Here—in these pages which recreate the world Lincoln knew as a child and a young man—the reader can come close to Lincoln. In these fine photographs, which carefully depict the familiar, everyday scenes of young Abe’s manhood, he can see Lincoln’s world as Lincoln saw it. As the authors say: “It was from this frontier atmosphere and these frontier people that Lincoln acquired his uncanny understanding of how common folk think and the wisdom that enabled him to hold in his hands the ties that bound a people and made a nation.”

It is this atmosphere that the authors have captured in over 100 photographs, and it is the rhythm of frontier life that they have caught in the factual simplicity of the text. Here is the farm in Kentucky where Lincoln was born; here are reconstructed the smithy, the tavern, the houses of New Salem, Illinois where Lincoln was a clerk, where he studied law, where he was elected to the state legislature. Here is the Springfield that Lincoln knew when he was first elected to Congress, the town where his sons were born, where in 1860 he learned that he was a candidate for the Presidency. This is Lincoln’s country. As the reader follows Lincoln through the pages of this book, he will feel suddenly close to the man who left such an indelible imprint on the history of this nation—and upon its people.

CARL and ROSALIE FRAZIER live in Chicago, Illinois where they pursue their professions as artists and photographers. Their knowledge of Abraham Lincoln comes from their considerable and extensive research into Lincoln’s life and their many pilgrimages to those places where he lived in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.

The Fraziers became interested in trying to capture through the lenses of their cameras that certain something which attracts visitors by the thousands to the Lincoln shrines every year. They hope this picture book will preserve, or at least refresh the memories of these observant visitors, and bring to those who may never have this opportunity a better mental picture of this benevolent man’s environment.

HASTINGS HOUSE • PUBLISHERS
New York 22

The Rutledge Tavern where Abraham Lincoln often stayed. The well-worn ladder leads to his bed in the loft.

Transcriber’s Notes