born in 1818 in lexington, kentucky, mary todd grew up in a slave-holding family yet lived to her see her husband abraham lincoln issue the emancipation proclamation. a mother of four sons he witnessed the death of three of the four as well as her own husband's assassination. though her life was filled with tranlgly, as lincoln's political partner, she also rely i should in their success. as we focus on the civil war years, one of the defining moments in our country's 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 c-span continuing series on first ladies influence and image. tonight as we look at mary todd lincoln, we invite two of our academic advisers for the whole series to be our guests for this program. let me introduce you to rosalynn toreberg penn. and richard norton smith, our guest and at our table is the director of five presidential libraries including the abraham lincoln library in springfield, illinois. thank you both for being here. mary todd lincoln and this is a question for both, we'll start with richard, is viewed in broad strokes, bouts of depression, criticism of her lavish spending an overly indulgent mother. if you look at a nuanced picture, what do you see? >> oh, boy. that is why we need 90 minutes to get at the nuances. she matters immensely. lincoln has been called the great american story, and she's an integral part of the story. we don't make movies about adams or others. she remains 150 years later someone who is symbolically divisive, perhaps. to some people she's a heroine, to some she's a victim, but a surprising victim as well. >> i like her because she's so complex. and i say i like her. i go through elizabeth keckly to get to mary todd lincoln. >> who was elizabeth keckly? >> her dress-maker and her companion didn't live at the white house but spent a good deal of time there. >> and an african-american. >> yes. former enslaved who purchased her own freedom. and was interviewed along with three or four other women to become the first lady's seamstress or modestes they call it. she made the most beautiful dresses for her. >> what do you learn about mary todd lincoln through her eyes? >> i don't know if you would call it her narrative or her book behind the scenes gives a concrete sketch of the relationship she had with her for four years. and just reading what lick beth -- elizabeth keckley tells you an idea of how complex and hurt and victimized she was. >> it is the most empathetic portrait we have of mary. >> well queer going to plunge into the white house years as we begin our nuanced image of mary lincoln and as we do this we call her mary todd but if i look behind you at the wall of first lady signatures she signed mary lincoln. where did the mary todd lincoln reference come. was it modern or did she use it. >> it was modern. she didn't, from what i understand. >> that was a 20th century -- >> and lincoln famously said, mocking the pretentiousness of his wife's family, god only nam needed one name and those of kentucky needed two. she probably laughed the first thousand times she heard that joke. but he's 6'4" and she's 5'2" if that. and he had a habit of introducing them as themselves as the long and the short of it. another joke she probably endured more than enjoyed. >> well, i might tell you at outset, the programs work because they're interactive. in a little while we'll get to your phone calls and put the phone number on your screen and in the interim if you have a question for you, you can go to c-span's facebook page or tweet us and use #firstladies. so 1860 as the election is won. let's take a brief look at the country. there were 31 million people in 33 states, 11 states were to break off soon thereafter to form the confederate states of america. that was 36.6% growth since the 1880 census. the ton is continuing to grow at an enormous pace. 3.9 million slaves in the country. 12.67% 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 protocol process has broken down. there were four parties that ran in 1860. the democratic party which was the one truly national political organization split into northern and southern wings, divided over the issue of slavery. steven douglas, lincoln's long-time rival and indeed apparently at one point romantic rival for mary's hand is the democratic nominee from the north. vice president john breckinridge is the southern democratic candidate. the old wig party, they had disappeared and they nominated someone named john bell from tennessee on a middle of the road support for the constitution platform and that left this new party, the republicans. which were defined as being anti-slavery but not radically anti-slavery. they were not abolitionists, they were all about containing the spread of slavery. and lincoln won with just under 40% 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 beloved and admired for her social skills even as the country was fracturing. what was the city's view of the new first lady mary lincoln as she came to the white house. >> well catherine clinton one of the biographers said in reality that she broke the elite virginia scheme of things. and 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 about families. but they treated her very badly. and the other thing that might have hit her, and i don't know if anybody talked about it. washington was a swamp. disease ridden. >> in many ways. >> when i came to washington it was mosquito ridden, and that wasn't 150 years ago. so i'm 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 that is important. because if you think of the repercussions of this woman who is arriving from kentucky, referred to as the republican queen, mocked by people who really don't know her who are willing to assume the worst about these back woods lincolns, that puts a real chip on her shoulder in a sense. even before she arrives in the capital. it may begin to help 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 from her herself that her rational for why she spent so much money on her own attire. i must dres myself in costly materials. people scrutinize every article that i wear with critical curiosity. the very fact of having grown up in the west 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 when keckley, she said how much are you going to charge for your dresses because i can't afford to pay you a great deal. and keckley said, well, i'll be reasonable. and they came to an agreement. now my theory is she wanted a lot of dresses, but she couldn't 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 that is one of the reasons she got the job. >> paint a portrait of what life was like in the lincoln white house for the family living there and for the public using the space. what was it like in those days. >> it was astonishly open to the public. it is hard will believe in the middle of the great civil war that is raging is 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 baths. for most of them they were job interviews. these were mostly job-seekers. and ms. lincoln, they sort of finessed themselves around all of these folks. they were the two boys at the beginning of course. willie who was ten years old when they arrived in washington and his younger brother ted. his older brother robert todd had gone off to harvard and they had a fourth brother who they lost years earlier in springfield. mrs. lincoln looked 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 america's house is perhaps even greater. just like the president's order that the half finish the dome of the capitol is going to be completed. 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. we'll show you a clip from the 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, it is eight feet long, six feet wide, made of carved rosewood. >> mary todd lincoln had 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. >> this is this bed bought by mary lincoln and the most well-known piece of historic furniture in the house that holds the key to understanding the lincoln family's time here. >> the famous bed that was one of mary lincoln's many extravagant purchases as she began a campaign when she got here to redecorate this entire building. >> they held a bill back forever so lincoln wouldn't see it because she spent much money and he saw it and flew into a rage and said it would stink for the nation. while soldiers needed things, she would buying for the house. >> this old bed is where in february of 1862 lincoln's middle son willie died after a bout with typhoid fever. after that mary would never go into willie's room again. she never looked at the bed again. >> she never was able to absorb the son's death, willie's death in the white house. and lincoln finally said to her once, he took her to the window and he made her look across the river at saint elizabeth's, the mental hospital, and said mother if you don't have to get ahold of yourself, you're going to have to be put there. now is the time to absorb it. >> the president, by contrast, would hole up in willie's 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, really unhinged her. it was the final blow. in a curious sort of way, the war melded the disparate elements of lincoln's personality and his grief and sense of loss over willie somehow morphed into the nation's sense of loss. both sense of loss in millions of homes throughout the union. >> i have a different interpretation about the so-called extravagant spending on the white house. congress allotted her $20,000. four years later they allotted $125,000 for refurbishing. >> so she didn't have enough money to spend. >> let's put it that way, how could she spend so much if they only allocated $20,000. did she spend it on that one bed? >> she overspent the $20,000 by $6,000. it is not a huge amount. >> but there was a war raging. so the politics of it. >> it was part of the legend. it is part of mary lincoln legend. this woman out of control, shopaholic. >> on her grief over the son's 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? >> that is 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. that was suggested, perhaps they could be moved to lafayette park. she said, no, her grief was to great. she indulged herself, even beyond the standard of the day. her compatriot was queen elizabeth, who spent the rest of her life grieving over the loss of prince albert. >> what finally brought her out of her grief? >> i think it is 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. i think she woke up then and decided i'm going to get out of here. and she fought very hard and was able to mobilize support to get her out of the mental institution. >> but i don't think she ever really recovered from the loss of willie. i do think -- >> it is not just willie. it is the loss of edward and then the loss of willie and the loss of her husband and then ted dies. >> in the beginning she lost her mother at age 6 and then was afflicting with the classic wicked mother syndrome which sent her to springfield in the first place. her life is shattered by loss. >> let me move from the personal to the political mary lincoln and tell me about how well she served as a political partner to the president. i want to go to elizabeth keckley's book because she writes 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 help mate in that regard? >> i think she was. i think she tried to advise him but some of his advisers didn't rant her to be interfering and that was definitely the case when he was dying and they took her from the room and wouldn't 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. that he robbed her of that. i think they were threatened by her sense of significance. >> gary robinson asked on twitter about mary lincoln create enemies out of social rivals? and if so, who was her main antagonist? >> she had a number of rivals. kate chase, the daughter of the secretary of treasury salmon chase, who made no secret about his lust to replace lincoln in the white house, and kate was quite the bell of the ball. and i think it's safe to say mrs. lincoln had no great love lost for kate. but part of the legend, and it's accurate, the stories of her accompanied the president to the battlefield near the end of the war. the sight of a general edwin ord's wife riding alongside the president. she lost it. the reason the grants did not go to ford's theater is 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? >> 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 helped to raise her after her real mother, her birth mother died when she was coming up in kennedy. >> lincoln's two personal secretaries didn't use the best descriptions of her. >> young men who had their own reasons to resent, and vice versa. they dubbed them -- she was hell cat and he was the tycoon. that is the names they referred to. in his case with great affection. but in her case was probably more so. >> david on twitter, outside of washington, what was the perception of the first family? do we know? >> that is a great question. again, i think if you read the press of the day, certainly there was a considerable amount of criticism. unfortunately, if she had been in some ways more press conscience, we know how much time she spent visiting soldiers in hospitals, writing letterer 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 conscience who knows what it might have done. >> but when she went on her trip north, the press followed her, went into every store she went into. that is what they reported. those kind of things. >> first caller is ron watching in everett, washington. you're on. go ahead, please. >> yes. hello. as you've indicated, there continues to be great controversy among historians and biographers over the lincoln marriage. the first school about it is that it presented in a biography co-authorized by lincoln's lay partn partner, herndon, based on his interviews with presidential midwest friends and colleagues and neighbors and servants, et cetera, many of whom reinforced that mary todd was domestic hell on earth, whose frequent outburst outbursts continues broomstick attacks and multiple thrown objects, including a piece of firewood at her husband getting a broken nose. it is secondly presented as a love story and reflected deep skepticism over herndon's informants and recollected testimony but was evasive about the superabandance evidence to the contrary. in the past two decades lincoln scholars have given more credence to the oral and written testimony and this is culminated in michael burlinggame's two volume biography of lincoln. >> are you going -- in the interest of time, you want to know which our guests think is correct? >> james criticized the hostility toward mary lincoln which he said marred the narrative with every negative portrayal and not offering the evidence in biography so my question is what is your guest historian's assessment of burlingame's depiction of mary lincoln, and what is the recent motion picture portrayal of her? >> thank you for the call. are you familiar with the burlingame assessment? >> i think it is safe to say that michael is rather hostile to mary and certainly amassed a great deal of evidence to support his view. what i find fascinating is just as in the roosevelt camp, there are eleanor and franklin people, and there are mary and abraham people. there will people that will not sit on the same stage, so committed to one or the other. that is how passionate the historians feel. >> but abraham seemed to be committed to mary. >> and you know what, in some ways, that is the ultimate test. >> let me ask your caller -- >> he's not there any more. just the response. >> i wonder if he read catherine clinton's biography of mrs. lincoln where she engages herndon. you have to really look at the reasons why people write biographies or books, and herndon was angry with lincoln and later took it out on mary. that is the way -- from what i've heard about it. i haven't read the book. but from what i could see, that you have to look at the motive behind the book. >> i also asked what you both thought of the most mod he were portrayal and that is in the new spielberg movie, the lincoln movie. >> i thought it was wonderful precisely because it transcends all of these camps. it's to me the most life like portrayal of mary and the marriage that i've ever seen. >> do you agree? >> oh, i agree. >> a quote about her own view in the public perception, she writes i seem to be the scapegoat for both north and the south. and we're going to show you next another video. one of her refuges in washington was a summer cottage, not far from the capital and the white house itself called the soldiers homes. we'll visit that next. >> president lincoln's cottage was a seasonal home for the lincoln family. and mary lincoln really pushed for the move out here to this soldiers' home because she saw it as a place for her family to have more privacy than what they had down at the white house. we're in the mary lincoln room which is not part of our typical interpretive experience at the cottage. but we call it the mary lincoln room because when the lincolns were living out here in the summer of 1863, mary lincoln is involved in a pretty serious carriage accident. some scholars believe that the carriage had been tampered with, and this was an early assassination attempt on lincoln. when mary lincoln suffered the carriage accident and the driver's seat separates from the carriage and the horses are startled and take off and mary lincoln has to leap out of the carriage in order to save herself. she suffers a head injury. after she's in the accident, she's treated, we believe, down at the white house. but then in -- after she's treated she comes out here to the soldier's home to make her recovery. and we believe that she did that here in the mary lincoln room. not only is it the most isolated bedroom on the second floor but the only one with windows on three different walls allowing for better cross-breezes to make her recovery more comfortable. but in 1862, there is also the imperative of having a more private place to mourn and to grieve after the death of their son willie. willie lincoln passed away in february of 1862, and mary lincoln was going about the traditional cultural and social expectations of a woman in mourning and felt like she couldn't do this effectively down at the white house. so for her there was a family and a personal imperative to come out here to the soldiers' home, to have a forward-looking statement grieve the loss of her son. one of the best documented events that actually took place here at soldiers' home is a seance hosted out here after the death of willie lincoln, and noah brooks writes about that account in his diary. lincoln on one occasion felt that mary lincoln was being taken advantage of, and she might be subject to blackmail. and he asked for some of his colleagues and friends to check out the situation, see if they could figure out what this so-called medium was actually doing and figure out how he was able to make the noises he was claiming were spirits, so noah brooks is present at this seance at the soldier's home and recounts the noises that they were hearing and when the lights turned on, they had grabbed the persons hand and were able to prove that he was a fraud. based on the historical record, it does not seem that mary was aware she was being degree -- defrauded in this way. in fact, after it's revealed this man was a fake, she's quite embarrassed by it. there's an attempt to conceal and cover up the incident. whenever mary lincoln writes about this place to friends, she talked about how dearly she loved the place or how she looked forward to coming out here. she saw it as fulfilling her dream of what her family would experience when they were in washington, d.c. so even though it was still a place where death and the war were surrounding them, it also give them a little bit of respite from the chaos of downtown washington, d.c. >> the soldiers' home is avail football for public tours and if -- available for public tours s if you get to washington, d.c., put it on the list. it is one of the out of the way spots is a time capsule of a important piece of history. you wanted to react to the seance. >> the carriage accident, this is the lincoln presidency in miniature, because we don't know, mary's condition, whatever it was, worsened after that very severe head injury that she experienced. the date is significant. it was the 2nd of july, 1863. which is the second day of the battle of gettysburg. needless to say the president's attention is focused elsewhere. he was not in a situation, well with gettysburg and vicksburg and to pay enough attention to his wife. >> there is speculation that the carriage accident was an attempted assassination. one part of their history that we didn't tell about is on their initial trip to washington after the election, there was a documented assassination attempt that the pinkerton service saved them from on the train in baltimore. i'm saying this just to say there was a constant threat on the lives of these people. so that stress as well. >> oh, i agree. she was living with all of that. plus the confusion of war. i mean, it was a horrible time to be in the white house. i would think. >> the administration is filled, we're in the midst of a five-year 150th marking of the civil war events. and so we couldn't capture on one screen all of the events of the administration but here are a few of them. 1861, the civil war began of course. in 1863, they issue the emancipation proclamation. and as richard nortan smith said, delivered the gettysburg address. in 1865 the 13th amendment abolishing slavery is proposed to the state, and that's what was captured in the lincoln movie we just talked about. and on april 9th, the confederate army surrenders. that is the bookends of the lincoln administration. so the question about mary during this time period, how did she comport herself? you mentioned her visit to the military hospitals. as wife of a president in the midst of war, how did she comport herself? >> that goes to the controversy. because there is a significant body of evidence that calls into question some of her conduct. for example, she was surrounded by people who very clearly were there to take advantage of her. i'll give you one example. there was a character -- well, she needed money. you can never forget the fact that from the day she arrived there, she needed money. >> why did she need money so much? >> she needed money because she had spent -- at one point she was $27,000 in debt to her dressmakers. and so the president had to be re-elected, because if he was she could keep those bills at bay. if he wasn't re-elected, who knew what might happen. and that is quite apart from the money she was spending, the public funds she was spending on the white house proper. so there were always people around her who were eager to serve their own interests by appearing to serve hers. i'll give you one example. there was a shady character who was with the new york herald. he somehow befriended mrs. lincoln. lo and behold, the president's annual message to congress in december 1861 appeared in the new york herald the same day it went to congress. anyway, you get the picture. there was no shortage of people like this who were eager to either align their own pockets or serve their own interests. and i think the legitimate, if you want to say criticism, of mrs. lincoln as first lady has nothing to do with her mental condition, where you could only feel empathetic, but legitimately there is criticism about how she conducted herself in ways that always were in danger, if exposed, of embarrassing the president. >> now in this case, her letter, it was the gardner who took the letter and gave it to the press. >> that was the story that was bandied about. >> and then the gardener leaves for scotland, leaves the employ of the white house. so he must have been paid to do this. >> but the other side of the argument is that that was a story they cooked up, in effect, to cover what had actually happened. >> let's take another call. candice is in fredericksburg, virginia. welcome. >> thank you. i'm enjoying the show very much. i have a question regarding the broken first engagement and then they got back together, about a year and a half later and got married. number one, why do you think they broke up? and number two, why did they get back together and do you think lincoln loved her throughout their marriage? thank you. >> thank you so much. i'm going to hold that question because as this program progresses, we'll go back in time to how abraham and mary got together and we'll answer candice's question, i promise. let's take another one from chad in baltimore. you're on, chad. >> caller: my question is about elizabeth keckley. i think she served both mary lincoln and vernon davis, the first lady of the confederacy, i'm not sure. >> she made dresses for a variety of people, including jefferson davis's wife, general mclellan's wife. she was very popular. she had her own shop. she did not live in the white house. she had her own residence, a place where she rented. and she was very popular among the congressional wives who then recommended her to mrs. lincoln. >> had she bought her freedom? >> yes. she bought her freedom in st. louis through dress-making. >> as the lincolns traveled back and forth between the white house and the soldier's home, they passed what is called contraband camps. >> yes. >> what were those? >> people slavery, especially in washington, coming from maryland virginia in particular with their families. or slaves -- enslaved people who were emancipated but had no place to go. and there were several contraband associations across the nation, but mrs. keckley was one of the founders of the washington contraband association. and she talked mrs. lincoln into donating and from i hear mrs. lincoln talked the president into making donations. >> we have many people on both facebook and twitter asking us questions about her views on slavery. here are a couple of them. ronald wolf blair, since they were friends with henry clay, did mary prescribe to the emancipation and the colonization of the slaves or did she press for immediate emancipation and scrapping the scholar and was she anti-slavery and did she support the 13th amendment? do we know. >> she supported the 13th amendment. she was anti-slavery. >> right. and they say that she influenced the president into the immediate emancipation. even though i think that was a war strategy. >> i think you're right. >> but she was definitely -- she didn't go the other way. she was encouraging him to go ahead and do it. >> but the mention of henry clay, it's very important. in some ways what brought them together, this very unlikely couple in many ways, was a shared love of politics, which, again, particularly unusual for a young, well-bred lady of that era but in particular henry clay, who was a neighbor of the todds, who was a good friend and lincoln's political hero. so in some ways henry clay is the political matchmaker behind this unlikely union. >> and a good segue into our increases visit, which is to springfield. springfield, illinois, the capital of the state and the place where abraham and mary would meet. let's watch more about some of the collections in the lincoln library there of mary lincoln first lady artifacts, and we'll learn more about how that city, which is so important to them preserves her memory. >> here we have some things that mary lincoln had in the white house. she continued to be interested in books. here is just two volumes of what we think was a 27-volume set of the works of sir edward bulwark litton. not a name much recognized today. though, this particular novel is sort of remembered, "last days of pompeii." and mary signed these books. in this case 1864. she was a pretty good writer of letters. this is her personal letter seal with the monogram m.l. on it. notice that there is no "t" in there. she never called herself mary todd lincoln. she never called herself mary t. lincoln. she was mary lincoln or mrs. lincoln or mrs. president lincoln. the inclusion of todd in her name is a 20th century invention. this is a letter that begins to show some of her difficulties, you would suppose, in the sense that her reputation suffered. she is writing to the assistant secretary of the treasury, mr. george harrington, asking if he could find a job for her dressmaker, elizabeth keckley. because she doesn't any longer need the services of ellen shehan and wants her off the jobs list and wants to get elizabeth keckley onto the jobs list over at treasury. and i promise i will never ask you for another favor again, mr. harrington. though, of course, she did over and over. but the real cause of their sorrow in the white house, personally, was the death of their son willie. this is a piece of sheet music which we just acquired, and it is one of two copies of it recorded anywhere in a library. we suppose there are a few others out there. little willie's grave. hard to imagine how many people would have wanted to buy this outside of the lincolns' immediate circle of friends and yet a substantial publisher in new york, william hall and son, did print it. he was the first child to have died in the white house and one of only two presidential children ever to die in the white house. >> that is the lincoln presidential museum and library which our guest richard norton smith was very much involved in the creation of. going back to her need for money. dan nygaard reminds that abraham lincoln was a successful lawyer in springfield and worked for the railroad and made quite a bit of money so what was his income in the late 1850s and why did they need money so much? >> it is a great point. if you look at the contemporary accounts, mary's preoccupation with money seemed to have been something that started with washington. in fact, their friends and neighbors who talk about how thrifty she was, necessarily. what a good housekeeper she was during his legal days back in springfield. i think it was grounded in her sense that we talked about a little bit already, that she was a national figure, that she was representing the west, if you will, that she was quite aware there were people who were condescending to both her and her husband. that she had a place, a status, an appearance to maintain. and i think it was as simple as that. i also think it got out of hand. lincoln left an estate of $85,000 at the time of his death, of which she is the widow and would inherit one-third. and you figure she was at the time of his re-election, she was in debt $27,000. >> well, on that note, it is said that mary bought duplicates and we're not talking duplicates, we're talking hundreds, sometimes, of many items such as gloves and parasols. was this true, and what happened to all of the items? >> that is a great question. and that is true. that is the sort of the obsessive nature. over time it became more pronounced that she would go and buy dozens of sets of gloves that -- at a given time. >> one thing, though, wearing gloves in washington with all of those people coming in, i'm sure she was aware of the germs that people had. and i think that was a significant thing. mrs. keckley kept some used gloves of the president that mrs. lincoln took off of his hands and gave to her. so whenever there were meetings and people were coming by, they wore gloves. i mean, this was in the movie. this was real. the movie about the lincolns, the movie showed his servant saying mrs. lincoln wants you to wear these gloves. it is important to wear the gloves. and that caught me. i said, she knew about the disease in the city. >> but she did buy in some cases 300 sets of these. so even knowing about that -- >> one of the really touching and sort of counter-points to this is lincoln loved to see her in beautiful clothes. it was one of the few extravagances that he was comfortable with. >> so he was indulgent on one hand and critical on the other. >> i would say much more indulgent than he was critical. >> we need to move to re-election. we capital do justice to the tumultuous years of the white house. but was there any question that lincoln would seek re-election? >> there wasn't any question that he would seek re-election. there was a profound question of whether he would be, in fact, elected. he himself acknowledges as late as august of 1864, wholly dependent on the course of the war. and at that point before sherman's march and before atlanta had fallen, before it became very clear that there was only a question of time that the north would win, lincoln himself believed that he would not be re-elected. so you could imagine the mood upstairs around mrs. lincoln. >> and he had bouts of melancholy. a lot of them. and apparently she was one of the few people who could soothe him and bring him out of it. >> and here is what mary lincoln had to say shortly after the reelection in 1864. our heavenly father sees fit to oftentimes visit us at such times for our worldliness, how small and insignificant all worldly honors are when we are thus so surely tried. >> well, you know, there is still part of the debate about lincoln and religion. clearly mary was a devout church-goer, who i think she had some doubts planted by the death of willie. lincoln himself never joined a church. but even as far back as springfield, we have accounts of him spending hours and hours sitting in the -- at home with the minister going over the bible. he knew his king james bible front and back. in some ways where he taught himself to write. >> that fateful night of april 1865, when the lincolns who were pretty avid theatergoers make the decision to see "our american cuss in"at ford's theater in washington, d.c., and lincoln is assassinated. tell us briefly the story of his death and mary's role in that. >> well she's right there. of course, she witnesses it. in fact, she's the one that cries out first, the president has been shot. because people assume that this man who jumps is part of the show. and then they take him across the street to what is it, a boarding house? >> yeah. >> and he's very sick and his cabinet members -- and to me that was very strange. the cabinet members are all around him while the doctors are there. and she's hysterical. i guess she would be, you know. and so they get one of her female friends to take her out of the room, and they keep her there. she won't bring her in. and that's what takes him all night to pass away. >> 7:22 in the morning. >> right. >> the sad thing is that they wouldn't let her see him at the end, because they didn't want to hear her -- from what i gather, it's because they didn't want to hear her hysteria. >> secretary stanton who took charge of everything in the house that night at one point said take that woman out of the room. robert todd lincoln was at his father's bedside, but mary was not there when the end came. >> let's hear a call from michael in st. petersburg, florida. michael, are you there? >> yes. >> go ahead with your question, please. >> well, first, thank you for taking my call. i have enjoyed the entire series. i have followed it with margaret truman's biography of the first ladies. she devotes quite a bit of time to mary todd lincoln and remarks that in many historians' lists mary todd lincoln ranks at the very bottom. i don't agree with that. i am wondering how your commentators would also rank mrs. lincoln in terms of all of the first ladies. >> thank you very much. >> oh, boy. put it this way. i certainly would disagree with those who rank her at or near the bottom. i think to put it mildly that is a less than compassionate but i also think her years in the white house, her story is really unique in all of the annals of white house history. i think she is a unique figure and the fact that 150 years later we're having this discussion, still debating her motives and her conduct, you know, tells you, she is an important first lady and i'll leave it at that. >> she is important because of the man to whom she was married. >> she is important because of the man to whom she is married and because of the part she plays in the story which is still being debated after all of these years. we still feel as though we don't know who she was and we are not having this debate over angelica van buren. >> she is one of my favorites. not my true favorite but i kind of divide them up into 18th, 19th century and 20th, 21st century. and among the 19th century ones she and abigail adams would be my favorites. so i would rank her quite high. you also have to look at her vision as a partner. several first ladies considered themselves partners with their husbands. not that they were trying to tell them what to do but to help advise them, take care of them, whether mentally, physically, politically. and i think she was a very significant influence on her husband. >> she is a tragic figure. >> yes. that is part of it. >> part of the tragedy is that very partnership which arguably did help contribute to his becoming president in many ways was destroyed by the war and the presidency that they had worked together to achieve. >> and the villification. >> we'll go to queens, new york. you're on, develin. >> caller: thank you so much. thank you for producing such a wonderful program. i watched it every night. >> thank you. >> caller: i would like to comment about carl sandberg's "lincoln" the television movie in 1974. i think today's movie is good but if you really want to know about the lincolns i think people should watch this movie. also on youtube you can find out how lincoln's body was almost stolen from his crypt. that's something i didn't even know about as well. and i just want to bring it out to you, sir, there is so much information about the lincolns that it would take a whole year. i would rate mary lincoln with eleanor roosevelt and jacqueline kennedy. thank you so much. >> well you make the jacqueline kennedy connection. in fact, 100 years later when john f. kennedy was assassinated jacqueline would look to the plans from the lincoln funeral to guide her through the decisions for the kennedy funeral. tell us about the lincoln funeral. >> well, there's never been anything like it. then or since. basically, 20 days, thereabouts. what they did was they retraced the route, essentially, the inauguration route from springfield to washington. with a couple exceptions they retraced that route and they were ten in effect state funerals in cities along the way. by one estimate one-third of every northern american either looked upon the president's face in his casket or saw the train go by. it was an extraordinary pageant of grief, very victorian, very 19th century. of course the irony is that mrs. lincoln was not along for any of it. in keeping with tradition, she remained behind at the white house, absolutely grief-stricken. so she really didn't attend any of her husband's funerals. >> she is described in the white house as missing all of the celebrations, as wailing with grief repeatedly. what can you tell us about her response? >> well, i can understand it. it's not me. but i mean, considering all the things she had to go through, in her early part of the marriage, getting to the white house, the triumph of that, then the death of their son, then his assassination in front of her. i mean, i can understand that. but i also think, and maybe this blow on the head might have exacerbated her emotional state, that she was getting it -- letting it out. letting it all come out. and it was very sad but i can understand it. >> both kentucky and illinois claim the lincolns as their own. mary todd was born in lexington, kentucky. we'll visit that place next. >> we are at the mary todd lincoln house, mary's girlhood home where she lives from 13 to 21. this is not where she was born. her birthplace no longer stands. this is the most significant property still standing related to mrs. lincoln's childhood. we are in mary's bedroom. she shared a room over the years with various sisters and also with various cousins who lived with them. the todds did have family members who came to live with them here in lexington. that was primarily so the family members could attend school. lexington was known for its educational and cultural institutions. mary lincoln had at least nine years of formal schooling. she first attended wards academy which was within walking distance of her birthplace and then she went on to attend madame mentel's academy. she learned everything expected of women of her class such as needle point and dancing but they also learned higher levels of what in this time period are traditionally male subjects such as literature and arithmetic. so mary's formal education made her one of the most educated women of her generation. the popular image of mary todd lincoln is often very dark and dour, but her childhood here in lexington, many of the stories associated with it just represent a typical childhood. she had a pony she rode around town. she and her siblings would catch minnows in the creek that ran out back. she and a cousin were actually quite precocious and they attempted to create their own hoop skirts and then sneak off to wear them to sunday school. this is the family parlor of the mary todd lincoln house where mary and her parents and her many siblings would have spent the evening together. it is important to keep in mind that in addition to the white family members there were enslaved african-americans at this, the todd home. on average, over the years that they lived here, they had five slaves who provided all the household labor and lived at the property. that included usually three women and two men. we have a portrait of mary's step mother's mother. this is mary brown humphries. she is said to have been a formative influence on mrs. lincoln. mrs. humphries was very well educated. she spoke french fluently. she is also interesting because of her views in regard to slavery. in her will, she chose to provide for the gradual freeing of her slaves over a period of years after her death, and this represents the political position of gradual emancipation. this is one position on the spectrum in regard to slavery. this is the dining room of the home. this is where mary along with her older siblings and parents would have entertained other prominent families of the day, including politicians. one of the greatest politicians of the day and a neighbor of the todds was henry clay. henry clay was the leader of the wig political party at the national level and a friend of the todd family. mary lincoln's father was also a member of the wig political party and todd and clay shared political ideas especially in regard to slavery. both clay and todd supported the american colonization society which was a movement to resettle free blacks back to liberia. so this represents yet another view on slavery that mary lincoln was exposed to as a child. this is the gentleman's parlor of the house, a formal area that usually would have been off limits to the women. but according to one of mary todd lincoln's cousins, mary liked to sit in on some of the political conversations that would happen here when her father was entertaining other prominent men of the day. they say that mary lincoln might have taken an interest in politics in part 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. your question or comment? >> caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. i certainly appreciate the empathetic and very -- the stressing the specific aspects of mary's time in the white house. of course one that is briefly brought up here in the segment we just watched is the fact that many of mary's kin became confederates during the war. very famously so. in fact i live in the home of her sister emily todd helm who married a man who would eventually become a confederate general in his own right. could you talk a little bit about mary's perception of her confederate siblings and her mourning. did she mourn for her confederate kin? >> thank you. interesting question. >> it is. you know, her family was so huge. the first family, she was the fourth of seven children and the second family there were nine children. there were at least three or four of her siblings or step siblings who fought actively for the confederacy. and some of them died. >> and one of them was the husband of one of her favorite step sisters, emily. >> yeah. exactly. and i believe he was killed. >> right. >> and the lincolns actually had emily to stay at the white house. for some extended period of time. in fact, there is a scene where i believe there is a union general who is at the dinner table and in effect complaining about sharing the dinner table with a rebel. lincoln said, mrs. lincoln and i don't need any help from you in deciding who our guests will be. anyway, mary made it very clear that her siblings had taken up arms not only against her country but against her husband. she saw no reason to mourn their loss. >> nancy is in bristol, indiana. you're on, nancy. >> caller: thank you. this wonderful, unique woman is my hero and something that is not brought up very often, i mean, it is brought up often is about her mental condition but i've never seen in all the books i've read anything about the laudanum that she took. it's -- oh, what's the word -- it's 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 don't understand why more people don't bring this up especially as her mental condition got worse as she got older. >> thank you, nancy. do you know anything about her treatment of her headaches? >> no i don't but what she is saying would make sense. >> you read she suffered from headaches throughout her life. >> yes, probably migraines. >> it was. all her life. lincoln used to leave the law office. thunderstorms, too. she was terrified of thunderstorms. at the first sign of a thunderstorm he would leave the office and go home. >> horace is in philadelphia as our discussion of mary todd lincoln continues. hi, horace. >> caller: hey, good evening. i am fascinated by the program. i've been listening since it's been on and i'm watching every night it appears. i'd like to know how did the lincolns come to know each other? who courted who? how did they get to meet? >> well, thanks so much. may we answer that by video? because we are next going to learn more about the lincolns' springfield home and we'll 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 mary lincoln ever owned. this is where mary learned how to be a wife and mother. they lived here from 1844 to 1861. over the course of the 17 years they added on and added on and create this had two story, 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. lincoln's career. he was traveling the circuit. so most of the day-to-day oversight would have been mary lincoln. she was very decisive. she knew exactly what she wanted. it was probably not too tough of a proejt for her. they were able to add five bedrooms. there is a guest bedroom which would have been a luxury. mr. lincoln and mrs. lincoln were able to have their own space. not necessary to highlight problems in their marriage but just so they had their own space. privacy is not something you get a lot of in the 1850s and 1860s. mr. lincoln could stay in here and work till midnight or 1:00 a.m. on legal papers or political views. mrs. lincoln would have to get up early to start breakfast. her two youngest sons slept in a trund l bed out from under her bed. across the hall was another bedroom that was robert's initially. as the oldest son he got his own room. as soon as he went away to college his younger brothers moved right in. the last bedroom here was the hired girl's room. they had a hired girl almost every year they lived here. that girl had her own space at the end of the hallway right up from the kitchen. we are in mary's bedroom now. this would have been a sanctuary for her. she is in a house full of boys and men and a lot of men coming to visit mr. lincoln so she would have needed a spot she could call her own, that she could retreat to if she needed to, that could serve as a home office for her. this is literally and figuratively the center of the home. this stove is called a royal oak stove. you can see the oak leaves and the acorns on the stove door. on the oven door. it came from buffalo, new york. mary purchased this stove here in springfield from a local stove dealer. we think somewhere between $20 and $25 for the stove. if you think about it, the average person only making about $500 a year at that point, 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 in washington. mr. lincoln reminded her she wouldn't be doing a lot of cooking so they left it here for the renters. the neighborhood they were in was starting to become a little more middle class. it started o you the a little bit lower middle class. small houses. a lot of widows. 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 that is a glimpse of the lincolns' life together in springfield but the question was asked how did the couple meet? they were ten years apart in age. >> that's right. well, she left lexington. it's been speculated that a relationship with her step mother may have been a factor. in 1839 she went to springfield. why springfield? well, her sister was married to a man named ninian edwards jr. his father had been governor of territorial illinois. and so she was immediately thrown into the social set. i mean, springfield was a tiny town. maybe 2,500 people. but it was very heirarchical. this is something people tend to overlook. why lincoln was attracted to her in the first place. classic opposites attracting. i mean, this was a young woman who frankly was, could have had her choice. no fewer than four united states senators, future senators expressed interest in mary. she spoke french fluently. she was by all accounts a witty conversationist, 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 mary did that i think she doesn't get a lot of credit for was in effect to add some polish to her unpolished husband. she was his advocate. she imagined after he'd lost two races for the united states senate that his political career wasn't over. she imagined him in the white house long before he ever did. her famous strawberry socials on the first floor were one tangible way in which she conducted a campaign for him. >> abraham lincoln might have been entranced but he wasn't certain and he broke off their engagement for a year and a half is that correct? here is something he had to say after breaking off the engagement with mary. >> i am now the most miserable man in the world. if what i feel were equally distributed to the whole human family there would not be one cheerful face on earth. can 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 care for each other. let's be friends. in effect, reignited the friendship. and by november of 1842, without really telling anyone, they announced that very day, mary let it be known to the edwards family they were marrying that night. ninian edwards and his wife insisted, no, we have to do it at our house, etcetera. the great, tragic irony of all of this is that it was in that same house 40 years later that mary's life came to an end. >> our next call is from christy in west fargo, north dakota. >> caller: thank you for having me. i am calling today because i wanted to know your feelings about what mary would have thought when lincoln signed for the slaves to be free. he also signed for 38 dakota native americans plus two to be hung in mankato, minnesota, which was the largest mass hanging in our united states history. being a native american from north dakota i was just wondering about your comments. did mary know about this? if she did, what were her feelings at the time? >> i haven't seen anything about her response to the hanging. i know she was very excited about the emancipation proclamation. i suspect from what i have gleaned about her caring for people who were disadvantaged and who were outsiders so to speak that she might not have liked the idea but i don't know. do you? >> i don't. i know lincoln tried to reduce that number, the original list was much, much larger. he reduced it significantly and one senses that he went along with the whole thing somewhat reluctantly but i don't know more than that. >> cindy in denver. hi, cindy. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to say thank you for this series. it's great. and i wanted to ask if either of your guests had ever heard about mary lincoln suffering mental illnesses we would today equate with being bipolar or manic depressive. >> thank you for asking that question. we have many people on twitter and facebook all wanting to put a name on mary lincoln's anguish. how possible is that to do when you're looking back through a lens of 150 years with the discipline psychology or psychiatry that didn't exist in that day? >> that is what i was thinking. they used to call it manic depressive before we got bipolar. but it seemed as though sometimes she was very excited and very outgoing and then sometimes -- but wasn't depressed as much as hysterical, you know, with grief. >> but, still. how possible is it for us to know the medical diagnosis? >> the symptoms give you hints. >> first of all i point out the obvious. neither one of us is professionally trained to diagnose any condition but it is no doubt there is this continuing fascination and desire on the part of people to put a name to her condition. >> from what i understood none of the physicians could figure it out. they couldn't come up with anything conclusive and diagnose it. >> as a girl she was called high strung. later the euphemisms were mercurial. who knows? >> elaine, cochran, georgia. good evening. >> caller: hi. thank you for the program. i'll mention the book and supper club my husband and i are in with three other couples has read patricia brady's biography of martha washington. i was glad when that was on. >> wonderful. thanks for being with us for the series. >> caller: two months ago we read first family about john and abigail adams. that has added more to my knowledge of those two. another book that we read, which is fictionalized, we've read "team of rivals" by the way. another one we've read which is a fictionalized biography of mary. i know how you might feel about that. it did nothing in it was new to me or contradicted anything i've heard from other historical sources. except that there was mention of what appeared to be an affair with some government employee. it's been several years and i'm sorry that i don't remember the author. i would be very skeptical about it except for the fact that existing newspapers were quoted with dates and headlines and i thought if this author has made this up, she has really been bold in doing so. it seems to me the employee was supposed to have been maybe somebody in charge of housing or government buildings in d.c. but i wondered if you have any comments or know anything about it. >> only that one of the criticisms that has been made and i alluded to it earlier is that some of her conduct fed gossip. that's how i would characterize it. fed gossip. that suggested mrs. lincoln in her desperation for money befriended inappropriate individuals and how far it went, i would be very, very skeptical. to be honest with you. >> and that we also should say that this was the first time in history that newspapers were having columnists, opinion writers. so this opinion of her was spread in the newspapers across the country. this was really a change in the way first ladies were treated by the press. >> sure. >> she felt she was a scapegoat. she really felt it. >> stop and think of how incredibly intense the popular emotions were. we're in the middle of the civil war so naturally that carries over to coverage of the president and his family. >> we are going to look next at another video visit to the springfield home. this helps us understand more of the political partnership richard norton smith referred to between the two lincolns. >> this is the lincoln home in springfield, illinois, the home where mary helped build abraham lincoln's political career. mary and abraham 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 with a lot of goals in life but those were then enhanced when he met and married mary todd. she also was very ambitious and said she wanted to marry a man of good mind and hopes for a bright future and she also said she was going to marry a man who would be president. there was something about abraham lincoln that she saw the potential and encouraged it and helped develop it. lessons in etiquette in the dining room that helped polish him up for washington society. the political parties 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 was the dining room. when they moved in it was an eat-in kitchen. that is not something a polished, high society, upper class person would do. she had grown up with a formal dining room in lexington, kentucky and felt she needed to have one here because she didn't want her children growing up without proper manners. in a lot of cases mr. lincoln needed that polishing as well. all of her boys needed some polishing and manners so she created this dining room to have that formal space for she and her family but also for when they had guests over. there were a lot of different people that came to visit mr. lincoln during the 1860 campaign and then after he was elected president there was actually almost four months between the election and the inauguration. there were a lot of people coming to springfield. one was william seward who ended up being secretary of state. mary being an excellent hostess would have had trays of maybe a slice of her famous white cake or the macaroon pyramid from watkins confectionary that was downtown springfield that we know they bought lots of those. so you could get your refreshments here. maybe relax a little more after the formal side of meeting mr. lincoln. this is the double parlor. these are the two nicest rooms in the house. mary spared no expense to some extent. there are marble topped tables, brass val anss, the gilded candle sticks, a walnut what not shelf with a bust of mr. lincoln on it. that was here in 1860. not everybody in the neighborhood could say that they had a bust of their husband in their living room. this was the fancy place where she wanted to show off. mary would have held her parties in here where she would have been discussing mr. lincoln's political aspirations. this is where people started when they came to visit during a party. they started at the front door, met mr. lincoln here probably standing in the archway between the two rooms. maybe went through the dining room, picked up a little refreshment, then met mary in the sitting room before going out the front door again. this is where mr. lincoln met with the republican convention committee that told him he had been nominated to run for president. this was the seat of power in this house. mary helped to basically show case what her husband had done, how far he had come from the one room log cabin in the middle of nowhere, kentucky, to this beautiful house, very comfortable house and kind of hinted where they were headed stating to the world that abraham lincoln had made it and he was ready to move on. >> next, a caller from wausau, wisconsin, whose name is tim. hi, tim. go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i have read several biographies about mary lincoln and i've never, ever seen anything in there as to how influential she was on some of the policies that abraham enacted while he was president. and i'm just 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 abraham's term in office. >> thank you. was she interested in politics or policy? >> she was interested in personalities. she used to refer to seward as that abolitionist sneak. grant was that butcher. but the fact is i think we talked earlier, ironically once they actually had attained their goal, once they moved into the white house, i think her influence certainly as we would use that term today, over policy, diminished. i think their partnership was in some ways broken. i think the war consumed him and it was a source of frustration for her. the relationship that they had had before the presidency was in some ways greatly diminished. i don't 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. >> just eight minutes left and a lot of story to tell. mary lincoln lived 17 years after ley lincoln's 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. i have been 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 the i guess executor of it. so she had to struggle but she managed to plug in people who could help her. i thought that was admirable. even with her problems that she was able to do that. >> she did something that was just not done. she was obsessed with money. and at one point she moved to sell off a number of her white house dresses. which just made the public impression all the worse. >> but she was in debt was she not? >> she was. remember those $27,000 that she owed. no. she needed the cash. no doubt about it. she petitioned congress over and over for a pension which finally, belatedly was granted. $3,000. >> a month? >> a year. subsequently raised to $5,000. >> so that was her contribution to future first ladies. >> but only after she found out that another first lady and i can't remember which one it was, was getting $5,000. then she said, if you're giving her $5,000 you should be able to give me $5,000. >> i think it was mrs. garfield. she went to live in europe because actually it was cheaper. then of course she had the, yet another great tragedy in 1871 when tad died of tuberculosis. >> how old was he? >> he would have been -- >> teenager maybe. >> 16. >> did he die in new york? >> so 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 in baltimore. your question. >> caller: great program. this is a question about tad lincoln. what was mary lincoln's relationship with her youngest son? my impression from the movie "lincoln" and from what i've read otherwise is that tad and his father had a strong and affectionate bond. did tad have a similar relationship with his mother? thank you. >> i think the answer to that is yes. and i think it carried over. tad realized -- tad had a curiously adult sensitivity. i mean, following the death 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 also similar to hers. and i think they were sympatico on that. i think she recognized that and he recognized that. so i would think that is another reason why they would be close. >> so she spent immediately time in chicago in the hyde park section. >> that's right. >> then she went to europe. >> she went to europe. she came back and then robert had her incarcerated for several months. there was a second trial, however, at which she managed to convince the jury that she was perfectly sane. she and robert never really reconciled. she went back to europe for four years, lived in france for four years. then in 1880 returned to springfield. by this time she was almost blind. she had severe cataracts. and she went to live in her sister's house, the house in which she had married mr. lincoln. that is where her life ended in 1882. >> donna in benton, illinois, you are on. >> caller: i think they answered my question. i was wondering if robert and his mother ever got to be friends again. did he not offer to take her to his home? >> yeah. there was a -- you might call a formal reconciliation but it was, i emphasize formal. >> i don't think she trusted him. i wouldn't have. >> related to this, s.m. on twitter asks, are there any living relatives of the lincolns? >> there are no direct descendents of the children. >> so robert had no children. >> robert had a son abraham lincoln ii who died and i used to remember the lines, but the last direct descendents died in 1970s. >> this is one of those great questions to wrap up the program. it comes from john richardson on facebook. he writes, to the historians, when you are alone with your friends, what is your favorite story to tell about mary lincoln? >> okay. that she and elizabeth keckly had a great relationship. they were the same age. they both lost sons. because keckly's 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 she is a very sensitive person. that she could empathize. >> how controversial would it have been for her to be friends with an african-american? >> i think it would have been to some extent. even though people kept calling elizabeth keckly her servant, but i don't think mary looked at her as a servant. i think she considered her to be a companion. >> richard, your favorite story? >> well, i guess i'd say in the case of what might have been, lincoln of course served only one term in congress. his opposition to the mexican war ensured he would not be re-elected. so it was mary who managed the campaign to try to get him a government job, the job of commissioner of the general land office at $3,000 a year. it was mary who wrote the letters. in the end when he was offered in its place the governorship of the oregon territory it was mary who turned it down telling him that oregon was not wiig friendly, likely to be democratic and would not advance his long term political interests. to be the governor of the oregon territory. >> we have just a short time left. we'll go to our caller in denver, colorado. >> caller: hi. i was calling and would like to know a couple things. what do you think she would have wanted her legacy to be today? also, the second thing is would she have been more or against the women's movement in the '60s if she could travel through a time machine? >> all right. thank you very much. let's do the legacy and you might do the women's movement question. all right? >> okay. >> the legacy, that she loved her husband and her family and her country. in that order. >> can you speculate -- >> 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. >> well, we are out of time. i hope we have done what we set out to do which is to provide a more nuanced picture of mary todd lincoln the wife of our 16th president. i want to say a special thank you to the white house historical association who has been our partner and will be throughout our series. 35 installments of this all together. and to our two special guests richard norton smith and for your contributions tonight, thanks for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> thank you. ♪ if you enjoyed watching first ladies pick up a copy of the book "first ladies influence and image" featuring profiles of the nation's first ladies. through interviews with top historians. now available in paperback, hard cover, or as anñd first ladies, influence and image, on american history tv, examines the private lives and the public roles of the nation's first ladies through interviews with top historians. tonight we look at julia grant and lucy hayes. julia grant was a staunch defender of women's rights in general and refused to allow jokes at women's expense to be told in her company. lucy hayes was the first first lady to have a college degree. watch "first ladies, influence and image" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. on c-span 3. c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily "washington journal" program or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by america's 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 is the earliest existing house. they lived here through the 1830s and 1840s. >> she was educated and had 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 over the ocpa

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Georgia , Chad , United Kingdom , Fredericksburg , Virginia , West Fargo , North Dakota , Henry Clay , Kentucky , Brooklyn , Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , Florida , Springfield , Minnesota , Illinois , Indiana , Wisconsin , Liberia , Oregon , Washington , Roosevelt Camp , Denver , Colorado , Petersburg , Sankt Peterburg , Russia , Wausau , Poland , France , Chicago , Polish , Americans , America , Scotland , French , American , Patricia Brady , Dan Nygaard , John Richardson , Lincoln Whitehouse , George Harrington , Dolley Madison , Edwards Jr , Mary Lincoln , Gary Robinson , Todd Lincoln , King James , Willie Lincoln , Lucy Hayes , Vernon Davis , Lucy Hayes Julia , Richard Norton Smith , Mary Brown Humphries , Steven Douglas , Abigail Adams , Norton Smith , Emily Todd , William Hall , Mary Todd , Mary Todd Lincoln , Abraham Lincoln , Kennedy Lincoln , Simeon Francis , William Seward , Catherine Clinton , John Bell , Robert Todd Lincoln ,