Few stories in
Encyclopedia Virginia are more dramatic than that of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly. Born into slavery in Dinwiddie Courthouse, in the Piedmont region of Virginia, during the presidency of James Monroe, by the time that Abraham Lincoln entered the White House in 1861, not only was Keckly a free woman, but she was also Washington, D.C.’s most celebrated dressmaker.
It was Keckly’s talent with the needle that allowed her to buy her freedom and become a leader among the free Black community in Washington. She first found a following among Washington’s elite women after a silk dress she designed for Mary Randolph Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee, was a big hit at a reception for the Prince of Wales. It was a time when upper class women were fiercely competitive about the dresses they wore to balls and teas and receptions. It may seem like all vanity now, the hoop skirts with their ruffles and flounces and the yards of lace and other trim that bedecked the dre
A dress probably attributed to Elizabeth Keckly which was worn by Mary Todd Lincoln from 1862-64. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
The business of fashion has been dominated by men for centuries. But a new exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem is celebrating pioneering women who ve influenced the industry s evolution. Among the more than 100 female designers represented is Elizabeth Keckly, a former enslaved person who against a myriad of odds went on to become Mary Todd Lincoln s dressmaker.
The exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum features an outfit designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri with a T-shirt, jacket and jeans from 2019. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)