If you talk with Lawrence Cook for a few minutes, you realize pretty quickly—this isn’t just a job for him. It’s something he’s been chasing most of his life.
These days, he’s a presidential historian, author, and someone who gets called when people want to connect the past to what’s happening now. But it didn’t start there.
“I’ve had a few different careers,” Cook said with a laugh.
Medical work. Business ownership. A little bit of everything. But even back as a kid, he was collecting presidential memorabilia. That interest never really went away.
About 20 years ago, his wife surprised him with a trip to Plains, Georgia. The goal was simple—meet President Jimmy Carter. And it worked.
Cook not only met Carter, but he also ended up writing him a letter afterward. Carter wrote back. By hand.
That led to another visit. Then another. Before long, Cook was helping Carter with historical items and speaking at events tied to presidential history.
Years later, Carter gave him a little nudge.
“He told me I should be doing more of this,” Cook said.
Now he travels, speaks, and writes. His latest book, Brushes with History, takes a look at artist Francis B. Carpenter—the man who lived in the White House for six months with Abraham Lincoln while painting that famous scene of the Emancipation Proclamation.
It’s one of those images most people recognize right away, even if they don’t know the name behind it.
Cook said the deeper he dug into Carpenter’s story, the more he realized how much had been overlooked. Diaries, sketches, and personal notes all helped paint a bigger picture—not just of Lincoln, but of the people around him.
Not just the big names. But the smaller stories that help fill in the gaps.
The kind of history that feels a little more personal once you hear it.
