Happy Black History Month! For each of the 28 days of February, we at The Mary Sue will have a post about a black woman you should know about—some you may have heard of, some a little bit more obscure, and some fictional who still deserve a lot of love.
Day Eight: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley
The story of Elizabeth Keckley is more well known than many colored women of her era not only because she was a talented seamstress, but because one of her most famous clients was Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States.
Keckley was born into slavery in 1818’s Virginia. Her mother was a house slave to Armistead and Mary Burwell, a powerful family in the area. It was revealed later in life that Elizabeth’s birth father was Armistead, not her mother’s black husband, George Pleasant Hobbs. Hobbs was the slave of a neighbor and when that family moved, Hobbs was separated from his wife and child, but secretly sent them letters throughout the remainder of his life.
Life in the house subjected Elizbeth to physical violence. At 10, she was made a nursemaid to the Burwell’s youngest infant, Elizabeth Margaret, and would be beaten severely for failing to take care of the baby by Mary Burwell.
In 1832, Keckley was sent to live with the eldest Burwell son, Robert, when he married Margaret Anna Robertson and moved to North Carolina. Robertson disliked Elizabeth, most likely because she was clearly mixed race, and worked to mentally break Elizabeth. Margaret enlisted their neighbor William J. Bingham to break Elizabeth’s “stubborn pride”.
When Keckley was 18, Bingham called her to his quarters and ordered her to undress so—that he could beat her. Keckley refused, saying “you shall not whip me unless you prove the stronger. Nobody has a right to whip me but my own master, and nobody shall do so if I can prevent it.” Bingham bound her hands and beat her and sent her back to her home covered in welts. This happened repeatedly for two weeks before Bingham had some change of heart and swore not to do it again.
Sadly, Bingham was not her only tormentor. A prominent Virginian man named Alexander M. Kirkland repeatedly raped her for four years of “suffering and deep mortification” and she sadly became pregnant by Kirkland. She named her son George after her step-father and eventually was sent back to Virgina to work for the Garland family.
In 1847 the Garlands moved to St. Louis. Due to financial hardships, the Garlands would “hire out” slaves to do work in order to bring home an income. Elizabeth’s sewing abilities saved the family and through her talents, Keckly became well known for her skills both among the free black community that existed in St. Louis, and the white community as well.
Elizabeth met the man she would marry, James, and began working on convincing her master, Hugh A. Garland to free her and his children, she worked for two years to persuade him. In 1852, he agreed to release them for $1,200. Her South patrons, white and black, helped her gain the money so that she was eventually able to free herself and her family in 1855. She stayed in St. Louis until she had earned enough to repay her patrons, as she had promised, before she eventually moved to Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth Keckley met Mary Todd Lincoln on March 4, 1861, the day of Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration.
Mrs. Lincoln asked Keckley to return the next day for an interview and after several women were interviewed as well, it was Elizabeth who was chosen by Mary Todd to be her personal designer.
In addition to dressmaking, Keckley assisted Mrs. Lincoln as her personal dresser, helped Mrs. Lincoln prepare for official receptions and other social events, and became an intimate witness to the private life of the First Family.
Keckley was the sole designer and creator of Mary Todd Lincoln’s event wardrobe during the Lincoln administration. In January 1862, Mrs. Lincoln had several photos and portraits taken while wearing Kecklet’s work
Beyond dressing the most important woman in the country, Keckley did use her political power and means to help other black people. She founded the Contraband Relief Association (“CRA”) in August 1862, receiving donations from both Lincolns, as well as other white patrons and prominent free blacks. CRA provided food, shelter, clothing, and emotional support to recently freed slaves and/or sick and wounded soldiers. While the organization was based in Washington, D.C., the funds and services were distributed to provide families in the larger region.
Keckley’s own son, George Kirkland, enlisted as a white in the Union Army in 1861 after the war broke out, and was killed in action on August 10, 1861. After difficulties in establishing her son’s racial identity—he was mostly white due to his mother’s mixed-race ethnicity and his father’s white heritage—Keckley gained a pension as his survivor: $8 monthly (later raised to $12) for the remainder of her life.
Keckley comforted the First Lady after the President Lincoln’s assassination as Mrs. Lincoln became secluded, already still dealing with the depression of losing her own son.
When Mrs. Lincoln was pretty much forced out of D.C, she insisted that Keckley accompany her to Chicago to assist her in her new life. Keckley boarded a train with Mrs. Lincoln and the family en route to Chicago. She spent about three weeks with Mrs. Lincoln, as she needed to return to the capital to take care of her business. Mary Lincoln grew more dependent upon Keckley, writing her frequently, asking for visits, and lamenting her new conditions. This period was critical to their later friendship.
On the surface, this may seem really sweet and kind, but there is also a co-dependency that Mary Todd had towards Keckley that limited Elizabeth’s ability to be her own person. Plus, their friendship was completely dependent on Mary Todd’s wishes and that friendship came to a terrible end in 1868, when Elizabeth Keckley published Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.
Behind the Scenes was in many ways about Elizabeth’s own rise from slavery to being a member of the White House inner circle, but it also went into detail about Mary Todd. In Elizabeth’s eyes, talking about the Lincolns was a way of trying to explain Mary Todd’s unpopular decisions and make her into more of a human being. To Mrs. Lincoln, it was a betrayal to have her private conversations and letters be shared with the public. She severed ties with Keckley completely after that.
Elizabeth Keckley continued to try and earn money by sewing and teaching young women her techniques, but much of her white clientele stopped calling. She was no longer able to use her White House connections. Eventually, in 1890, at 72, she decided to sell the Lincoln articles, which she kept for thirty-five years. She sold twenty-six articles for $250.
In May 1907, Mrs. Keckley died as a resident of the National Home, located on Euclid St. NW, in Washington, D.C.
“Perhaps the most poignant illustration of the different fates of these two women is found in their final resting places. While Mary Lincoln lies buried in Springfield in a vault with her husband and sons, Elizabeth Keckley’s remains have disappeared. In the 1960s, a developer paved over the Harmony Cemetery in Washington where Lizzy was buried, and when the graves were moved to a new cemetery, her unclaimed remains were placed in an unmarked grave—like those of her mother, slave father, and son.” (Jennifer Fleischner).
While the bones of Elizabeth Keckley are lost to us, the dress that Keckley designed for Mary Todd Lincoln to wear at her husband’s second inauguration ceremony and reception is held by the Smithsonian’s American History Museum.
Recommended Readings:
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckley: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner
Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley.
( image: U.S Public Domain)
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Published: Feb 8, 2018 06:14 pm