mr. president, my name is bob willard. i've been president of the abraham lincoln institute in the past. i'm delighted to be at this, the 17th symposium of the abraham lincoln institute. i've attended almost every one. but it's a little more challenging now after living in and around washington, my wife and i are now happily e sconced in california. as america said good-bye to first lady nancy reagan, two yule gists, secretary jam baker and her son ron jr. both claimed that without mrs. reagan there would have been no president reagan. i'm not a fan of the counter fak churl history discussions but i realize that for as long as i remember, i expressed that same view regarding mary lincoln. and it was underscored this morning by sydney blumenthal. i've heard many presentations on mrs. lincoln from friends and foes of this controversial first lady. love her or hate her, there's little doubt in any mind that abraham and mayry loved each other deeply and supported each other for better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and in health. and that mary's support was an indispensable element. our next speaker knows more about this relationship than just about anybody. stacey pratt mcdermott is the author of last years's southern girl, northern woman. this compact volume traces the connell plex and often tragic life of mary lincoln in four stages. mayor vi todd, mrs. abraham lincoln, mrs. president lincoln and the widow lincoln. i encourage you to read the book. but if you want to get an instant presentation, let me draw your attention to her guest log on the civil war in pop culture. in it tracy drew a succinct portrait of mary lincoln. but dr. mcdermott's expertise extends far beyond mary. her undergraduate studies were followed by graduate studies. her ph.d. dissertation on the journeys in the midwest formed the basis of her 2012 book p published by ohio university press. our colleague and friend writes, quote, mcdermott's careful study based on extensive primary source research sheds fresh light on the legal history of 19th century america. it should come as no surprise that traci is comfortable with this material. she start as an intern and worked her way as her current position being an integral part of the papers of abraham lincoln project. this every is making available digitally all of the works created by lincoln as well as the material received by him. i first became aware of stacy's contributions when u was on the advisory board dealing with the first phases. i would be de i draw your attention to the editorial in the "the new york times" last sunday, march 13th. and if you are so moved i urge you to exercise your right to petition to government for grievances. at this time and with that public service announcement behind me, it's my personal honor to ask stacy to take her place on this stage and i ask you all to give her a warm welcome. [ applause ] >> wow. it is such a pleasure and an honor on the to be here today. and when i got here this morning i was so nervous giving a talk here at this hallowed building. and then i saw the set and i'm like, they did that. i'm from the midwest. this is perfect. i feel right at home with this scenery. so that's calmed my nerves right away. so perhaps many of you dislike mary lincoln. and perhaps many of you believe that she is really not so bad. but she just suffers by comparison to her mythical god-like husband. perhaps there are some of you who actually like mary lincoln as i do. but i am absolutely certain that everyone assembled here today is aware of the fact that mary lincoln is not a popular historical figure. and mary lincoln's legacy in this regard is going to be at the forefront of my presentation today. but i am not here to defend mary lincoln, to defend her shortcomings. i am not here to make apologies for her human faults and falgs. i am not here to deny that she made mistakes, she sometimes acted badly and she failed to be a perfect wife, a perfect mother and a perfect first lady. rather my goal here today is to offer some reflections of my personal journey with mary lincoln in writing my biography of her extraordinary life to share my perceptions of how some of mary lincoln's contemporaries have unfairly judged her. and to provide some illuminating historical context of her fascinating life. hopefully at the end of my presentation you'll understand a little bit of what a nice girl like me is doing in this sordid mary lincoln business and you'll maybe understand mayorly lincoln a little better too. but most importantly i hope you'll see mary lincoln's humanity. when i first began rk wog at the lincoln papers we was taken aback by the venom that many scholars spewed at mary laninco. the mary haters, impossible to escape. they dominated the lincoln story of the 19th century, of the 20th century and the historical conferences they was attending in the 20th century. constantly they presented the kind and honest and good mr. lincoln and own the other hand his hateful, deceitful hell cat of a wife. it doesn't do us much help in understanding abe haim lincoln, his marriage or his life. and they certainly don't help us understand mary. at the time it appeared to me that gene baker, a biographer, she penned a biography and balanced portrayal of mayorly lincoln in 1987. at that time when i was studying lincoln trying to understand all of this, she seemed to me to be the only one who was interpreting mary with any historical knew nuance at all. it seemed like nobody was really listening to jean baker and interpreting lincoln or the lincoln marriage. now i had read all of the b biographies i could get my hands on on abraham lincoln and i read many of the biographies that had been written about mary and it seemed clear to me that baker's portrayal of abraham lincoln having chosen mary. he was the first lady by his side. yet biographers didn't seem interested in the nuances. i had just finished a masters degree under the tutelage of a femist historian so i had my own feminist backup. but it seemed clear to me that there was a male dominated area of lincoln biographers that disliked mary or cast her in a somewhat negative light. and a female dominated mary lincoln biographers who mostly liked her, absolutely liked her or loved her or admired her. i could not help but recognize this gender gap and i spent a lot of years trying to understand it. but if jean baker's gap hadn't been able to bridge the gap, i found it maybe wasn't possible. was there an answer to this historical aggravation of mine and if there was an answer, how might it change the story. i was an editor of lincoln's papers and i preferred my view of the lipping cncoln story atoe biographies. in hindsight i started to notice that i probably was -- a mary lincoln biographer was churning in me for a while. when my ph.d. adviser encouraged me to accept the writing a biography of mary lincoln, i pretty much do whatever he tells me so i maybe didn't have a choice. but as i started to think about it, i realized i had been thinking about mary for a long time. and as i considered the possibility of taking on the product, i harkened back to some of my old historical ag vegass and i asked myself some very hard questions. would i be just another female biographer of mary lincoln who liked her? could i write a biography that might be capable of changing people's minds about mary lincoln? could i write a biography that might shed some new light on the lincoln marriage? was i willing to tackle a bridge that i thought was of a sturdy construction. i didn't know the answers to those questions. i'm not sure i know them now and i certainly couldn't predict the outcome of the project in my hands and i admit i was scared to death. but the parameters of the biography intrigued me so much that i was actually more excited than in fear. editors were calling calling for a short, readable by graphical treatment. i loved the idea of writing a short engaging narrative that would be accessible to general readers and u was thrilled with the prospect of writing a sweeping biography of an interesting person in a short little volume. and of course choosing documents for the end of the svolume, tha was a piece of cake. once i signed the contract, my nerves were still there and i wanted really i worked really hard to think about a presh way of approaching this project that made sense in a brief biography but it also would be an approach to allow me to explore the rich his store context of mayorly lincoln's life. and i desired to have an approach that might be useful to future biographers of her famous husband, abe haraham lincoln. i began my research and at the very beginning i purchased a well-loved, very battered volume in a used bookstore of mary lincoln's edited letters published in 1972 by justin and linda turner. i sat down in really comfortable places in my house, drank some wine and i read very slowly every single word of the more than 600 letters that are in that volume and about 200 or so more that have been discovered since that volume was published in 1972. much of the time i read the letters out loud to my dog who didn't seem to mind. i took no notes, which is something that i had never done before as a scholar. i took absolutely no notes. i just read all of those letters aloud. i let mary's life unfold through the litters and i started with an absolute blank slate. i was completed committed to that. no negative, no positive opinions. i concentrated hard on mary's voice and tried to get inside of her head. even though a couple of my friends warned me about the dangers of getting inside of a crazy lady's head. but i'm kind of a crazy lady too, just ask my husband. i jumped right in there and you know what? i didn't think it was all that crazy inside of mary lincoln's head after all. i spent three months reading the letters. and all of the while i was thinking about how personal and historical experiences were shaping mary's life. about how mary viewed those experiences and about how mary understood her familial, social and public relationships and about how mary was defining the world around her. the more i read, i more i realized that not only did the mary haters not really understand mary, but i had not really understood her very well either. they had dismissed herred a crazy and mean spirited and defined her as a detriment to lincoln's public persona, i assumed a feminist posture of defending her that failed to adequately capture who he was as a person. reading her letters not only opened up her real life to me but it opened up my eyes to hi own historical biases. a portion of her life that i think is maybe the most understood ended up being the most poignant for me if any rediscovery of the woman i thought i had known. this is the point in her kro noll gi where i accept her. during her time in europe with her son tad, i very clearly saw an intelligent sensitive woman with a whole lot of what we could today call baggage. he was investigating fairly well through a life that was a press blessing and a curse. i saw a woman with a great deal of strength but also fragile. she struggled every single day to keep the past and her demons at bay. i realized then that i wanted to write a biography of a 19th century woman who was doing the best she could. and i wanted to tell human stories about this very real person from her perspective with as much of her heart, her intellect and her soul as i can possibly glean from the words she has left us. by the time i sat to writing, it became a personal imperative to me to allow mary lincoln to tell as much of her story as was possible. that was my approach. too long have historians aappropriat appropriated their life to their own ends or to tell the story of her husband's life. my approach to this biography was to rely very heavy on mayorly's own words and reflectio reflections, correcting errors, filling in gaps and providing historical context where the historian in me deemed them necessary. i think i met the demands of my editors by writing a readable engaging very short biography of mary with a few fresh perspectives on her life. but i also think i have written a biography that illustrates really quite well the richly human qualities of historical experience through the eyes of a woman who like all of us was flawed. mary lincoln was the wife of abraham lincoln and that was an extraordinarily important personal and historical fact of her life. bub mary lincoln was also a daughter, a student, a sister, a mother, a friend and ultimately a widow. she was a 19th century woman doing the best she could. sometimes her efforts exceeded even her own expectations. sometimes they were just good enough. and other times they were devastatingly insufficient. her story really is a human story. and i hope my biography adequately captured mary lincoln's humanity. mostly though in the end i hope i have written a life that mary lincoln herself might recognize. now what i would like to do is to share ten facts, top ten list, ten facts mary lincoln facts that i would like all of you to take out of the room with you today. these tencts faare, i think, imperative to understanding mary better, to understanding her marriage to abraham lincoln and her historical legacy. in going through the list i will correct a few popular misconceptions, share a couple of my pet peeves which is always fun and read a few brief selections from mary's correspondence. because how can we allow mary to have some say in all of this if we do not hear something of her own voice. so fact number one, there was no such person named mary todd lincoln. until her sister anne was born he was mary anne and after that plain mary. when she arrived in springfield, nlds he was ms. todd, molly, pet name. when she married abraham she man in november, she was mrs. lincoln. she signed all of her correspondence mrs. lincoln. she took the lincoln name and she never gave it another thought. she was mary lincoln until she died. i suppose the feminist historians started this mary todd lincoln thing to save her from domestic obscurity, but it is historically inaccurate and it drives me bananas every time i hear it, so please just call her mary lincoln or mrs. lincoln. that's what she would have wanted and you and i will get along better if you do too. fact number two, the lincoln marriage was a companionable one. mary todd lincoln and abraham lincoln. mary and abraham were looking to a spouse that would share interests with them and have similar perspectives as they did. both mary and abraham loved poetry. they loved reading and books. they liked children and they loved partisan politics. and they had a very large circle of political friends in common. they were both smart, quick witted, and absolutely obsessed with whig politics and kentucky senator henry clay, the beau ideal of their beloved party. they were likely in love and talking about marriage by december of 1840. unlike their parents, mary and abraham saw marriage as something beyond and economic union. they aspired to find love and friendship as well. marital expectations were greatly heightened for this generation of americans, and there was much more hand wringing as a result. this is a very important context in which they suffered their famous lovers break-up in january of 1841, but it was also their shared interests, their enthusia enthusiasm, for whig politics that reunited the couple in the publication of the famous rebecca letters in the summer of 1842. like most marriages, the lincoln marriage has its ups and downs. they enjoyed each other's company it is absolutely clear. they shared a great love of their boys, and they continued to bond over literature, poetry, the theater, and politics. there can be no doubt here that abraham lincoln chose mary lincoln because he loved her and enjoyed her company. he chose her because he believed she was an appropriate companionable mate, and i think she was just that. fact number three, lincoln did not travel the circuit as a lawyer to get away from mary. [ laughter ] >> lincoln started riding the circuit as soon as he began his law career in 1837. at that time, it was common for lawyers and judges to travel legal circuit. it offered a perfect way for a young attorney especially to learn the law, build a client base, establish a reputation, and make a pretty good living. not only was it a good career move for lincoln the lawyer, it also offered multiple venues in which to practice politics. and he utterly enjoyed the fraternity of the traveling bar. lincoln was not the only lawyer, nor was he the only professional in this era who lived a professional lifestyle. during this era, doctors, teachers, businessmen, and others covered large geographic areas and spent time away from their homes and their families. it was not strange that lincoln continued to travel the circuit after his marriage. mary understood the reality. her own father traveled for politics and for business. lincoln had been traveling the circuit for five years when he got married and it was providing a good living and working very well for him, and he and his wife continued to allow it to work well for their family until he was elected to the presidency in 1860. fact number four, mary's interest in politics was extreme, but it was rooted in the context of 19th century gender roles. mary's kentucky family remembered her as a fiery little whig. she earned a reputation for not only understanding politics of the day, but willing to share her opinion on her hero senator henry clay and casting aspers n aspersions on andrew jackson. when she arrived in springfield, she was ready to immerse herself in the 1840 presidential contest and she did so with much gusto. however, she admitted to a friend this fall i became quite a politician, rather an unladylike profession. like no other time in american history, women were becoming interested and involved in politics in the 1840s. they attended barbecues and rallies and speeches, and they read and penned campaign literature, but their involvement was obviously constrained as they did not have the vote or real political power. and mary understood that and was okay with it. and while there was a social role and certainly an intellectual role for her and other women to play, in the end mary really believed it was a sphere for males. it is not accident, however, that mary only considered political men and certainly she encouraged and oftentimes really encouraged the political ambitions of her husband, who was, she saw very early on, a rising star in illinois. but mostly, mary lincoln viewed her role as the wife of a politician albeit a very smart and opinionated one and she directed her ambitions towards her husband and within the context of her own marriage. she was never, for example, interested in engaging in the women's rights movement of the late 1840s. fact number five, mary lincoln's education was extraordinary. extraordinary. at a time when most women never attended school at all -- and actually le kree sha clay, henry clay's wife, was allegedly illiterate, women went maybe two, three, four, five years. that was it. mary went ten years. she studied math and history and science and religion and of course french. at her first school she participated in public recitations, which most schools of the day deemed as an activity solely for boys. after graduating from ward's, mary then went off to a finishing school where she mastered the french language and was exposed to a european perspective that opened up her imagination to new ideas, brave new ideas in some respects, and to a world far beyond her kentucky home. she had grown up in a household that encouraged the education of women. mary herself received an education at schools that valued a women's voice. these educational experiences were very important and part of who mary was and how she lived her life. they emboldened her confidence and her spirit, and they made her really very unique. when ms. mary todd arrived in springfield in 1839, she was the most educated and likely the most sophisticated and probably the most intelligent lady in the entire town. add to those qualities mary's deep understanding of and passion for whig politics, her grace, her bright blue eyes, all of those pretty dresses and is it really any wonder that the gangly and awkward abraham lincoln was smitten? fact number six, mary lincoln suffered and her suffering was very real. by the time she was in her mid to late 20s, mary was suffering with regular headaches or migraines. probably migraines. and they plagued her throughout her entire life. she was by nature an emotional woman. i think it is very likely if mary lived today, she would have been probably been treated with medications for a mental health issue of some sort and she likely would have suffered far less than it appears she did. added to the headaches and the periodic mental health difficulties, the birth of her fourth son tad was a difficult one and left her with an injury that remained a problem throughout her life. despite these difficulties, she mostly functioned pretty well. she rarely let poor physical health keep her from attending to the children, running the household, or being involved with her charitable works. in her later years, mary lincoln suffered from diabetes. she had serious back problems and she was in the end gradually losing her eyesight. keeping the sorrow from swallowing her up was a very difficult struggle for her. some historians have criticized mary for her protracted grief following the death of her son willy and the assassination of her husband, arguing that everyone suffered during the war. the civil war was indeed a horrendous, horrendous tragedy, a human tragedy, and yes, a lot of women, hundreds and hundreds and thousands of women, lost sons and husbands. yet most of them did not witness firsthand the brutal deaths of their loved ones as mary did, sitting next to lincoln right here in ford's theater on that horrifying and fateful night. then finally starting to adjust to life as a widow, mary had to suffer in 1871 the death of a third son, tad, who was just blossoming into a promising young man. she called him her troublesome little sunshine, and his companionship in her early widow hood had been critical to her survival. she loved and adored this child, and i'm of the opinion that losing tad was very likely her hardest sorrow of all. when she wrote out instructions for her funeral, she requested to be buried with mr. lincoln on one side and tad on the other. number seven, mary was a modern, kind of hip mom. many of you might be aware of mr. lincoln's indulgent parenting style as many lincoln biographies discuss this fact with wonderful stories to go along with it, but mary was also indulgent, showering the boys with affection and attention, spoiling them rotten with material objects and pets. there were 60 little kids in attendance at one birthday party. mary made out handwritten invitations that she sent out to all the children. they provided food and games. she and lincoln delighted in hosting the noisy affair that spilled out from the yard into the street. this over the top party also occurred in december 1860 at a time when the lincoln family had way more important things to do. yet they took time to indulge a child. this treatment of the kids continued in washington. the boys were allowed to romp and play in the private and public areas of the white house. their wild child behavior ann annoyed lincoln's secretaries and visitors, but it delighted the lincolns. again, they were allowed to have pets and the lincolns catered to their every whim. mary was a head of the childhood movement. i can't help but see mary lincoln's approach to her children as an illustration of a great deal of love and devotion that many scholars have simply refused to recognize in her. one story of mary lincoln's motherhood is particularly revealing. in may 1860, mark was one of a number of men from the republican convention in chicago who arrived in springfield to convey the nomination to lincoln. apparently, he arrived at the lincoln home with two campaign flags and promised one of the nags to one of the lincoln boys. probably tad. but when he left to return home, he had carried both of the flags away. on may 25th, mary wrote to mark this letter. it's one of my favorite mary letters. she wrote, one of my boys appears to claim prior possession of the smallest flag is inconsolable for its absence. as i believe it is too small to do you any service and he is urgent to have it, i ask you send it to us at the opportunity as soon as you have it. hoping you reached home safely. i remain yours respectfully. mary lincoln. no other purpose for this letter than to get that flag back for tad. fact number eight, mrs. lincoln overspent on clothing and she overspent on white house remodelling when she was first lady, but there is so much more to the story of her time in washington. mary lincoln made a home for her boys and her husband in that dusty old mansion, and she did her best to let those kids be kids in the midst of chaos, danger, and the persistent cannon of war. she worked hard to carve out private time with the boys and with her husband. and when it was possible, stealing family time at the white house at the theater or out at soldier's home where the lincolns family escaped the chaos of the city. not only was this a comfort to herself. it also was a welcome comfort and necessary distraction for her husband as well. it was mary, not her husband, who understood that in maintaining an appropriate and functioning white house in the midst of war, hosting state dinners, and holding public receptions, for example, in a stately and sophisticated environment, sent a message of a functioning government to the nation and to the world. on a regular basis, for example, the lincolns opened the white house to the public and mary stood in receiving lines for hours going through several pairs of white clean gloves no doubt greeting the public with grace, respect, and kindness. when mary lincoln was in washington, she made frequent visits to sick and injured soldiers, writing letters for them, bringing gifts of fresh fruit and liquor, and she raised money for hospitals caring for them. she also raised money for freed slaves who flocked to washington and helped her black dress maker who was a close female friend make contacts in new york and philadelphia to raise money as well. i think it's interesting that mary counted among her best friends in washington the abolitionist senator charles sumter. she also believed that the abolition of slavery was a positive result of the war and would be the single most important legacy for her husband and her children. as well, mary lincoln suffered no confederates. of course, she didn't suffer most people. certainly didn't suffer fools, and not even those who happened to be members of our own kentucky family. number nine, mary lincoln is the reason that abraham lincoln is buried at oak ridge cemetery. she wanted her husband buried in a green spot and she chose the newly established oak ridge cemetery. a monument association in springfield consisting of a contingent of old lincoln friends planned to build a tomb and monument in downtown springfield. mary was furious and her son robert was furious, and mary was intent on exercising her right as lincoln's widow. i feel it is due to candor and fairness that i should notify your monument association that unless i receive within ten days an official assurance that the monument will be erected over the tomb in oak ridge cemetery in accordance with my wishes, i shall yield my request to the national monument association in washington, d.c. and have the sacred remains deposited in the vault prepared for president washington under the dome of the national capital as early a period as is practical. she dared the association to call her bluff. in order to convince her to change her mind, a delegation from springfield traveled to chicago where mary had settled with her sons. mary refused to see them even though they were at the door. she refused to change her mind. she was resolute. and in the end, she won the battle. number ten, mary lincoln lived for seven years as an ex-pat in europe. in october of 1868, mary and tad went to europe to escape public pressures and close public scrutiny they experienced following the death of abraham lincoln. it was a burden to be the family of a martyred president. usually the 19th century press was pretty respectful of women. many papers took off their gloves were mary was concerned. some historians have argued with mary's action as first lady she invited the vicious assaults on her character and her femininity that she h brought it on herself, but i don't agree with them. in fact, i think the press was pretty unfair, albeit mostly a partisan press. a new york publication published a story and cartoon absolutely lampooning mary's efforts to sell her dresses at a new york store to raise money for her retirement to illinois. the paper attacked mary, accusing her of being a common peddler and of lacking grace and self-respect. they viewed this sordid affair as -- according to the paper, it would have been disrespectful to those prominent ladies and those prominent gentlemen to drag their good names into the tasteful array. whether or not you believe mary lincoln deserved all she got, it really doesn't matter. what matters here is that mary found it unbearable to live under all of that public scrutiny, and she decided to take action and make it go away as best as she could. luckily for her, she had the luxury of traveling abroad, something that she had always her entire life wanted to do. so mary and tad set off to europe to escape america to see the world, to visit the best medical spas and very forward thinking medical spas for mary's health, and to enroll tad in a fine european school. they settled in germany. they did an incredible amount of sightseeing that mary enjoyed. some of these letters are wonderful. she talks about her visits of foreign places. mary was -- continued to be devastated that she did not have lincoln by her side to enjoy these trips with her, and she frequently struggled to keep sorrows in check. but she did delight in tad's company and i think these were some of her happiest years. when she went back to europe for a second period of living abroad, she went for many of the same reasons she had gone in 1868. after her insanity hearing, her incarceration in a mental institution in illinois, and her successful efforts to regain control of her own finances, mary made plans for a permanent exile in france. her sister offered her a home in springfield and encouraged her to settle closer to home. yet mary believed she could not believe a peaceful life branded as a lunatic in the press in a country where everyone knew who she was and so many people disapproved of her. as she told her sister i love you, but i cannot stay. she settled in france in october 1876 and she lived there until october 1880 when she became too debilitated by health problems to stay any longer. from the french pyrenees in france where mary lived most of her time during this second residence abroad, she wrote numerous, hundreds, of letters to family and friends. she also penned among those letters about 100 letters to jacob bun, a springfield merchant and an old friend of her husband with whom she had left her personal finances in the states. on december 12th, 1876, she wrote a letter to him that i think is pretty typical of these business-type letters, and i think it also demonstrates mary's remarkably clear mind at a time when her son robert and many others believed she was severely mental unstable. i like this letter because it illustrates mary's mental health and intellect and it reveals her care and concern for family members back home and it demonstrates that even in her twilight years in a location far removed from home, she retained her passion and interest in american politics. the pension paper accompanied by your note with instructions have been received. i return the paper to you signed by the proper authorities, mr. musgrave is the consul connected with the american consulate. i observe by my daily paper of paris, which receives constant news of america, that gold on the 8th of december was 107.25, quite a decline, making it however so much better if it continues for the number of francs. the agitations caused by the difficulty of deciding who is to be our next president overshadows everything in our beloved country. we can only pray that no civil war will occur to blight our prosperous lands. now here mary is commenting on the american presidential election of 1876 that resulted in the compromise of 1877 and the withdrawal of federal troops ultimately from the south ending the period of reconstruction, which mary strongly believed was a most unfortunate development. in conclusion, mary wrote, my sister ms. edwards wrote me on the 20th of november regarding the critical condition of mr. dubois. therefore i was not unprepared to receive the sad and painful intelligence of his death. with many kind remembrances to your family, believe me respectfully, mrs. abraham lincoln. more and more towards the end of her life, mary signed her letters mrs. abraham lincoln rarely using her own first name. her la her -- i think it is a sad scene and sweet evidence that she was retreating into the life that she mostly enjoyed. as her physical and emotional health were failing her, she welcomed death. she believed in death she would be reunited with the man she loved, the children she had lost, and the domestic life that she had lived with her beloved family. to conclude, i will just say that i find mary lincoln's life compelling. she was a complicated woman who lived an interesting life in a fascinating period of american history. but more importantly, i think the reason that mary lincoln is so compelling is because she was a complex individual. she was smart, intellectually curious, and social. yet she was insecure, petty, and reclusive. she loved with all of her heart and her soul, and she hated with all of her heart and her soul. evaluating her upbringing, her education, and her life experiences, i think makes her even more compelling because we can understand something of how she became the woman she was. we can better see why a man like abraham lincoln chose her. she was a woman with a great big personality at a time when society expected women of her social status to sit quietly in the wings, to be charming and pretty and graceful, but not too charming or too pretty or too graceful. and i wholeheartedly believe that she did okay navigating that. i like her, and i also think that if you are willing to see mary lincoln's humanity and recognize the nuances of her person and the context of her life, you might even learn to like her too. [ applause ] >> yeah. >> we only have time for one question. >> make it a good one. >> i'm just going to say i liked your presentation. i hardly concur with your conclusions. i think it is just wonderful what you've done. i wanted to say my wife's great grandmother was a cousin of mary todd lincoln, so i've been married for some 60 years and lived with a todd descendant. >> is todd still the way they were then. >> my mother-in-law was a unique example of some of the same behavior and some of the very good qualities and some of the other qualities. >> like all of us. >> she died on the cusp of her 96th birthday. i knew she was senile when she was 95 because she started treating me right. i think what you're saying about the different parts of mary lincoln's personality is very much on target. >> no question. i got off easy. thanks. [ applause ] the media teaches us that the democrats and republicans are supposed to be at odds with each other, and i think that people need to recognize that we need to be respectful towards each other and we need to recognize that senators are respectful towards each other and that will be more conducive to getting more policy done. >> the truth is these people, t