Daniel Wolff

Daniel Wolff is an American author whose nonfiction connects cultural history, education, music, and place. How Lincoln Learned to Read follows the informal and formal educations of twelve Americans, beginning with Benjamin Franklin and ending with Elvis Presley. Rather than treating schooling as a classroom subject alone, Wolff asks how experience, work, reading, family, and self-directed study shaped public lives. Bloomsbury USA published the book under the fuller title How Lincoln Learned to Read: Twelve Great Americans and the Educations That Made Them. Wolff's wider body of work includes a biography of Sam Cooke, a history of Asbury Park, poetry collections, and documentary collaborations about New Orleans. That range gives his account of learning a distinct interest in both individual voices and the social settings around them.