One of the biggest surprises I encountered while writing Lincoln Seeks Justice for Elijah Lovejoy was learning that good history doesn’t automatically become a good novel. I spent years reading court transcripts, newspaper accounts, speeches, letters, and memoirs. I wanted to understand not only what happened, but how the people involved thought and felt. AtContinue reading “When History Isn’t Enough”
Tag Archives: reading
How Do You Bring a Historical Character to Life
I spend months–and sometimes years–collecting pieces of a person’s life. Newspaper articles. Letters. Court records. Speeches. memoirs. Census records. Even advertisements and legal notices can reveal something about a person’s character. One source rarely tells the whole story. A newspaper might describe a dramatic event. A court record may reveal what actually happened. A letterContinue reading “How Do You Bring a Historical Character to Life”
Meet One of the Most Powerful Men in Lincoln’s Illinois
When we think about Abraham Lincoln’s early career, we often picture him surrounded by thoughtful lawyers debating great questions of law and politics. The reality was far more complicated. One of the most influential men in Illinois during Lincoln’s first years as a lawyer was Usher F. Linder, the state’s Attorney General from 1837-1839. LincolnContinue reading “Meet One of the Most Powerful Men in Lincoln’s Illinois”
Why Did Lovejoy Stay?
One of the questions at the heart of my novel is not about Abraham Lincoln. It is about Elijah Parrish Lovejoy. Why did he stay? By the time Lovejoy arrived in Alton, he had already experienced a great deal of violence toward he and his family. This was not a man walking blindly into danger,Continue reading “Why Did Lovejoy Stay?”
Why Lincoln Could Not Ignore Alton
One of the questions I had to answer while writing my novel was obvious to me yet also a central premise of the work: Why would Abraham Lincoln care about Elijah Lovejoy? Why would he care about what happened in Alton and feel compelled to go there? Lincoln and Lovejoy never met. When I beganContinue reading “Why Lincoln Could Not Ignore Alton”
The Speech That Helped Make Abrham Lincoln President
When we look back at Abrahma Lincon’s life, it is easy to assume that his rise to the prsidency was inevitable. It wasn’t. Lincoln experienced political defeats, business failures, and years of uncertainty before he became a national figure. For much of his career, he was known primarily as an Illinois lawyer and plitician. OneContinue reading “The Speech That Helped Make Abrham Lincoln President”
How Reading Shaped Abraham Lincoln
One of the most remarkable things about Abraham Lincoln is how much of his education cam not through formal schooling, but through reading. Lincoln grew up in a world shaped by physical labor and limited opportunity. Books were not abundant on the frontier, and education often came in fragments. Yet he read whenever he could,Continue reading “How Reading Shaped Abraham Lincoln”
The Physical World Abraham Lincoln Lived In
I’m only two days into my break and having to do a lot of household and yard chores that have connected me to the difficult work of the 19th century. When we think about Abrham Lincoln, it is easy to picture speeches, debates, and history-changing decisions. Yet Lincoln came from a deeply physical worked–one shapedContinue reading “The Physical World Abraham Lincoln Lived In”
Why Abraham Lincoln Feared the Breakdown of Civilization
As I follow Abraham Lincoln’s life and work on my novel, there is one idea that keeps appearing again and again in his early thinking: the fear that civilization itself could begin to unravel. Lincoln lived during a period of growing instability in the United States. Mob violence, political anger, and deepening sectional divisions wereContinue reading “Why Abraham Lincoln Feared the Breakdown of Civilization”
What Mob Violence Taught Abraham Lincoln
Long before Abraham Lincoln became president, he was already living in a country increasingly shaped by mob violence. The murders of Francies McIntosh in St. louis and Elijah P. Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois were familiar to him. They unfolded within the world in which he lived, traveled, and practiced law. What Lincoln understood was thatContinue reading “What Mob Violence Taught Abraham Lincoln”
The View From The Imaginarium 