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Mary Todd Lincoln, 1818-1882
Born Lexington, Kentucky
When her husband was elected president in 1860, Mary Todd Lincoln welcomed her role as the nation's First Lady. Yet, her years in the White House proved far from happy. Unjustly suspected by many of harboring Confederate sympathies, she quickly became a target of public criticism for everything from her Southern birth to her extravagant style of entertaining. Hurt and embittered by these attacks, Mrs. Lincoln was shaken further by the death in 1862 of the Lincolns' beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie. Still suffering from that tragic loss, she was utterly devastated by her husband's assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth in April 1865. Mrs. Lincoln never fully regained her equilibrium and spent her remaining years plagued by mental instability.
Mrs. Lincoln posed for this portrait in one of the elegant silk gowns fashioned for her by the talented African American dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley.
Mathew Brady Studio, print from 1862 wet collodion negative |