The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida Minerva Tarbell, 1896

Rediscovering Lincoln

While working for McClure’s Magazine in the 1890s, Ida Tarbell wrote a series of articles focusing on Lincoln’s early life. Her new discoveries and fresh writing style attracted national attention. She later published a book that featured one of her best finds: the earliest known portrait of Lincoln, taken in 1846, that greatly surprised readers who expected to see a frontier woodsman, not a well-dressed lawyer.