The First Ladies: Mary Todd Lincoln
One thing I'm learning from this project is that often the first ladies are not who I expect them to be. Take Mary Todd Lincoln for instance. My first impression of her is of someone who was kookoo for cocoa puffs crazy. But that's a completely unfair characterization of her. It's true that she was emotionally affected by a number of tragedies in her life, but she is a much more complex person than she is often portrayed.
Her full name was Mary Anne Todd Lincoln and she was born in Lexington, Kentucky on December 13, 1818. Her father was Robert Smith Todd, who had at various times been a merchant, a lawyer, an officer in the War of 1812, and a member of the Kentucky legislature. Her mother was Eliza Ann Parker, but she died a few weeks before Mary's 7th birthday. A year later her father married Elizabeth Humphreys. Mary was the fourth of seven children born of her father's first marriage. She had three brothers and three sisters. She also had four half-brothers and five half-sisters. Mary's brother George Todd and her half-brothers Alexander Todd, David Todd, and Samuel Todd all fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Alexander Todd was killed at Baton Rouge, Samuel Todd was killed in the Battle of Shiloh and David Todd was wounded at Vicksburg. Her half-sister Emilie Helm's husband was a Confederate general killed at Chickamauga. The husbands of her half-sisters, Martha White and Elodie Dawson were ardent supporters of the Confederacy.
Mary Lincoln was 5’2” tall. She had blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. Her religion was Presbyterian, but she was also an adherent of spiritualism, believing the living could be in contact with the dead.
She was educated at Shelby Female Academy, from 1826 to 1832, where she studied grammar, geography, arithmetic, poetry, literature. She also attended Madame Mentelle's Boarding School from 1832 to 1837, where she learned to speak and write French. Her father was a close friend of Henry Clay, which helped Mary developed a keen interest in politics. Despite having Confederates in the family, she also had abolitionist influences. Her grandmother aided slaves seeking freedom through the "Underground Railroad" and this is believed to influenced Mary's support of abolition.
On November 4, 1842, the 23 year old bride married lawyer Abraham Lincoln, nine years her senior, in the front parlor of the home of her sister Elizabeth in Springfield, Illinois. For the first two years of their marriage, they lived at the Globe Tavern in Springfield. In 1844, they purchased their first and only home at Eight and Jackson Streets in Springfield. The marriage would produce four sons: Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln (who would die in 1850 at age 4), William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln (who would also die as a child at the age of 12), and Thomas "Tad" Lincoln (who would only live to the age of 18).
Mary Lincoln made the unusual move of moving to Washington for the two years that her husband served in Congress, living with him and their first child in a boardinghouse. She nevertheless took an active role in promoting her husband's political career. When he was offered the governorship of the faraway Oregon territory, she successfully advised against his accepting the post since it would remove him from a potential national position. She took in sessions of the state legislature at the capital and filled a notebook with information about each member. She attended the last of the famous debates between her husband and Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas as Lincoln made a second attempt to win a U.S. Senate seat. She took a special interest in the transition of the Whig Party into the new Republican one and often wrote to influential friends in Kentucky regarding Lincoln's views on slavery.
During Lincoln's presidential candidacy in 1860, Mary would speak with reporters who came to Springfield to cover Lincoln's campaign. Lincoln's 1861 inaugural was overshadowed by threats on his life. Many of social elite of Washington, including the outgoing First Lady Harriet Lane, had pre-judged the "western" Mrs. Lincoln as unsuited to assume a social leadership role.
It is unclear what mental and physical problems Mary Lincoln may have suffered. Certainly her ailments were exacerbated by a series of tragic circumstances during her White House tenure: the trauma of Civil War, including the allegiance of much of her family to the Confederacy and their death or injury in battle; an 1863 accident which threw her from a carriage and knocked her unconscious; the accusations by northerners that she was sympathetic to the Confederacy and the ostracizing of her as a "traitor" by southerners; the sudden death of her son Willie in 1862; and, of course, the worst incident of all, the assassination of her husband as she sat beside him in the Ford's Theater.
Mary Lincoln is sometimes criticized for her expensive 1861 White House redecoration and her extravagant clothing purchases (the former over-running a federal appropriation of $20,000 by $6,000, and the latter driving her family into great debt). She told friends that these were a necessary effort to create an image of the stability that would command respect not only for the President but for the Union. Public and press reaction however was less understanding, often making her the target of ridicule and anger. She was portrayed as a selfish and indulgent woman inconsiderate of the suffering that most of the nation's families were enduring as a result of the war. She would sometimes press Republican appointees to pay her debts, since they owed their positions to her husband.
By April, 1861, Union soldiers were encamped at the White House and would remain for the balance of the Administration. Mary Lincoln worked as a volunteer nurse in the Union hospitals, offered intelligence she had learned as well as her own advice to the President on military personnel, recommended minor military appointments to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, toured Union Army camps and reviewed troops with her husband. She was not successful in her efforts to have her husband get rid of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, Secretary of State William Seward, General George McClellan and General Ulysses Grant. Numerous abolitionists, however, attested to her core value of full emancipation of African-American slaves. She considered the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to be a personal victory. Two public causes in which Mary Lincoln became involved in were the Sanitary Commission fairs, which raised private donations to supplement the federal funds for soldier supplies, like blankets and the Contraband Relief Association, which also raised private donations for the housing, employment, clothing and medical care of recently freed slaves. She became involved in the latter organization as a result of her friendship with her dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley.
Mary Lincoln was the first presidential wife to be called "First Lady" in the press. The earliest use of the term appeared in the London Times and the Sacramento Union newspapers.
Mary Lincoln was deeply traumatized by her husband's assassination. She did not move out of the White House until May 23, 1865. She relocated to Chicago and in 1868, she moved with her son Tad to Germany. She urged Congress to award her a presidential widow's pension. In 1871, a year after receiving the annual pension of $3,000, she returned to the United States. The sudden death that year of her son Tad affected her adversely emotionally and she began behaving in what her son Robert considered to be signs of mental instability. He successfully petitioned a court to have her declared insane. In 1875, she was committed to the Bellevue Insane Asylum, in Batavia, Illinois. On the day after the verdict was made, she twice attempted suicide by taking what she believed to be the drugs laudanum and camphor, but a suspicious druggist had replaced her prescription with a sugar substance. One of the nation's first women lawyers, Myra Bradwell believed Mrs. Lincoln was not insane and being held against her will. (Mary Bradwell was also a fellow spiritualist.) She filed an appeal on Mrs. Lincoln's behalf and after four months of confinement, the former First Lady was released to the care of her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield. A second trial held on June 19, 1876 declared her sane, following which she moved to France. After four years abroad she returned to live again in the Edwards home, in October 1880. Her pension was increased to $5,000 in 1882.
Mary Lincoln died at the home of her sister Elizabeth Edwards, Springfield, Illinois on July 16, 1882 at the age of 63. She is buried at the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
Her full name was Mary Anne Todd Lincoln and she was born in Lexington, Kentucky on December 13, 1818. Her father was Robert Smith Todd, who had at various times been a merchant, a lawyer, an officer in the War of 1812, and a member of the Kentucky legislature. Her mother was Eliza Ann Parker, but she died a few weeks before Mary's 7th birthday. A year later her father married Elizabeth Humphreys. Mary was the fourth of seven children born of her father's first marriage. She had three brothers and three sisters. She also had four half-brothers and five half-sisters. Mary's brother George Todd and her half-brothers Alexander Todd, David Todd, and Samuel Todd all fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Alexander Todd was killed at Baton Rouge, Samuel Todd was killed in the Battle of Shiloh and David Todd was wounded at Vicksburg. Her half-sister Emilie Helm's husband was a Confederate general killed at Chickamauga. The husbands of her half-sisters, Martha White and Elodie Dawson were ardent supporters of the Confederacy.
Mary Lincoln was 5’2” tall. She had blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. Her religion was Presbyterian, but she was also an adherent of spiritualism, believing the living could be in contact with the dead.
She was educated at Shelby Female Academy, from 1826 to 1832, where she studied grammar, geography, arithmetic, poetry, literature. She also attended Madame Mentelle's Boarding School from 1832 to 1837, where she learned to speak and write French. Her father was a close friend of Henry Clay, which helped Mary developed a keen interest in politics. Despite having Confederates in the family, she also had abolitionist influences. Her grandmother aided slaves seeking freedom through the "Underground Railroad" and this is believed to influenced Mary's support of abolition.
On November 4, 1842, the 23 year old bride married lawyer Abraham Lincoln, nine years her senior, in the front parlor of the home of her sister Elizabeth in Springfield, Illinois. For the first two years of their marriage, they lived at the Globe Tavern in Springfield. In 1844, they purchased their first and only home at Eight and Jackson Streets in Springfield. The marriage would produce four sons: Robert Todd Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln (who would die in 1850 at age 4), William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln (who would also die as a child at the age of 12), and Thomas "Tad" Lincoln (who would only live to the age of 18).
Mary Lincoln made the unusual move of moving to Washington for the two years that her husband served in Congress, living with him and their first child in a boardinghouse. She nevertheless took an active role in promoting her husband's political career. When he was offered the governorship of the faraway Oregon territory, she successfully advised against his accepting the post since it would remove him from a potential national position. She took in sessions of the state legislature at the capital and filled a notebook with information about each member. She attended the last of the famous debates between her husband and Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas as Lincoln made a second attempt to win a U.S. Senate seat. She took a special interest in the transition of the Whig Party into the new Republican one and often wrote to influential friends in Kentucky regarding Lincoln's views on slavery.
During Lincoln's presidential candidacy in 1860, Mary would speak with reporters who came to Springfield to cover Lincoln's campaign. Lincoln's 1861 inaugural was overshadowed by threats on his life. Many of social elite of Washington, including the outgoing First Lady Harriet Lane, had pre-judged the "western" Mrs. Lincoln as unsuited to assume a social leadership role.
It is unclear what mental and physical problems Mary Lincoln may have suffered. Certainly her ailments were exacerbated by a series of tragic circumstances during her White House tenure: the trauma of Civil War, including the allegiance of much of her family to the Confederacy and their death or injury in battle; an 1863 accident which threw her from a carriage and knocked her unconscious; the accusations by northerners that she was sympathetic to the Confederacy and the ostracizing of her as a "traitor" by southerners; the sudden death of her son Willie in 1862; and, of course, the worst incident of all, the assassination of her husband as she sat beside him in the Ford's Theater.
Mary Lincoln is sometimes criticized for her expensive 1861 White House redecoration and her extravagant clothing purchases (the former over-running a federal appropriation of $20,000 by $6,000, and the latter driving her family into great debt). She told friends that these were a necessary effort to create an image of the stability that would command respect not only for the President but for the Union. Public and press reaction however was less understanding, often making her the target of ridicule and anger. She was portrayed as a selfish and indulgent woman inconsiderate of the suffering that most of the nation's families were enduring as a result of the war. She would sometimes press Republican appointees to pay her debts, since they owed their positions to her husband.
By April, 1861, Union soldiers were encamped at the White House and would remain for the balance of the Administration. Mary Lincoln worked as a volunteer nurse in the Union hospitals, offered intelligence she had learned as well as her own advice to the President on military personnel, recommended minor military appointments to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, toured Union Army camps and reviewed troops with her husband. She was not successful in her efforts to have her husband get rid of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase, Secretary of State William Seward, General George McClellan and General Ulysses Grant. Numerous abolitionists, however, attested to her core value of full emancipation of African-American slaves. She considered the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to be a personal victory. Two public causes in which Mary Lincoln became involved in were the Sanitary Commission fairs, which raised private donations to supplement the federal funds for soldier supplies, like blankets and the Contraband Relief Association, which also raised private donations for the housing, employment, clothing and medical care of recently freed slaves. She became involved in the latter organization as a result of her friendship with her dressmaker, former slave Elizabeth Keckley.
Mary Lincoln was the first presidential wife to be called "First Lady" in the press. The earliest use of the term appeared in the London Times and the Sacramento Union newspapers.
Mary Lincoln was deeply traumatized by her husband's assassination. She did not move out of the White House until May 23, 1865. She relocated to Chicago and in 1868, she moved with her son Tad to Germany. She urged Congress to award her a presidential widow's pension. In 1871, a year after receiving the annual pension of $3,000, she returned to the United States. The sudden death that year of her son Tad affected her adversely emotionally and she began behaving in what her son Robert considered to be signs of mental instability. He successfully petitioned a court to have her declared insane. In 1875, she was committed to the Bellevue Insane Asylum, in Batavia, Illinois. On the day after the verdict was made, she twice attempted suicide by taking what she believed to be the drugs laudanum and camphor, but a suspicious druggist had replaced her prescription with a sugar substance. One of the nation's first women lawyers, Myra Bradwell believed Mrs. Lincoln was not insane and being held against her will. (Mary Bradwell was also a fellow spiritualist.) She filed an appeal on Mrs. Lincoln's behalf and after four months of confinement, the former First Lady was released to the care of her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield. A second trial held on June 19, 1876 declared her sane, following which she moved to France. After four years abroad she returned to live again in the Edwards home, in October 1880. Her pension was increased to $5,000 in 1882.
Mary Lincoln died at the home of her sister Elizabeth Edwards, Springfield, Illinois on July 16, 1882 at the age of 63. She is buried at the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.