In the late 1910s, Babcock became fascinated with the love story between Ann Rutledge and Abraham Lincoln. She first read about the story in the Ladies Home Journal and decided to pursue further research. Babcock went to California to interview Ann’s younger sister to verify the romance, and she obtained written accounts from Ann’s older brother, who had been Lincoln’s friend.
Because of Babcock’s early fascination with the Rutledge/Lincoln romance, she developed into one of the country’s leading experts on Lincoln for her time. Writing to the Library of Congress while researching Lincoln, she discovered that the Library contained over 50,000 books and papers on the the country’s sixteenth president and related materials. Babcock preferred to find primary source material on Lincoln through correspondence with people who had personally known him. Babcock’s thorough research ultimately added to the wealth of Lincoln scholarship.
Babcock went on to write four more books concerning the country’s sixteenth president: The Soul of Abe Lincoln (1923), Booth and the Spirit of Lincoln (1925), Little Abe Lincoln (1926), and Lincoln’s Mary and the Babies (1929).