Julie M. Fenster

Julie M. Fenster turns episodes from medicine, invention, transportation, and political life into narrative history. The Case of Abraham Lincoln examines an 1856 criminal trial in Springfield, Illinois, in which Lincoln joined the defence before becoming president. Fenster reconstructs the poisoning allegations, questions of adultery and motive, and the courtroom strategy used to challenge the prosecution's case. Published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007, the book uses the trial to illuminate Lincoln's legal practice and the professional world of the travelling Illinois bar. Its focus is not simply the crime itself, but the habits of argument and judgement Lincoln developed during the years preceding his national political rise. Fenster's other books include Ether Day and Race of the Century, works that similarly build broad historical narratives around consequential episodes. Here, archival legal material supports a portrait of Lincoln as a working lawyer confronting an emotionally charged case.