Elizabeth Keckley. Frontispiece, Behind
the Scenes, 1868. Documenting
the American South, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries.
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An uneasy reaction to a White House
memoir
One of the most important 19th-century accounts
of life in the White House was Behind
the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four
Years in the White House. Behind
the Scenes was the memoir of Elizabeth
Keckley, dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln.
Keckley (her name on some documents is spelled “Keckly”)
was an independent businesswoman, and not
technically a member of the White House staff.
Her memoir, published in 1868, gives many
details of Mrs. Lincoln's personality and
behavior. The book also contains the text
of personal letters Keckley apparently received
from Mrs. Lincoln.
Keckley herself seemed
aware that her book might raise a public
outcry. Her preface states, "If I have
betrayed confidence in anything I have published,
it has been to place Mrs. Lincoln in a better
light before the world [. . .]."1
Behind the Scenes did meet with
a great deal of criticism, and even a parody,
whose title, Behind the Seams, lampooned
Keckley's profession as a seamstress. One
reviewer called Keckley's book "'the
latest, and decidedly weakest production
of the sensational press.'"2
In the
20th century, Behind the Scenes has
been reprinted many times. Scholars have
evaluated the narrative from various angles.
Some believe it to represent the voice of
a brave and talented woman who bought herself
out of slavery and designed gowns for a fashionable
first lady. Others believe that Keckley’s
unscrupulous editor tricked her into lending
him Mrs. Lincoln’s letters, which he
then included in the book.
1 Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes,
or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in
the White House. 1868. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press rpt., 1988), xiv.
2 Review of Behind the Scenes, Putnam's Magazine July
1868: 119, quoted in Carolyn Sorisio, "Unmasking the Genteel Performer:
Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes and the Politics of Public Wrath," African
American Review 34 (Spring 2000): 19.
Read more:
Jennifer Fleischner, Mrs Lincoln
and Mrs. Keckly. New York: Broadway
Books, 2003.
Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years
in the White House. 1868. Reprinted with an introduction by James Olney:
Oxford University Press, 1988.
Carolyn Sorisio, "Unmasking the Genteel Performer: Elizabeth Keckley's Behind
the Scenes and the Politics of Public Wrath," African American
Review 34 (Spring 2000): 19–38. |
