Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. He moved with his parents and an older sister, Sarah, to the backwoods of Indiana when he was seven. His mother died two years later. They were poor and Abe helped support the family by clearing land, plowing fields, husking corn, splitting logs for fences, doing carpentry work and various odd jobs. But Abe grew up with a keen desire for knowledge. When Abe's father remarried, Abe's stepmother took a special interest in him by encouraging him to read and study.
Abe always said that he went to school “by littles,” which meant a few weeks at a time when he was six, seven, eleven, thirteen, and fifteen. However, the sum total of his schoolhouse education did not even amount to one full year. Abe educated himself mainly by reading books and newspapers that he borrowed from others. He studied by firelight, working out arithmetic problems using charcoal on a wooden slate. Later when he was able to obtain paper, he practiced writing in a homemade copybook with a feather pen and blackberry ink.
Abe always had a book in his pocket to read out in the field when he had a break between chores. He commented one time that he had “read through every book that he had heard of within a circuit of fifty miles.” His favorites included the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Pilgrim’s Progress, Grimshaw’s History of the United States, a biography of George Washington, Shakespeare’s plays, and the poetry of Robert Burns.
The family moved to Illinois when Abe was 21, and after helping his father set up a new farm there, he then set out on his own. Lincoln worked as a riverboat pilot, a surveyor, a store clerk, and a postmaster, while in his spare time studying law books and teaching himself to be a lawyer. ...
