Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House PDF Download
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Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195052596
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
Part slave narrative, part memoir, and part sentimental fiction Behind the Scenes depicts Elizabeth Keckley's years as a salve and subsequent four years in Abraham Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, we see a wide range of historical figures and events of the antebellum South, the Washington of the Civil War years, and the final stages of the war.
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195052596
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
Part slave narrative, part memoir, and part sentimental fiction Behind the Scenes depicts Elizabeth Keckley's years as a salve and subsequent four years in Abraham Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, we see a wide range of historical figures and events of the antebellum South, the Washington of the Civil War years, and the final stages of the war.
Author: Jennifer Chiaverini
Publisher: Dutton
ISBN: 0142180351
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini's compelling historical novel unveils the private lives of Abraham and Mary Lincoln through the perspective of the First Lady's most trusted confidante and friend, her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. In a life that spanned nearly a century and witnessed some of the most momentous events in American history, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was born a slave. A gifted seamstress, she earned her freedom by the skill of her needle, and won the friendship of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln by her devotion. A sweeping historical novel, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker illuminates the extraordinary relationship the two women shared, beginning in the hallowed halls of the White House during the trials of the Civil War and enduring almost, but not quite, to the end of Mrs. Lincoln's days.
Author: Jennifer Fleischner
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307419150
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397
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Book Description
A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary Lincoln wrote to Elizabeth Keckly in 1867, and indeed theirs was a close, if tumultuous, relationship. Born into slavery, mulatto Elizabeth Keckly was Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, confidante, and mainstay during the difficult years that the Lincolns occupied the White House and the early years of Mary’s widowhood. But she was a fascinating woman in her own right, Lizzy had bought her freedom in 1855 and come to Washington determined to make a life for herself. She was independent and already well-established as the dressmaker to the Washington elite when she was first hired by Mary Lincoln upon her arrival in the nation’s capital. Mary Lincoln hired Lizzy in part because she was considered a “high society” seamstress and Mary, as an outsider in Washington’s social circles, was desperate for social cachet. With her husband struggling to keep the nation together, Mary turned increasingly to her seamstress for companionship, support, and advice—and over the course of those trying years, Lizzy Keckly became her confidante and closest friend. Historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the intimate dynamics of this unusual friendship for the first time, and traces the pivotal events that enabled these two women to forge such an unlikely bond at a time when relations between blacks and whites were tearing the nation apart. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly is a remarkable work of scholarship that explores the legacy of slavery and sheds new light on the Lincoln White House.
Author: Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0230108938
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Chronicles the life of a former slave to James and Dolley Madison, tracing his early years on their plantation, his service in the Madison White House household staff and post-emancipation achievements as a first White House memoirist and father of two Union Army soldiers.
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480474827
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
The revealing memoir of a woman who bought her freedom from slavery and became a White House dressmaker and confidant to Mary Todd Lincoln. Born into slavery in Virginia, Elizabeth Keckley was whipped, sexually abused, and separated from her mother for long stretches of time. When her master eventually settled in St. Louis, Missouri, Keckley resolved to buy her freedom. She put to use her talents as a seamstress and found patrons among the wives of the city’s elite, eventually earning enough money to move with her young son to Washington, DC. In the nation’s capital, Keckley started her own business and soon had commissions from the wives of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stephen A. Douglas, and Edwin Stanton. Hired by Mary Todd Lincoln to be her personal modiste, Keckley formed a close friendship with the first lady, a relationship strengthened by the tragedies they endured together, including the deaths of their sons and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Published to great controversy in 1868, Behind the Scenes offers an intimate and revealing portrait of life inside the White House as well as the stirring story of one woman’s fight to rise above the horrors of slavery. Frequently cited in studies of the Civil War and biographies of the Lincolns, it is a must read for students of American history. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Author: Louis Hughes
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3752305118
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 98
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Book Description
Reproduction of the original: Thirty Years A Slave by Louis Hughes
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
I HAVE often been asked to write my life, as those who know me know that it has been an eventful one. At last I have acceded to the importunities of my friends, and have hastily sketched some of the striking incidents that go to make up my history. My life, so full of romance, may sound like a dream to the matter-of-fact reader, nevertheless everything I have written is strictly true; much has been omitted, but nothing has been exaggerated. In writing as I have done, I am well aware that I have invited criticism; but before the critic judges harshly, let my explanation be carefully read and weighed. If I have portrayed the dark side of slavery, I also have painted the bright side. The good that I have said of human servitude should be thrown into the scales with the evil that I have said of it. I have kind, true-hearted friends in the South as well as in the North, and I would not wound those Southern friends by sweeping condemnation, simply because I was once a slave. They were not so much responsible for the curse under which I was born, as the God of nature and the fathers who framed the Constitution for the United States. The law descended to them, and it was but natural that they should recognize it, since it manifestly was their interest to do so. And yet a wrong was inflicted upon me; a cruel custom deprived me of my liberty, and since I was robbed of my dearest right, I would not have been human had I not rebelled against the robbery. God rules the Universe. I was a feeble instrument in His hands, and through me and the enslaved millions of my race, one of the problems was solved that belongs to the great problem of human destiny; and the solution was developed so gradually that there was no great convulsion of the harmonies of natural laws. A solemn truth was thrown to the surface, and what is better still, it was recognized as a truth by those who give force to moral laws. An act may be wrong, but unless the ruling power recognizes the wrong, it is useless to hope for a correction of it. Principles may be right, but they are not established within an hour. The masses are slow to reason, and each principle, to acquire moral force, must come to us from the fire of the crucible; the fire may inflict unjust punishment, but then it purifies and renders stronger the principle, not in itself, but in the eyes of those who arrogate judgment to themselves. When the war of the Revolution established the independence of the American colonies, an evil was perpetuated, slavery was more firmly established; and since the evil had been planted, it must pass through certain stages before it could be eradicated. In fact, we give but little thought to the plant of evil until it grows to such monstrous proportions that it overshadows important interests; then the efforts to destroy it become earnest. As one of the victims of slavery I drank of the bitter water; but then, since destiny willed it so, and since I aided in bringing a solemn truth to the surface as a truth, perhaps I have no right to complain. Here, as in all things pertaining to life, I can afford to be charitable.
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
Behind the Scenes (1868) is both a slave narrative and a portrait of the First Family of America, especially of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln. After the assassination of President Lincoln, Elizabeth Keckley the former slave turned confidant and dress maker of Mrs. Lincoln took it upon herself to provide financial support to her by writing this slave narrative. But in spite of Keckley's good intentions the publication of her life story spelled doom for her own career and her friendship with the Lincolns to an extent that all efforts were made to suppress and falsify it. Yet this book has survived all odds and has now become an important document on Anti-Slavery and the Lincolns. A must read for anyone who is interested in American History! Elizabeth Keckley (1818-1907) was a former slave who became a successful dressmaker, civil rights activist, and author in Washington, DC. Her relationship with Mary T. Lincoln was notable for its personal quality and intimacy. Besides, Keckley was also deeply committed to programs of racial improvement and protection. She helped in founding the Home for Destitute Women and Children and taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio.
Author: Sheila Smith McKoy
Publisher: Elizabeth Keckley Reader
ISBN: 9780989609258
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The Elizabeth Keckley Reader: Volume One--Writing Self, Writing Nation, edited by Sheila Smith McKoy, offers a collection of essays and other works inspired by the life of Elizabeth Keckley, a slave in Hillsborough, North Carolina, who eventually bought her freedom. She became a noted seamstress in Civil War-era Washington DC, and was most famously the confidante of Mary Lincoln. Keckley s memoir, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, is considered one of the seminal narratives of mid-19th century African American women. Scholar Sheila Smith McKoy assembles a wide variety of works published about Keckley. The Elizabeth Keckley Reader examines her life as a determined woman who overcame the horrors of the institution of slavery to become a successful entrepreneur, community leader, educator, author, and friend to the First Lady of the United States. In essays, articles and creative works, Keckley is viewed through the lens of entrepreneur, advocate, civic leader, educator, author, as well as a former slave. The comprehensive volume illuminates the life and work of this remarkable 19th-century African American woman.
Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Michigan Historical Reprint
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
