Particularly after Lincoln’s assassination, Elizabeth and Mary’s relationship really goes off the rails. She was a huge fan of Abe, and he seemed (at least by Keckley’s testament) to see her as more of a sister or cousin than an employee.īut her relationship with Mary was definitely….different. In this capacity, she was allowed very private access to the Lincolns, and she recounted some of the family’s most intimate moments. Seriously, where are the screenwriters?) her memoir spends most of its pages on her four years as Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker.

While Keckley recounts her horrific experiences as a Maryland slave and her tooth-and-nail fight to buy her own freedom (which honestly should be made into a movie. But the story inside was what really intrigued me. Happily, even though it was published in 1868, my library had a copy of it! The reprinted book was beautiful, complete with all the original print type and etchings. There was a little link at the bottom of the article about Keckley’s memoir, and it was too enticing to pass up. A former slave from Maryland who’d bought her own freedom, Keckley was a master mantua-maker who got herself the coveted position of dressmaker to the president’s wife. While noodling on the internet one day, I came across an article about Mary Lincoln’s personal dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley.

Elizabeth keckley memoir