Father Lincoln

June 13, 2016
Manning, an independent historian and teacher, unsuccessfully attempts to offer new insights about Lincoln using as a lens his role as parent to four sons, two of whom died young. The narrow focus means that major landmarks in Lincoln's life are regarded only in passing. Manning feels that other works have given Lincoln's fatherhood short shrift and that it "illuminates" the challenge fathers face in balancing work and family. This single-minded objective leads Manning to questionable interpretations. For instance, in 1849, after Lincoln was passed over by Zachary Taylor for the position of Commissioner of the Great Land Office, he was offered the governorship of the Oregon Territory as a consolation prize. Other biographers more plausibly explain Lincoln's refusal as the result of the rational calculation that it would marginalize him politically, but for Manning Lincoln acted "to put his family first." The suggestion that Robert Lincoln may have understated his relationship with his father out of privacy concerns is a reasonable one, but overall, there is less here than was intended. Manning claims to have gotten a "unique insight" into Lincoln because he worked as an attorney while raising four daughters with his wife, but that doesn't translate into a worthwhile book.

April 1, 2016

Attorney and history teacher Manning insists that the most extraordinary aspect of Abraham Lincoln as a father was that he was very "ordinary." Manning ably sets Lincoln's parenting in the context of changing attitudes regarding the proper place and feelings of fathers in middle-class American families and shows that Lincoln sought to balance the demands of his law practice and then his presidency with the emotional needs of his children. The author dispels the common idea that Lincoln had a distant relationship with his oldest son, Robert, or that he was not a devoted family man. With limited direct evidence from Lincoln and his boys during their time together, Manning relies much on third-person accounts to reconstruct Lincoln's feelings and concerns as a father. Unprovable but reasonable suggestions result, especially regarding Lincoln's supposed need to be sure he would not repeat with his children his own tortured relationship with his father and the president's turn toward religion after the loss of two sons. VERDICT Manning overstates the extent to which scholars have ignored Lincoln's family life, but good storyteller that he is, the author relates many tales to reveal a man of feeling, who loved and grieved, as men of his day were then "allowed" to do.--Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

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