Mary Todd Lincoln A Biography

Download or read book The True Mary Todd Lincoln written by Betty Boles Ellison and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-04-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new biography provides a startlingly different picture of Mary Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln's wife. Preconceived myths about the former first lady are factually disproved. At times her judgment was faulty; in other instances it was brilliant. After her 1861 refurbishing of the Executive Mansion, she made no further furnishings purchases, only replacement items. The furniture she purchased is still in use and the Lincoln bed is well known. Committed to an insane asylum by her only surviving son, she organized, while under constant scrutiny, her friends in a skillfully successful scheme to obtain her freedom and resume control of her life and money. Mary Todd Lincoln had a brilliant mind, a caring heart and an exuberant personality and she was, in every aspect, a true partner to Abraham Lincoln.

Download or read book Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography written by Jean Harvey Baker and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-10-17 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A striking success…the account of the White House years is absorbing, the account of Mary Lincoln's life as a widow utterly compelling." —New York Times This definitive biography of Mary Todd Lincoln beautifully conveys her tumultuous life and times. A privileged daughter of the proud clan that founded Lexington, Kentucky, Mary fell into a stormy romance with the raw Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-five years the Lincolns forged opposing temperaments into a tolerant, loving marriage. Even as the nation suffered secession and civil war, Mary experienced the tragedies of losing three of her four children and then her husband. An insanity trial orchestrated by her surviving son led to her confinement in an asylum. Mary Todd Lincoln is still often portrayed in one dimension, as the stereotype of the best-hated faults of all women. Here her life is restored for us whole.

Download or read book An American Marriage written by Michael Burlingame and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth president's life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln’s marriage to Mary Todd. Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded “connubial bliss” as an untenable fantasy. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. As the president signed a document sparing the soldier's life, Lincoln said: “I want to punish the young man—probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.” Based on thirty years of research, An American Marriage describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. This revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. Perhaps surprisingly, the 5’2” Mrs. Lincoln often physically abused her 6’4” husband, as well as her children and servants; she humiliated her husband in public; she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the “ardent abolitionist” that some historians have portrayed. While she providid a useful stimulus to his ambition, she often “crushed his spirit,” as his law partner put it. In the end, Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he did—where he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult people—if he had not had so much practice at home.

Download or read book Mary Todd Lincoln written by Mary Todd Lincoln and published by Fromm International. This book was released on 1987 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The personal correspondences of Mary Todd Lincoln create an intimate portrait of her life and marriage to Lincoln as well as her struggles after his death

Download or read book Mrs. Lincoln written by Catherine Clinton and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abraham Lincoln is the most revered president in American history, but the woman at the center of his life—his wife, Mary—has remained a historical enigma. One of the most tragic and mysterious of nineteenth-century figures, Mary Lincoln and her story symbolize the pain and loss of Civil War America. Authoritative and utterly engrossing, Mrs. Lincoln is the long-awaited portrait of the woman who so richly contributed to Lincoln's life and legacy.

Download or read book Mary written by Janis Cooke Newman and published by MacAdam/Cage Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While residing in Bellevue Place Sanitarium, Mary Todd Lincoln shares her life story, from her childhood in Kentucky to her marriage to Abraham Lincoln and beyond.

Download or read book Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker written by Jennifer Chiaverini and published by Dutton. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.