 "Lincoln, Inc.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary
America" was written by Jackie Hogan, professor of sociology at
Bradley University. From Lincoln-themed cocktails and waffle-parlors
to high-tech museums and steamy romance novels, the image of Abraham
Lincoln so permeates the national imagination that we now find him
in the unlikeliest of places. In "Lincoln, Inc.," Hogan examines the
uses (and abuses) of the 16th president in the United States today.
The book takes readers on a journey through Lincoln tourism and
offers a front-row seat as the martyr president is invoked in heated
political debates over such issues as homosexuality, abortion and
the war on terror. Readers step into the alternate universe of
Lincoln fiction that transforms the Rail Splitter, by turns, into a
hapless time-traveler, a sentimental cyborg, an ax-wielding zombie
slayer or a frontier heartthrob. Hogan shows how the use of the
Lincoln image reveals the nation's shared fears and fascinations.
"Lincoln in his own time: A biographical chronicle of his life,
drawn from recollections, interviews, and memoirs by family,
friends, and associates" was written by Harold Bush, professor of
English at St. Louis University. The 42 entries in this spirited
collection present the best reflections of Lincoln as thinker,
reader, writer and orator by those whose lives intertwined with his
or those who had direct contact with eyewitnesses. Bush focuses on
Lincoln's literary interests, reading and work as a writer, as well
as the evolving debate about his religious views that became central
to his memory. Along with a star-struck Walt Whitman writing of
Lincoln's "inexpressibly sweet" face and manner, Elizabeth Keckly's
description of a bereaved Lincoln, "genius and greatness weeping
over love's idol lost," and William Stoddard's report of the
"cheery, hopeful, morning light" on Lincoln's face after a long
night debating the fate of the nation, the volume includes
selections from works by famous contemporary figures such as
Hawthorne, Douglass, Stowe, Lowell, Twain and Lincoln himself in
addition to lesser-known selections that have been nearly lost to
history.
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Copies of each book may be purchased in the gift shop. No
admission fee is required to attend the Nov. 19 book signing.
For more information about the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum, visit
www.presidentlincoln.org.
[Text from
Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
file]
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