Burlingame's new book tells Lincoln's life story in photos

Dr. Michael Burlingame, the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, has partnered with photographer Robert Shaw to write a unique book on Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln Traveled This Way—The America Lincoln Knew weaves Burlingame’s writing and Shaw’s images together to tell Lincoln’s life story. Burlingame uses the historical record and Lincoln’s own words as part of the photographic journey.

“I am delighted to have been a part of this remarkable project,” said Burlingame. “My one major regret when Abraham Lincoln: A Life was published was that it contained so few illustrations. I wish Robert Shaw's exceptionally beautiful photographs could have been included in the biography.”

The new book depicts the buildings where Lincoln lived and worked, the routes he took riding the circuit as a lawyer, and the places that helped shape him and his destiny. Shaw carefully composed and edited the images to eliminate any modern intrusions, so the resulting images depict as closely as possible the actual scenes Lincoln would have seen.

The journey to develop the 276-page book took five years and covered more than 100,000 miles, including such locations as Lincoln’s boyhood home in Indiana, numerous Illinois sites, the White House, key battlefields of the Civil War, and Ford's Theater.

Copies of the book are available in the Springfield area. For more information, visit Shaw's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/robertshawphotography.