criticism. He didn’t make a speech. He didn’t become defensive. He turned it into a joke.

Lincoln became famous for storytelling, but his humor wasn’t always an elaborate funny story. Sometimes it was simply a quick observation or a dry answer delivered at exactly the right moment.

That’s the kind of humor that has found its way into Lincoln Seeks Justice for Elijah Lovejoy. My Lincoln doesn’t spend the novel performing for everyone around him. Most of his humor appears in dry little comments and one-liners. Sometimes the other characters aren’t entirely sure whether he’s joking.

I like writing him that way, though it is challenging at times. He’s still a relatively young lawyer living among friends and colleagues. He worries. He gets discouraged. He becomes absorbed in problems. And sometimes he says something funny. The historical Lincoln did too. He often used it to get a point across or to lighten a tense mood in the room.

Perhaps that’s one reason people enjoyed gathering around him long before the rest of the country knew his name.

Current Projects

• My Book: continuing revisions of Lincoln Seeks Justice for Elijah Lovejoy, where I’m enjoying the small moments that let Lincoln be a person as well as the man we know from history.
• Edward Bryant: continuing preparations for future publication and preservation of stories by my friend Edward Bryant.

Thanks for walking alongside me.