Abraham Lincoln: A failed shop, years of debt and a self taught trade
Before politics he split rails, ran a shop that failed and spent years paying off its debt. He taught himself law from borrowed books.
Labouring work
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1809 and had less than a year of formal schooling. As a young man he did farm work, split rails and took a flatboat of goods down the Mississippi to New Orleans.
A shop that failed
In New Salem, Illinois, he worked as a shop clerk and then bought a share in a general store with a partner. It failed, the partner died, and Lincoln was left with debts he took years to pay off.
Teaching himself a trade
He worked as village postmaster and as a land surveyor, learning surveying from books. He then taught himself law from borrowed books and was licensed as a lawyer in 1836.
What came of it
He lost his first election, in 1832, then won a seat in the Illinois legislature in 1834 and held it for four terms. He lost a Senate race in 1858, and won the presidency in 1860.
He paid his debts, learned trades from books and took small public jobs on the way. Building a career one modest step at a time is normal.
The myth: A list of his 'failures' shared online mixes real defeats with invented ones and wrong dates, and leaves out his many election wins. The real record is more ordinary and more useful.
Where the facts come from: Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (1995).
