What do we need to know?  How did we learn it? 
 
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, Helen Keller and Jack Kennedy are perennially fascinating, the subject of countless books, but how did they get to be who they were—what was it they learned (and how) that made them great?  Inspired by traditional biographies glossing over the formative part of the subjects’ lives, Daniel Wolff has written HOW LINCOLN LEARNED TO READ: Twelve Great Americans and the Education That Made Them Great.
 
Beginning with Benjamin Franklin and ending with Elvis Presley, prize-winning author Daniel Wolff creates a series of intimate, interlocking portraits of notable Americans that track the nation’s developing notion of what it means to get a “good education.”
 
From the stubborn early feminism of Abigail Adams to the “miracle” of Helen Keller, from the savage childhood of Andrew Jackson to the academic ambitions of W.E.B. Du Bois, a single, fascinating narrative emerges.  It connects the illiterate Sojourner Truth to the privileged Jack Kennedy, takes us from Paiute Indians scavenging on western deserts to the birth of Henry Ford’s assembly line.  And as the book traces the education we value—both in and outside the classroom—it becomes a history of key American ideas.
 
In the end, HOW LINCOLN LEARNED TO READ delivers us to today’s headlines.  Standardizing testing, achievement gaps, the very purpose of public education—all have their roots in this narrative.
 
 
“This extended essay, in the form of a dozen entertaining profiles of great Americans provides an unusual look at the varieties of educational experience that shaped these groundbreakers.” 
 —Publishers Weekly (starred)
 
“A riveting, original examination of education inside and outside the classroom.  Well thought-out, well-argued and thoroughly engaging.”
—Kirkus (starred)
 
Daniel Wolff is the author of 4th of July, Asbury Park, picked as an Editor’s Choice in The New York Times Book Review. He has written for publications from Vogue to Wooden Boat to Education Weekly. His other books include You Send Me, two volumes of poetry, and collaborations with the photographers Ernest Withers, Eric Meola, and Danny Lyon. He is currently producing a documentary project on New Orleans, Right to Return, with director Jonathan Demme.