Among a certain subset of Illinois fifth-graders whose fathers are American history teachers, meeting Abraham Lincoln is a special occasion. Attending a local Civil War Days festival in the late 1980s, my sister and I had our picture taken with a Lincoln impersonator, and I stood up straight and proud. I suppose I knew he wasn’t the real Lincoln — but that hat, that beard! When, a few years later, I saw him pick up a sack of burritos at a Taco Bell — in full regalia, with his wife dressed as Mary Todd Lincoln — I couldn’t have been more surprised than if I saw Jesus at Burger King.

This fast-food-loving president is one of hundreds of impersonators, or, as they prefer, presenters, who appear in costume at museums, parades, and elementary schools throughout the country (okay, mostly the Midwest). In Andrew Ferguson’s lively new book “Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe’s America” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 288 pages, $24), he sets out to discover why Lincoln, more than almost every other historical figure, retains such a hold over Americans. There are very few George Washington or Franklin Roosevelt presenters, after all.

In the course of his quest, Mr. Ferguson attends the annual convention of the Association of Lincoln Presenters, 250 members strong, including dozens who work with their very own Mary Todd. Mr. Ferguson witnesses the unveiling of a statue in Richmond, Va., opposed by a handful of anti-Abe activists, and meets a Beverly Hills widow who has assembled “the most spectacular collection of Lincolniana still in private hands,” including the blood-spattered gloves he carried that night at Ford’s Theater.

The author’s generous, curious spirit makes room for almost all Lincoln lovers, even the married couple who conduct a misguided management training workshop called “Lessons From Lincoln” at the Gettysburg Battlefield Holiday Inn. The PowerPoint presentation reads “? USA as a fast-growth company.”

Mr. Ferguson has little patience, however, for academics such as Eric Foner who have turned Lincoln from Great Man into man next door, infusing history with identity politics. They focus on “marginalized constituencies” at the expense of great men, and their museums display rows of authentic sewing kits rather than dramatic dioramas. “A good exhibit makes people see themselves,” one official at the Chicago Historical Society tells Mr. Ferguson. Seeing ourselves is more important, apparently, than seeing heroes: The CHS dismantled its expansive Lincoln Gallery in the late 1980s.

The most egregious manifestation of this ethos may be in the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. Here, Lincoln has been polished, feminized, and made “fun.” There are rooms full of dresses and a re-creation of the White House kitchen, arranged with the goal of “emotional engineering.” Lincoln’s casket, open in 1865 throughout its cross-country train tour, is closed at the museum because an authentic re-creation would be too grotesque. There are no guns whatsoever, because, as the head designer, a former Disney employee, explained, “We made a conscious decision that we did not want to glorify war, and we did not want to glorify the mechanics of war.” The museum seems to have been specially designed to nip any young Lincoln enthusiasts in the bud.

The author does his best to turn his children into Lincoln buffs, dragging them along the Lincoln Heritage Trail through Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Dreamed up by the American Petroleum Institute in the 1960s, the now-defunct trail was invented to “Get ’em into their cars, get ’em buying gasoline,” its creator tells Mr. Ferguson. Stops included the Indianapolis 500 Speedway and several golf courses, along with Lincoln’s Springfield law office, Mary Todd Lincoln’s girlhood home, and the tavern where their son Robert Todd Lincoln was conceived. The family’s trip is boisterous and disorganized, it doubles back on itself, it includes coffin-shaped chocolates and the chance to touch banisters Lincoln once gripped — it’s real fun, in other words, and it teaches the kids dates and facts that the emotionally obsessed Springfield museum does not even bother with.

The worst thing you can call Lincoln these days is an icon. The business seminar leaders tell Mr. Ferguson they aren’t interested in “Lincoln the icon.” “You go to the Lincoln Memorial, you get an icon, but here you get the man,” the director of the Springfield museum tells him. “I’m not in the icon business,” its designer says. Everywhere Mr. Ferguson travels, he finds Americans who want to make Lincoln “relevant” by making him average, or who look at the great emancipator and manage to see only a reflection of themselves. At the end of his trip, he visits the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. There Lincoln is, finally, a giant among men.