“Lincoln was a man among men, but he was also a man among women.” 

This line from historian Stacy Lynn’s latest publication, “Loving Lincoln: A Personal History of the Women Who Shaped Lincoln’s Life and Legacy,” captures the culmination of three decades of research and study into the life of the United States’ 16th president. 

Lynn presented her new work at an author talk Wednesday evening at Booth Library, explaining the process behind writing the book and her wider study of Abraham Lincoln. 

The book takes an approach different to that of other historians, said Lynn, looking at Lincoln as the book focuses on female influences on Lincoln’s life. 

Lynn, who spent 20 years as an associate editor at the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, says she was always drawn to studying the women in his life. 

“Very early on at the Lincoln Papers I kind of became the token woman on panels at Lincoln conferences,” she said. “It annoyed me a lot of the time, but it also allowed me to focus on the women.” 

Lynn’s initial interest was in Mary Lincoln, who she published a biography about in 2015, and believed the first lady had been too harshly portrayed both by Lincoln’s contemporaries and biographers in the years following.  

This research led Lynn to look for other stories about women in the former president’s life resulting in around 90 different women’s stories told across a series of essays throughout the book. 

During the over two-year writing and editing process, Lynn found she had placed herself into the narrative. 

“I realized I was one of the women,” said Lynn. “I had written my story as a Lincoln scholar.” 

This led to the book becoming “genre-bending,” blurring the lines between history and personal history, biography and memoir, according to Lynn. 

In merging her personal anecdotes with relevant stories of Lincoln, she hoped readers could connect better with American history. 

“People are not only entertained by history but engaged by it,” she said. “My goal is for readers to feel the past as well as read it.” 

Lynn lost one of her daughters during the process of developing “Loving Lincoln.”  

She said she found solace in the strength of Mary Lincoln who herself lost three of her four children and her husband following his assassination in 1865.  

For Lynn, her loss meant intertwining her individual story with the historical context was even more important. 

“This general human component of love and loss and grief is just universal,” said Lynn. “Those stories make sense in concert with the personal and the historic elements of the book.” 

Lynn said writing the book was a therapeutic, cathartic process and returning to Lincoln to write this story during the pandemic helped her process her grief.  

Though writers had told her in the past to avoid personal feelings in scholarly work, Lynn said she had found people responded more to those personal elements of the book. 

“There’s a thing about Lincoln, every generation resonates with him in some way,” she said. “Historical empathy opens the door to richer historical understanding.” 

Lynn hopes the book will dispel the misconception that women had no influence on Lincoln’s personal and political life.  

The stories she tells, from the women who were assisted in his days as a Springfield lawyer, to those employed in government under his presidency and even those befriended in his childhood are all detailed in Lynn’s work to correct this narrative.

Ethan Vine can be reached at 581-2812 or ejvine@eiu.edu.