Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait

Mr. Lincoln Sits for His Portrait is a unique middle-grade depiction of America's sixteenth president, through the story of one famous photograph, written by award-winning author Leonard S. Marcus. On February 9, 1864, Abraham Lincoln made the mile-long walk from the Executive Mansion to photographer Mathew Brady's Washington, DC, studio, to be joined there later by his ten-year-old son, Tad. With a fractious re-election campaign looming that year, America's first media-savvy president was intent on securing another portrait that cast him in a favorable light, as he prepared to make the case for himself to a nation weary of war. At least four iconic pictures were made that day. One was Lincoln in profile, the image that later found its way onto the penny; two more would be adapted for the 1928 and 2008 five-dollar bills. The fourth was a dual portrait of Lincoln and Tad. The pose, featuring Lincoln reading to his son, was a last-minute improvisation, but the image that came of it was-and remains-incomparably tender and enduringly powerful. Immediately after the president's murder the following year, the picture of Lincoln reading to his son became a mass-produced icon-a cherished portrait of a nation's fallen leader, a disarmingly intimate record of a care-worn father's feeling for his child, and a timeless comment on books as a binding force between generations.