Her own husbands assassination. Though her life was filled with tragedy, as lincolns political partner, she also relished in their success. As we focus on the civil war years, one of the defining moments in our countrys history, a look at the life and times of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of the most complex first ladies ever to live in the white house. Thanks for being with us for cspans continuing series on first ladies influence and image. Tonight, as we look at Mary Todd Lincoln, we invite two of our academic advisers, our history advisors for the whole series to be our guests for this program. Let me introduce you to rosalyn terborgpenn. She is a history Professor Emeritus at morgan state university. Richard norton smith, our other guest tonight and at our table again, is the director of five president ial libraries, including the Abraham Lincoln library in springfield, illinois, and a president ial biographer. Thanks to both of you for being here. Mary todd lincoln is and this is a question for both, well start with richard is often viewed in broad strokes, bouts of depression, criticism of her lavish spending, an overly indulgent mother. But if you look at a more nuanced picture, what do you see . Oh, boy. Well, thats why we need 90 minutes to begin to get at the nuances. She matters immensely. You know, lincoln has been called the Great American story, and she is an integral part of that Great American story. In the nutshell, Steven Spielberg doesnt make movies about julia tyler, you know, or louisa adams. Mary todd lincoln remains 150 years later someone who is symbolically divisive, perhaps. To some people, shes a heroine. To many people, shes a victim. But shes a surprisingly contemporary figure, as well. I like her because shes so complex. And i say i like her. I go through Elizabeth Keckley to get to Mary Todd Lincoln. And who is Elizabeth Keckley . She was her dressmaker and her companion, and didnt live at the white house, but spent a good deal of time there. And an africanamerican . Yes, formerly enslaved who purchased her own freedom and was interviewed, along with three or four other women, to become the first ladys seamstress, or modiste, as they call it. She made the most beautiful dresses for her. So what do you learn about mary lincoln through Elizabeth Keckleys eyes . Well, her i dont know if youd call it her narrative or her book, behind the scenes, gives you a very concrete sketch of the relationship she had with her for four years. And just reading what Elizabeth Keckley tells you gives you an idea of how complex, how hurt, how victimized she was. Its certainly fair to say its the most empathetic portrait we have of mary. Yes, it is. Well, were going to plunge into the white house years, as we begin our nuanced image of mary lincoln. And as we do this, we all call her mary todd, but if i look behind you at our wall of first ladiessignatures, she signed her name mary lincoln. Where did the Mary Todd Lincoln reference come . Is that modern or did she use it . Yes, it was modern. She didnt, from what i understand. Right. So this is a 20th century invention . Of course, you know, and lincoln famously said mocking the pretensions of his wifes family that god only needed one d and the todds of kentucky needed two. Yes, ive heard that. She probably laughed the first thousand times she heard that joke. But, you know, you can just imagine these two. Hes 64. Shes 52, if that. And he had a habit of introducing themselves as the long and the short of it, another joke she probably endured more than enjoyed. Well, i want to tell you at the outset here, these programs work because theyre interactive. In a little while, well be getting to your phone calls and well put the phone numbers on the screen. And in the interim, if you have a question for us via facebook, you can go to cspans Facebook Page or you can tweet us with a question or comment. Make sure you use the hashtag firstladies. So 1860, as the election is won, lets take a brief look at what the country looked like. At that point, there were 31 Million People in 33 states, although 11 states were to break off soon thereafter to form the Confederate States of america. That was a 36. 6 percent growth since the 1850 census. The countrys continuing to grow at an enormous pace. 3. 9 million slaves in the country, 12. 7 percent of the population, and the largest cities in the country, new york city, philadelphia, brooklyn, and baltimore. That was the country that Abraham Lincoln inherited in the election in 1850. So they arrive at the white house. Set the scene for us about the 1860 election and how tumultuous the politics were as the lincolns arrived. Well, the political process had broken down. There were four parties that ran in 1860. The democratic party, which have been the one truly National Political organization, split into northern and southern wings, divided over the issue of slavery. Stephen douglas, lincolns longtime rival and, indeed, apparently at one point romantic rival for marys hand is the democratic nominee from the north. Vice president John Breckinridge is the southern democratic candidate. The old whig party, remember, they had disappeared in the middle of the decade, they nominated someone named john bell from tennessee on a kind of middleoftheroad support the constitution platform. And then that left this new party, the republicans, which were defined as being antislavery, but not radically antislavery. They were not abolitionist; they were all about containing the spread of slavery. And lincoln won with just under 40 percent of the vote. And the sheer news of his election, as you say, led seven Southern States almost immediately to secede. The white house that the first lady inherited had been the domain of harriet lane, who was much beloved in washington, really admired for her social skills even as the country was fracturing. So what was the citys view of the new first lady, mary lincoln, as she came to the white house . Well, historian catherine clinton, one of her biographers, says in reality that she broke the elite virginia scheme of things and that many of the congressional wives and some of the women who were very important during the virginia times were resentful. And they lampooned them. They lampooned lincoln, and they lampooned her. And the sad thing is that she was a very intelligent, very highly educated woman from a good family, in terms of what you consider wealthy good families, but they treated her very badly. I think the other thing that might have hit her and i dont know if anybody has talked about it is washington was a swamp, diseaseridden. In many ways. Yes. When i came to washington, it was mosquitoridden, and that wasnt 150 years ago. So im sure she had a difficult time dealing with that, plus she complained about how drab and dirty and not dirty necessarily, but worn and drab the white house itself was. Some of the furniture was back to the days of dolley madison. So she had a lot to worry about. And thats important, because if you think of the repercussions of this woman whos arriving from kentucky, referred to as the republican queen, mocked by people who really dont know her, who are willing to assume the worst about these backwards lincolns, that puts a real chip on her shoulder, in a sense, even before she arrives in the capital, and it may begin to help to explain some of her shopping, some of her preoccupation with fixing up the white house, for example, that has become part of her legend. And in adorning herself, we have a quote for her about from herself that her rationale for why she spent so much money on her own attire. Heres what she wrote i must dress myself in costly materials. The people scrutinize every article that i wear with critical curiosity. The very fact of having grown up in the west subjects me to more searching observation. To keep up appearances, i must have money, more than mr. Lincoln can spare for me. But what is interesting is when she interviews Elizabeth Keckley, she says, how much are you going to charge for your dresses, because i cant afford to pay you a great deal . And she and keckley says, well, i will be reasonable. And they came to an agreement. Now, my theory is she wanted a lot of dresses, but she couldnt afford to pay lavishly for a lot of dresses. So on her budget, she was able to get what she wanted because keckley agreed not to overcharge her, and maybe thats one of the reasons she got the job. Paint a portrait of what life was like in the Lincoln White house as a Family Living there and for the public using the space. What was it like in those days . Well, first of all, it was astonishingly open to the public. It is hard to believe, in the middle of the great civil war that is raging, that twice every week the president would throw open his office, people could line up as long as they could wait for what he called his Public Opinion bads. For most of them, they were job interviews. These were mostly jobseekers. And, you know, mrs. Lincoln, the children, they sort of finesse themselves around all of these folks. There were the two boys at the beginning, of course, willie, who was 10 years old when they arrived at in washington, and his younger brother, tad, his older brother, robert todd, had gone off to harvard, and, of course, theyd had a fourth brother, who theyd lost years earlier in springfield. Mrs. Lincoln walked upon the white house very much as a symbol of this nation and took very seriously her responsibilities not only as a hostess, but as the woman responsible for the appearance of the house. And, remember, this is a time when the country is literally coming apart at the seams, so the symbolic value of americas house is perhaps even greater, just like the president s order that the halffinished dome of the capitol is going to be completed. And in some ways, she took the same view of the white house. A number of years ago, this network produced a documentary on the white house and we visited the lincoln bedroom. Were going to show you a clip from that documentary next to see the kind of spending that mary lincoln did on the furniture of the white house. The bed dates back to 1861, bought by Mary Todd Lincoln as part of her white house refurbishing. Its eight feet long, six feet wide, made of curved rosewood. Mary todd lincoln draped the lincoln bed with the purple and gold and fringe and lace, really high victorian decorating. And we did have later photographs, not contemporary with lincoln, but the bed still dressed the way she had dressed it. And so we did that again. It is this bed, bought by mary lincoln, and probably the most wellknown piece of historic furniture in the house, that holds the key to understanding the lincoln familys time here. The famous bed, it was one of mary lincolns many extravagant purchases as she began a campaign when she got here to redecorate this entire building. They held the bill back forever so lincoln wouldnt see it, because she spent so much money. And he saw it, and he flew into a rage and said it would stink in the nostrils of the american people. While our soldiers needed blankets, she was buying flubdubs for that damned old house. The epical thing about this bed is that it is where, in february 1862, lincolns middle son willie died after a bout with typhoid fever. After that, mary would never go into willies room again. She never looked at the bed again. She never was able to absorb the sons death, willies death, in the white house. And lincoln finally said to her once, he took her to the window and he let her look across the river at st. Elizabeths, the mental hospital. And he said, mother, if you dont get a hold of yourself, youre going to have to be put there. You know, nows the time to absorb it. The president by contrast would hole up in willies room, often on a thursday, which is the day of the week he died, just to grieve. How the lincolns handled their grief goes to how we see them today. In the case of mary, it really unhinged her. It was the final blow. In a curious sort of way, the war melded the disparate elements of lincolns personality and his grief, his sense of loss over willie somehow morphed into a nations sense of loss, the sense of loss in millions of homes throughout the union. I have a different interpretation about this socalled extravagant spending on the white house. Congress allotted her 20,000. Four years later, they allotted 125,000 for refurbishing. So she didnt have enough money to spend . Well, lets put it this way. How could she have spent so much if they only allocated 20,000 . Did she do it all on that one bed . And the fact is, she actually over spent the 20,000 by about 6,000. Its not a huge. A lot, right. Amount. But there was a war raging. So the politics of it. There was a war its become part of the legend. Thats part of the. Its part of the mary lincoln legend. And the myth. And the myth. Because thats a myth. This woman, out of control, shopaholic, you know. On her grief over the sons death in the white house, a political aspect to that, too. How did the country react to her extended mourning when there were so many sons of mothers dying on the battlefield, both north and south . Well and thats true. She basically disappeared for over a year. Her social life as first lady ended for over a year. She gave orders, for example, for the marine band to stop playing their concerts on the white house grounds. Then it was suggested, well, perhaps they could be moved to lafayette park. She said, no, she her grief was too great. She indulged herself even beyond the standards of the day when well, her compatriot was queen victoria, who would spend in some ways the rest of her life grieving over the lost of prince albert. What finally brought her out of her grief . I think its hard to determine, because she was continually being vilified. And maybe it was when her son, robert, who was really a disappointment in the long run, had her incarcerated, in essence, sent to a mental institution, she i think she woke up then and decided, im going to get out of here. And she fought very hard, and she was able to mobilize support to get her out of the mental institution. But i dont think she ever really recovered from the loss of willie. I mean, i do think, you know. But its not just willie. Its the loss of edward, its then the loss of willie, its then the loss of her husband, and then tad. You can go back at the beginning. And then tad dies. She lost her mother at age six. Yes. And then was afflicted with the classic wicked stepmother syndrome, which is what sent her to springfield in the first place. This is a woman whose life is shadowed by loss. Well, let me move from the personal mary lincoln to the political mary lincoln and have you both tell me a bit about her, how well she served as a political partner to the president. I want to go to Elizabeth Keckleys book, because she writes of mary lincoln, her intuition about the sincerity of individuals was more accurate than that of her husband. Did lincoln listen to her observations . Was she a good helpmate in that regard . I think she was. I think she tried to advise him, but some of his advisers didnt really want her to be interfering. And that was definitely the case when he was dying and they took her from the room and wouldnt let her in to mourn as he died, which was a traditional thing in her culture. The wife stays with the husband until he dies. They robbed her of that. I think they were threatened by her sense of significance. Gary robinson asks on twitter, did mary lincoln create enemies out of social rivals . And if so, who was her main antagonist . Well, lets say, she had a number of rivals. Kate chase, the daughter of secretary of the treasury salmon chase, who made no secret about his lust to replace lincoln in the white house. And kate was quite the belle of the ball, and i think its safe to say mrs. Lincoln had no great love lost for kate. But, you know, again, part of the legend, and its accurate, the stories of her accompanying the president to the field, battlefield, near the end of the war, the sight of a general edward ords wife riding alongside the president , she lost it. She you know, the reason the grants did not go to fords theater was because julia grant did not want to risk having another confrontation with this very unpleasant woman, as far as she knew. And what did the white house staff think of her . Well, they liked her. Only four of the staff remained when they came to the white house, when the lincolns came to the white house. They brought in new staff, primarily freed blacks, who really worked very well with her. And from what i could gather, those who were interviewed talked about her in a very positive way. She got along very well with them because they were the ones who basically helped to raise her after her real mother died, her birthmother died, when she was coming up in kentucky. Well, nicolay and hay in the white house, lincolns two personal secretaries. Right. Didnt always use the best descriptions of her. No, they were, you know, young men who had their own reasons to resent, and vice versa. You know, they dubbed them she was hellcat and he was the tycoon. That was the nickname by which the secretaries referred to them, in his case with great affection, i think in her case probably less so. Dave murdock on twitter, outside of washington, what was the perception of the first family . Do we know . Thats a great question. Again, i think if you read the press of the day, and theres certainly there was a considerable amount of criticism. Unfortunately, you know, if she had been in some ways more pressconscious, we know now how much time she spent visiting soldiers in hospitals, writing letters for soldiers who were unable to write themselves, taking fruit and other gifts, and yet she never took reporters along with her. If she had been a little bit more, in a sense, pr conscious, who knows what it might have done on her historical record. But then when she went on her trip north, the press followed her. They went into every store she went into. But thats what they reported. Thats what they reported, those kinds of things. Yes. First caller is ron watching us in everett, washington. Ron, youre on. Go ahead, please. Yes, hello. As youve indicated, there continues to be great controversy among historians and biographers over the