Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Also a member of the wig Political Party and todd and clay shared some political ideas especially in regard to slavery. Both clay and todd supported the American Colonization Society which was a movement to resettle freed blacks back to liberia. So this represents yet another view on slavery that mary lincoln was exposed to as a chi child. This is the gentlemans parlor of the house and its a section of the house that would have been offlimits to the women, but according to one of Mary Todd Lincolns cousins, mary would like to sit in on the political conversations when her father was entertaining the prominent men of the day. Mary lincoln might have taken an interest in politics to help garner attention from her father who was very active in state and local politics. And our next caller is from lexington, kentucky. John is on the line. John, your question or comment. Hello, thank you for taking my call. I certainly appreciate the empathetic and the distress on the unique and specific aspects of marys time in the white house and of course, one that is bravely brought up here in the segment we just watched is the fact that many of marys kin became confederates during the war very famously. In fact, i live in the home of her sister emily. Emily todd helm who married a confederate general in his own right. My question is can you all talk a little bit about marys perception of her confederate siblings while in the white house and especially for morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Interesting question. It is. Her family was so huge. The first family, she was the fourth of seven children and the second family there were nine children and there were at least three or four of her siblings or step siblings who fought actively for the confederacy. And one of them was the husband of one of her favorite stepsisters, emily. Exactly. Yeah. Right. He was killed. Right. Right. And the lincoln his emily to stay at the white house for some extended period of time. In fact, theres a scene where i believe theres a Union General who was at the dinner table and in effect complaining about sharing the dinner table with a rebel and lincoln said mrs. Lincoln said i dont need any help from you in deciding who our guests will be anyway, mary made it very clear that her sibling his taken up arms not only against her country, but against her husband and she saw no point in mourning their loss. This wonderful, unique woman is my hero and something thats not brought up very often, it is brought up often is about her mental condition, but ive never seen in all of the books ive read anything about the peragoric that she took, its a oh, whats the word . Its a drug and it affected her mind. She took these things from a child on. She had headaches, i guess, all her life. This would calm her down, but we know it affects the brain, and i dont understand why more people dont bring this up especially as her mental condition got worse as she got older. Thank you, nancy. Do you know anything about her treatment . It was migraines. Lincoln would leave the office and thunderstorms too, she was terrified of thunderstorms and at the first sign of a thunderstorm he would leave the office and go home. As our discussion of Mary Todd Lincoln continues. Hi, horace. Hey, good evening. Im fascinating about the Program Since its been on and im watching every night that it appears. Id like to know how did the lincolns come to know each other . Who courted who and how did they meet . Thanks for that. May we answer that by video because we are next going to learn more about the lincolns springfield home and well learn a little bit more about their life there as we visit that. Can we watch that next. This is the lincoln home in springfield, illinois. This is the only home abraham and lincoln ever owned. This is where mary learned how to be a wife and mother. They lived here from 1844 to 1861. So over the course of those 17 years they added on and added on and created this twostory, very comfortable, upper class home. After about 11 years of living here in the house they were able to add a full second floor. As part of the expanding of not only their family, they were expanding their house at the same time and mr. Lincolns career. He was traveling the circuit and most of the day to day oversight would have been mary lincoln. She was very decisive. She knew exactly what she wanted so it was probably not too tough of a project for her. They were able to add five bedrooms and theres a guest bedroom which would have been a luxury. Mr. Lincoln and mrs. Lincoln were able to then have their own space not necessarily to highlight problems in their marriage, but just so that they each had their own space. Pr praf s privacy is not something you get a lot of in the 1850s and 60s. Mr. Lincoln would work on political views and she would have to get up early to start breakfast and her two sons would sleep in a trundle bed pulled out from under her bed and as the oldest son he got his own room and as soon as he went off to college his Young Brothers moved right in. They had a hired girl almost every year they lived her and that girl had her own space at the end of the hallway right off of the kitchen. Were in marys bedroom now and this would have been a sanctuary for her. Shes in a house full of boys and men and a lot of men visiting mr. Lincoln so she would have needed a spot that she could call her own that could retreat to if she needed to that could serve as a home office for her and this was literally and figuratively the center of the home. This is the royal oak stove and you can see the oak leaves and the acorns on the stove door, on the oven door. They came from buffalo, new york. Mary purchased the stove here in springfield from a local stove dealer. We think about 20 to 25 for the stove and the average person making 500 a year, this is an expensive purchase. She liked it so much she wanted to pack it up with the rest of their things and take it to the white house. Mr. Lincoln reminded her that she wasnt going to be doing a lot of cooking at the white house so they left it here for the renters. The neighbors were becoming to be more middle class and it had started out a little lower middle class, small houses, a lot of widows and people were moving into the neighborhood. The neighborhood was starting to grow a little bit so mary wanted to not only keep up with the joneses. She kind of wanted to be the joneses. So thats a glimpse of the lincolns life together in spris springfield, but the question was how did the couple meet . They were ten years apart in age. She left lexington and it was speculated that her relationship with herr stepmother may have been an actor and she moved to springfield with her sister and was married to a man named edwards junior and she was immediately thrown into the social set and springfield was a town of 2500 people and very hierarchal. She was wealthy and well educated. This is something that people tend to overlook. Why lincoln was attracted to her in the first place. Classic opposites attracting. This was a young woman who frankly, could have had her choice. No fewer than four United States future senators expressed interest in mary. She spoke french fluently. She was by all accounts a witty conversationalist, highly educated, you know, for women of her day. A compelling, magnetic figure and lincoln stood off to one side, almost his mouth hanging open. The contrast between his own lack of formal education, his own lack of polish and one of the things that mary did that i think he doesnt get a lot of credit for was in effect to add some polish to her unpolished husband. She was his advocate and after he lost two races for the United States senate that his political career wasnt over. She imagined him in the white house long before he ever did and her famous strawberry socials in the parlor on the first floor was one tangible way in which she conducted a campaign for him. Abraham lincoln might have been entranced and he wasnt certain and he broke off their engagement for a year and a half, and heres something he had to say after breaking off the engagement for mary. I am now the most miserable man in the world. If what i feel was equally distributed to the whole human family there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Can either of you tell us how they finally got back together . Actually, yeah. The local newspaper editor, a man named simeon francis, his wife in effect, stepped in and said look, this is ridiculous, you know . You love each other. Lets be friends and reignited the friendship and in 1842 without telling anyone they announced that very day and mary let it be known to the Edwards Family that they were marrying that night. And they insisted no, we have to do it at our house, et cetera, et cetera. The great tragic irony of this is that it was in that same house 40 years later that marys life came to an end. Our next call is from christy in west fargo, north dakota. Thank you for having me, and im calling today because i wanted to know your feelings about mary when lincoln signed for the slaves to become free. He also signed for native americans to be hung in mancato, minnesota, which was the largest mass hanging in our United States history and being a native american from north dakota, i was just wondering on your comments and what did mary did she know about this and if she did what were her feelings on it at the time . Do you know . I havent seen anything about her response to the hanging. I know she was very excited about the emancipation proclamation. I suspect from what i gleaned about her caring for people who were disadvantaged and who were outsider, so to speak that she might not have liked the idea, but i dont know. Do you . I dont. I know lincoln tried to reduce that number, the original list was much, much larger than that, and he reduced it significantly and he went on with the whole thing somewhat reluctantly. I dont know much more than that. Cindy in denver. Hi, cindy. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have a question and i want to say thank you for this series. Its great, and i wanted to ask if either of your guests if mary lincoln had been bipolar or manic depressive. We have many people on twitter and facebook all wanting to put a name on mary lincolns anguish and how possible is that to do when youre looking back through the lens of 150 years with the discipline, psychology and psychiatry that didnt exist in the day. Thats what i was thinking and they used to call it manic depressive before we got the bipolar, but it seemed that she was very excited and outgoing. How possible is it for us the symptoms give you hints. I point out the obvious. Neither of us is professionally train to diagnose any condition. Right. But no doubt that there is this continuing fascination and desire for people to put a name on her condition. From what i understood, none of the physicians shthd figure it out and they couldnt come up with anything conclusive in diagnosis. As a girl she was called high strung. The euphemisms were mercurial. Ones . Elaine, cochran, georgia. Good evening. Hi. Thank you for the program i will mention that the book and supper club that my husband and i are in with three other couples have met the biography. Wonderful. Thanks for being with us for the searies. We wrote about john and Abigail Adams and so that has added more to my knowledge of those two, and another book that we read that were fictionalized and another one which we read which is a pucksalized biography of mary, so i know how it might feel about that, but nothing in it was new to me or contradicted anything ive heard from other sources, historical sources except that there was mention of what appeared to be an affair with some government employee. Its been several years and im sorry that i dont remember the author, but i would be skeptical for the fact of existing newspapers with dates and headlines and i thought if this author has made this up and she has been bold in doing so. It seems the employee was supposed to have been somebody in charge of housing or government buildings in d. C. , and i wonder if you have comments on that or know anything about it. Only one that one of the criticisms that have been made is that some of her conduct fed gossip. Thats how i would characterize it. Fed gossip that mrs. Lincoln in her desperation for money befriended inappropriate individuals and how far it went, and i would be very, very skeptical, to be honest with you. We should also say that this was the first time in history that newspapers were having columnists. Thats right. Opinion writers. So this opinion of her was spread in newspapers across the country and this was a change in the first ways that women were treated by the press. She thought she was the scapegoat. She really felt it and think about how incredibly intense the popular emotions were and that carries over to coverage of the president and his family. Were going to look next at another video visit to the springfield home and this one helps us understand more of that Political Partnership that richard nort op smith referred to between the two lincolns. This is the lincoln home in springfield illinois and where mary helped build Abraham Lincolns political career. They would invite friends and family over to talk politics, talk events of the day. This is where he became the president. Mr. Lincoln was a very ambitious person and he had a lot of goals in life and those were enhanced when he met and married mary todd. She also was ambitious. She said she wanted to marry a man of good mind and hopes of a Bright Future and a man that would be president. There was something about Abraham Lincoln that she saw the potential and lessons in etiquette in the dining room that helped polish him up for washington society. The Political Parties that they had where they invited a lot of very important people, the strawberry and cream parties talking with the wives of those very important gentlemen. She wielded a lot of power both over mr. Lincoln and where he was going. This is the dining room. When they moved in it was an eatin kitchen and thats not something that a polished and high society upper class person would do. Mary had grown up with a formal dining room in lexington, kentucky and she felt she wanted to have one here and she didnt want her children growing up without proper manners and in a lot of cases mr. Lincoln needed that polishing, as well. All of her boys needed polishing and manners and she created that dining room to have the formal space for she and her family and also for when they had guests over. There were a lot of people who came to visit mr. Lincoln during the 1860 campaign and after he was elected president there was almost four months between the election and inauguration so there were a lot of visitors coming to springfield. One of them was William Seward who ended up being mr. Lincolns secretary of state. Mary, being an excellent hostess, she would have had trays of man a slice of her famous white cake or the macaroon pyramid and we know they bought lots of those macaroon pyramids. You being get refreshments here and relax after the formal side of meeting mr. Lincoln. This is the double parlor, and these are the two nicest rooms in the house. There are marbletop tables and brass valances on the windows, gilded candlesticks and a walnut shelf with a bust of mr. Lincoln on it and that was here in 1860. Want everybody in the neighborhood could say that, that they had a bust of their husband in the living room so this was the fancy place. This is where she wanted to show off. Mary would have held her parties here where she would discuss mr. Lincolns aspirations and they came to visit after a party and met mr. Lincoln who was standing in the archway between the two rooms and picked up refreshment and met mary in the sitting room without going through the front door again and this is where they met with the Republican National Convention Committee and so this was the seat of power in this house. Mary helped to basically showcase what her husband had done and how far he had gone from the oneroom log cabin in the middle of nowhere kentucky to this beautiful house, very comfortable house and hinted at where they were headed, stating to the world that Abraham Lincoln was ready to move on. Next is a caller from wassau, wisconsin. Thank you for taking my call. Ive read many biographies and ive never read how influential she was in some of the policies that abraham enacted while he was president and im wondering if either of your guests could elaborate further as to the extent of her influence on the political decisions that were made in the white house during abrahams term in office . Thank you. Was she interested in politics or in policy . She was interested in personalities. She used to refer to seward as the abolitionist sneak. Grant that was butcher, but the fact is that i think, and we talked earlier, ironically once they had attained their goal, once they moved into the white house, i think her influence as we would use that term today over policy diminished and their partnership was in some ways broken. I think the war consumed him, and i think it was a source of frustration for her. The relationship theyd had before the presidency was in some ways greatly diminished. I dont think she was significantly influential in terms of shaping Public Policy or his conduct of the war or even who he put in his cabinet. We have just eight minutes left and still a lot of story to tell. Mary lincoln lived for 17 years after Abraham Lincolns assassination. What were those years like for her . Part of the time she was in a Mental Institution because her son, robert, put her there, and i have debating about him very much, about the way she felt he had been disloyal to her, and how he was able to control her money and become i guess the executor of it and so she had to struggle, but she managed to plug in people who could help her and i thought that was admirable even with her problems that she was able to do that. You know, she did something that was just not done. She was obsessed with money and at one point she moved on to sell off a number of her white house dresses which just made the public impression all the worse. She was in debt, was she not . She was in debt. Remember the 27,000 that she owed . No. She needed the cash. No doubt about it and she petitioned congress over and over for a pension which finally, belatedly was granted. 3,000. A month . A year. At some point raised to 5,000 and that was her contribution to future first ladies, only after she found out was getting 5,000 and she said if youre giving her 5,000 you should be able to give me 5,000. I think it was mrs. Garfield. She twont live in europe because it was cheaper and then, of course, she had yet another great tragedy in 1871 when tad died. Tad died of tuberculosis, its believed. How old was he . Teenager. 16. Did he die of all of her children only one lived to adulthood. The one she thought was disloyal. He died coming back from europe. Bob is watching us from baltimore. Your question. Yes, great program, first of all, and this is a question about tad lincoln. What was mary lincolns relationship with the youngest son and my impression and what i read otherwise is that tad and his father had a strong and affectionate relationship with his mom . I think the answer to that was over. Tad realized and he had a curious adult sensitivity, following the deaths of his father he realized how vulnerable his mother was and in effect, he appointed himself to try to take care of her. I think his personality was similar to hers and i think they were is impattic on on that and i think she recognized that and thats either reason why they would be close. She spent time in chicago in the hyde park area of chicago. She twont europe and she came back and robert had her incarcerated for several months and there was a second trial where she managed to convince the jury that was per forecastly sane upon she and, and then in 1880, returned to springfield . She was almost blind and she went she had married mr. Lincoln and thats where her life ended in 1882. Donna in benton, illinois. Youre on. I think they answered my question. I was wondering if robert and his mother ever got to be friend again. Did he not offer to take her to his home . Yeah. There was a you might call a formal reconciliation, and i emphasize formal. I dont think she trusted him. Related to this, s. M. On twitter say are there any living relatives of the lincolns. There are no sdirect descendants. Robert had a son and then he died and the last direct descendants died in the 1970s. This is one of those Great Questions to wrap up the program and it comes from John Richardson on facebook. He write, to the historian, what you are alone with your friends what is your favorite story to tell about mary lincoln . That she and elizabeth had a great relationship. They were the same age. They beth lost son because kecklys son was lost in the army and during the civil war and that mary supported the causes that Elizabeth Keckly supported. What does that tell you about mary lincoln . That shes a very sensitive person, that she could empathize. How controversial would it have been for her to be friends with an africanamerican. I think it would have been to some extent even though people kept calling Elizabeth Keckly her servant and i dont think mary looked at her as a servant. I think she considered her to be a companion. Richard, your favorite story . In the case of when might have been, lincoln, of course, served only one term in congress and his opposition of the war that he would not be reelected and so it was mary who managed the campaign to try to get him the job of the commissioner of the General Land Office at 3,000 a year. It was mary who wrote the letters and in the end when he was offered in its place the governorship of the oregon territory and it was mary who turned it down telling him that oregon was wanot wig friendly a it was likely democratic and it would not advance his interest to go to the territory. Well go to denver, kl kohl. I was just calling and id like to know a couple of things. What do you think she would have wanted her legacy to be today and also the second thing is would she have been more or against the Womens Movement in the 60s if she could travel in a time machine . Thank you very much. Lets do the legacy and you might do the Womens Movement, okay . The legacy. What would she have wanted her legacy to be is the question . That she loved her husband and her family and her country n that order. I want to add to that. She wanted people to get along. I really think she did and that was something she tried to do early in their white house years was to be fair and greet people and encourage people regardless of what party they were in. But in terms of women, i think she might have been persuaded to be a feminist, but it is kind of hard to tell . We are out of time and i think we have done what we set out to do was to provide a more nuanced picture of Mary Todd Lincoln the wife of our 16th president. I want to say thank you to the White House Historical association who has been our partner throughout our series and 35 installments of this altogether and to our two special guests Richard Norton smith and Rosalynn Penn for your contributions to us. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Thank you. If yuen joyed watching first ladies, pick up a cope of the book first ladies. Influence and image featuring profiles of the first ladies through interviews with top historians and now available in paperback, hardcover or an ebook. First ladies, influence and image on American History tv examines the private lives and the public roles of the nations first ladies through interviews with top historians. Tonight we look at julia grant and lucy hayes. Julia grant was a staunch defender of womens rights in general and refused to allow jokes at womens expense to be told in her company and lucy hayes was the first first lady to have a college degree. Watch first ladies qwest influence and image tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and public approximately see events. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies, as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. She was close to being broken by the time she went to the white house. This was the earliest existing house. They lived here until the 1830s and 1840s. Shah she was educated and she taught school. Eliza would read to him in the shop while he worked making suits for the men of town. The north and the south fought for the occupation of greenville. It changed hands 26 times. They did have domestic
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