Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House

ELIZABETH HOBBS KECKLEY (1818-1907), dressmaker to the elite of Washington D.C. on the eve of the Civil War, was, remarkably, a free black woman who'd purchased her emancipation through the fruits of her own hard work. In 1861, she became the personal designer to Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as one of the First Lady's closest confidantes. Only a few years later, however, that relationship was in ruins, when this 1868 book created a scandal. Intended by Keckley to rehabilitate the reputation of the former First Lady-who had run up extensive debts on clothing and other luxuries while in the White House, and found herself unable to repay them after the President's assassination-the book was perceived instead as a betrayal of friendship. Perhaps one of the first examples of celebrity gossip publishing gone awry, Behind the Scenes does, nevertheless, offer an insider perspective on the Lincoln White House that will intrigue armchair historians and fans of biography alike.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

PREFACE

 

CHAPTER I - WHERE I WAS BORN

CHAPTER II - GIRLHOOD AND ITS SORROWS

CHAPTER III - HOW I GAINED MY FREEDOM

CHAPTER IV - IN THE FAMILY OF SENATOR JEFFERSON DAVIS

CHAPTER V - MY INTRODUCTION TO MRS. LINCOLN

CHAPTER VI - WILLIE LINCOLN’S DEATH-BED

CHAPTER VII - WASHINGTON IN 1862-3

CHAPTER VIII - CANDID OPINIONS

CHAPTER IX - BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER X - THE SECOND INAUGURATION

CHAPTER XI - THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN

CHAPTER XII - MRS. LINCOLN LEAVES THE WHITE HOUSE

CHAPTER XIII - THE ORIGIN OF THE RIVALRY BETWEEN MR. DOUGLAS AND MR. LINCOLN

CHAPTER XIV - OLD FRIENDS

CHAPTER XV - THE SECRET HISTORY OF MRS. LINCOLN’S WARDROBE IN NEW YORK

APPENDIX

Explanatory Notes

PENGUINCLASSICS

BEHIND THE SCENES

ELIZABETH HOBBS KECKLEY (1818-1907) was born a slave near Dinwiddie Court House, Virginia, but purchased her freedom at the age of thirty-seven and set up a successful dressmaking business in Washington, D.C., in 1860. After serving as a seamstress for Varina Davis, wife of the Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis, Keckley became the modiste for Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady of the United States, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president of the United States in 1861. Gaining ready access to the Lincoln family by virtue of her constant employment by Mrs. Lincoln, Keckley spent much of the next four years in the White House, where she became not only Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker but her friend and confidante. After President Lincoln was assassinated in the spring of 1865 and his widow moved back to Illinois, Keckley remained a trusted advisor and support to Mrs. Lincoln. Stung by public criticism of her efforts to help the debt-ridden former First Lady raise money by selling her expensive wardrobe, Keckley tried to defend herself in her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, which was published in New York in 1868. Keckley’s intimate perspective on the relationship between the martyred president and his wife, along with the publication of many letters from Mrs. Lincoln to Keckley, made Behind the Scenes instantly controversial as an “indecent book” authored by a “traitorous eavesdropper.” Returning to her business, Keckley lived and worked in Washington, D.C., until 1892, when she moved to Ohio to accept a position as head of Wilberforce University’s Domestic Science department. She died in 1907, a resident of the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, D.C.

 

WILLIAM L. ANDREWS, E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt (1980) and To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865 (1986). He is the editor or coeditor of more than thirty books on African American literature, including The Oxford Companion to African American Literature (1997), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (2003), and North Carolina Slave Narratives (2003). He has held research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society, and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

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First published in the United States of America by G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers 1868

This edition with an introduction and notes by William L. Andrews published in Penguin Books 2005

 

 

Introduction and notes copyright © William L. Andrews, 2005

All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Keckley, Elizabeth, ca. 1818-1907.

Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House / Elizabeth Keckley ; introduction and notes by William L. Andrews. p. cm.—(Penguin classics)

Originally published: New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1868.

eISBN : 978-1-101-00732-7

1. Keckley, Elizabeth, ca. 1818-1907. 2. African American women—Biography. 3. Women slaves—United
States—Biography. 4. Dressmakers—United States—Biography. 5. Slaves—United States—Biography.
6. Lincoln, Mary Todd, 1818-1882-Relations with African Americans. 7. Lincoln, Abraham,
1809-1865—Relations with African Americans. I. Title: Behind the scenes. II. Title: Thirty years a slave
and four years in the White House. III. Andrews, William L., 1946- IV. Title. V. Series.

 

 

E457.15.K26 2005
973.7’092—dc22
[B] 2004051363

 

Set in Sabon

 

 

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Note on the Text

This edition of Behind the Scenes reprints the original 1868 edition, as published by G. W. Carleton & Company. The original spelling, capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing, and chapter and section divisions in the 1868 edition have been preserved in this edition, except when there is an inconsistency of spelling within a text, the evident result of a printer’s error. Keckley’s original footnotes are reprinted as they appeared in the 1868 edition. All numbered annotations to the text are provided by the editor of this Penguin Classics edition.

Introduction