ladies: influence an image. this is about 90 minutes. ♪ host: born in 1818 in lexington, kentucky, mary todd grew up and lived to see her husband issued the emancipation proclamation 45 years later. a mother of four sons, she witnessed the death of three of those sons as well as her husband's assassination. her life was filled with tragedy, but as lincoln's political partner, she relished in his success. a look at the life and times of mary todd lincoln, one of the most complex first ladies. thank you for joining us on “first ladies: influence and image.” we invite two of our academic advisers. rosalyn penn is a history professor at meredith and morgan state university. at the table again is the director of five presidential libraries including the abraham lincoln library in springfield illinois and a presidential biographer. thank you for being here. we will start with richard. mary todd is often viewed in broad strokes. criticism of her lavish spending and overly indulgent mother. if you look at a more nuanced picture, what do you see? guest: that is why we need to get 90 minutes, to begin to get at the nuances. lincoln has been called the great american story, and she is an integral part of the great american story. steven spielberg doesn't make movies about julia tyler or louisa adams. mary todd lincoln remains someone who is symbolically divisive, perhaps. to some, a heroine, others a victim. she is a surprisingly contemporary figure as well. guest: i like her because she is so complex. i say i like her. elizabeth was her dressmaker and companion. she did not live at the white house a good deal of time. formerly enslaved, purchased her own freedom and was interviewed along with other women to become the first lady's seamstress. or modess, as they called it. she made the most beautiful dresses. host: what do you learn about mrs. lincoln through elizabeth keckley's eyes? guest: it gives you a very concrete sketch of the relationship she had with her for four years. just reading what elizabeth tells you gives you an idea of how complex and hurt and victimized she was. guest: it is the most intimate portrait we have of mary. host: we will begin our new lost image, we call her mary todd. she signed it mary lincoln. where did mary todd come from? guest: it was modern. she did not use it as i understand. guest: lincoln famously said mocking the pretensions of his wife's family, gone are the time when the todd's needed one d. a thousand times she heard that joke. he's 6 foot 4, she's 5 foot 2 if that. he had a habit of introducing themselves as the long and the short of that, another joke she endured more than enjoyed. host: these programs work because they are interactive and we will get to phone calls. you can also go to the facebook page or tweet using #firstladies. let's take a brief look at what the country looked like. 31 million people in 33 states but 11 were going to break off to form the confederate states of america. 36.6% growth since 1850, continuing to grow at an enormous pace. 3.9 million slaves, 12.7% of the population. the largest cities were new york, philadelphia, and brooklyn, and baltimore. they arrive at the white house. set the scene for the election and how tumultuous politics were. guest: the political process had broken down. there were four parties that ran in 1860. the democratic party that was the one truly national political organization split into northern and southern wings, divided over the issue of slavery. stephen douglass, lincoln's longtime rival and at one point romantic rival for mary's hand is the democratic nominee from the north. vice president breckinridge is the southern democratic candidate. the whig party disappeared in the middle of the decade, they nominated john bell from tennessee, middle-of-the-road and support the constitution platform. the republicans were defined as anti-slavery, but not radically anti-slavery. they were all about containing the spread of slavery. lincoln won with 40% of the vote, the news of his election led 7 states almost immediately to secede. host: the white house that the first lady in here it was the domain of. harriet lane, admired for her social skills even though the country was fracturing. guest: historian catherine clinton said that in one of her biographies, she broke the elite virginia scheme of things. many of the congressional wives at some of the women that were very important during the virginian times were resentful. they lampooned them. lincoln and her. the sad thing was, she was a very intelligent and highly educated woman from the family in terms of what you consider wealthy and good families. but they treated her very badly. the other thing that might have hit her is that washington was a swamp. in many ways. when i came to washington, it was mosquito-ridden. that was not 150 years ago. i am sure she had a difficult time dealing with that. she complained about how drab and worn the white house itself was. some of the furniture was back to the days of dolly madison. she had a lot to worry about. guest: if you think of the repercussions of this woman arriving from kentucky, referred to as the republican queen mocked by people that do not know her and willing to assume the worst about these banquets -- backwoods lincolns. it puts a chip on her shoulder even before she arrives in the capital. it might begin explain some of her shopping, some of her preoccupation with fixing up the white house, for example. host: and we have a quote from her, her rationale for why she spent so much money on her own attire. "i must address myself in this attire because people who scrutinize every article i wear with curiosity. the fact i have grown up in the west subjects me to more searching observation." when she interviews elizabeth keckley, she asks how much she will charge for her dresses. guest: keckley says, i will be reasonable. they came to an agreement. my theory is that she wanted a lot of dresses but could not afford to pay lavishly. on her budget, she was able to get what she wanted because keckley agreed not to overcharge her. host: paint a portrait of what life was like in the lincoln white house as a family living there and the public using the space. guest: it was astonishingly open to the public. in the middle of the great civil war that is raging, twice a week, the president would throw open his office and people could line up as long as they could wait for his public opinion baths. these were mostly job-seekers. mrs. lincoln, the children finessed themselves around these folks. the two boys at the beginning, of course. willie was 10 years old when they arrived, and his younger brother. robert had gone off to harvard. there was another brother that they lost years earlier in springfield. mrs. lincoln looked upon the white house very much as a symbol of this nation. they took seriously the responsibilities. as the woman responsible for the appearance of the house, remember that this was a time when the country was coming apart at the seams. the symbolic value of america's house is even greater. in some ways, she took the same view of the white house. host: this network produced a documentary on the white house and we visited the lincoln bedroom. we will show you that next to show you the kind of spending that mary lincoln did on the furniture. >> it dates back to 1861, bought by mary todd lincoln as part of white house refurbishing. 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, made of carved rosewood. >> the lincoln bed with a purple and gold and lace. victorian decorating. we have later photographs with the bed still dressed the way that she dressed it. >> it is this bed bought by mary lincoln that holds the key to understanding the lincoln family's time here. >> it was one of mary lincoln's many extravagant purchases when she began a campaign to redecorate this entire building. >> she spent so much money, and he flew into a rage and said it was a stink in the nostrils of the american people. she was dying flub-dubs for that damned old house. >> in 1862, lincoln's middle son died after a bout with typhoid fever. mary never went into the room or looked at the bed again. >> willie's death -- she was never able to absorb his death. lincoln took to the window and let her look across the river at a mental institution. “if you don't get a hold of yourself, you will have to be put there.” that was her time to absorb it. >> by contrast, the president would hole up the week he died just to grieve. how they handle their grief goes to how we see them today. in the case of mary, it unhinged her. the final blow. the war melded the disparate elements of lincoln's personality and his grief. his loss of willie morphed into the nation's sense of loss. millions of homes throughout the union. guest: i have a different interpretation. congress allotted her $20,000, four years later, they allotted $125,000 for refurbishing. host: she did not have enough money to spend. guest: how could she have spent some much if they only allocated $20,000? was it all on that one bed? guest: she overspent the $20,000 by about $6,000. host: there was a war going on. it is part of the legend and the myth. the out-of-control shop-a-holic. host: a political aspect of that, too. how did they react when there were so many sons of mother's dying on the battlefield? guest: she basically disappeared for over one year. her social life ended for over a year. she ordered the marine band to stop playing concert on the white house grounds, maybe they could move to lafayette park. her grief was too great. she indulged herself even beyond the standards of the day. her compatriot was queen victoria that would spend the rest of her life grieving over the loss of prince albert. host: what brought her out of her grief? guest: she was continuing to be vilified. her son, robert, who was really a disappointment in the long run, had her incarcerated and sent into a mental institution. she decided, i am going to get out of here. she was able to mobilize to get her out of the mental institution. guest: i don't think she ever really recovered from the loss of willie. guest: it was not just willie. at the loss of edward, her husband, tad. guest: and the loss of her mother that sent her to springfield in the first place. her life is shattered by loss. >> tell me how she served as the first lady to the president. her intuition about individuals is more accurate than that of her husband. does lincoln listen to her? guest: i think that she tried to advise him but his advisers did not want her interfering. that was definitely the case when he was dying and they took her from the room and would not let her in to mourn, which was a traditional thing in her culture. the wife stays with the husband until he dies. they robbed her of that. host: gary robinson asks, did mary lincoln create enemies out of social rivals? who was our main antagonist? guest: she had a number of rivals. the daughter of the secretary of the treasury made no secret about wanting to replace lincoln in the white house. kate was quite the belle of the ball. it is safe to say that mrs. lincoln had no great love lost for kate. part of the legend, and it is accurate, the stories of her accompanying the president to the battlefield near the end of the war. she lost it. the reason the grants did not go was because julia grant did not want to risk having another confrontation with this unpleasant woman. host: what did the staff think of her? guest: they liked her. only four of the staff remained when the lincolns came to the white house. they brought in freed blacks. those that were interviewed talked about her in a very positive way. she got along well with them because they were the ones that helped raise her after her real mother died. host: lincoln's personal secretary did not use the best descriptions of her. guest: as a young man, they have their own reasons to resent. they both had nicknames that the secretaries used to refer to them. host: outside of washington what was the perception of the first family? guest: that is a great question. if you read the press of the day, there was a considerable amount of criticism. if she had been more press-conscious, we know how much time she spent visiting soldiers and hospitals. writing letters to soldiers that were unable to write themselves. taking food and gifts. and she never took reporters along with her. if she had been a little bit more p.r.-conscious, who knows what it might have done? guest: the press followed her into every store they went into. that is what they reported those kinds of things. host: ron, you're on. go ahead, please. caller: you have indicated that there continues to be great controversy among historians and biographers over the lincoln marriage. the first school of thought was initially presented in a biography by his law partner based on his post-assassination interviews with the multitude of lincolns, colleagues, neighbors, servants, etc. they reinforced the view that she was a domestic hell on earth with frequent outbursts with multiple instances of thrown objects including a piece of fire wood that resulted in her battered husband having a broken nose. the other is presented as an appealing love story that reflects the deep skepticism over the veracity of the informants. about the super abundance of evidence to the contrary for both the pre-presidential and a presidential periods. scholars have given more credence to her written as the -- written testimony. this is culminated in the 2008 biography. host: in the interest of time do you want to know which they think is more correct? caller: one more thing i want to add. james mcpherson criticized the relentless hostility towards the lincolns which marred the image. my question is, what is your assessment of the depiction of mary lincoln and what is their assessment of the motion picture's portrayal? host: are you familiar? guest: michael is hostile to mary, certainly amassed a great deal of evidence to support his view. eleanor and franklin people, and there are very much abraham and married people. there are people that will not set on the same stage at scholarly symposiums. they are so committed to one or the other and how passionate these historians feel. abraham seemed committed to mary. host: and that is the ultimate test, in some ways. guest: i wonder if he has read catherine clinton's biography of mrs. lincoln where she engages him. you have to really look at the reasons why people write biographies or books. he was angry. and later took it out on mary. from what i have heard, you have to look at the motives behind the books. host: i asked what you thought of the modern portrayal. guest: it was wonderful precisely because it transcends all of these camps. guest: i agree. host: from mary lincoln about her own view at the public perception, i seem to be the scapegoat for both the north and the south. we will show you next, another video. at her summer cottage not very far from the capital to call the soldiers home. >> president lincoln's cottage was a seasonal home for the lincoln family. mary lincoln really pushed for the move out here to the soldiers home because she thought it was a place for her family to have more privacy than at the white house. we are in the mary lincoln room which is not part of our typical experience of the cottage. we call it the mary lincoln room because when they moved here in the summer of 1863, she is involved in a pretty serious carriage accident. some believe the carriage had been tampered with and this was an early assassination attempt. when she suffered that accident, the driver's seat separate from the carriage and the horses are and take off, she had to leap out of the carriage in order to save herself. she suffered a head injury. she is treated at the white house, and she comes out to the soldiers home to make a recovery. not only is it the most isolated of the bedrooms, but it is the only one with windows allowing for better cross-breezes. in 1862, there is the imperative of having a more private place to mourn and grieve after the death of willie. mary lincoln was going about the traditional cultural and social expectations of a woman in mourning and felt like she could not do it as effectively at the white house. for her, there was a personal imperative to come out to this home to grieve the loss of her son. one of the best documented events that actually took place is a seance hosted here after the death of willie. noah brooks writes about that account. lincoln felt that mary was being taken advantage of and that she might be subject to blackmail. he asked for some of his colleagues and friends to check out the situation and see if they could figure out what the medium is doing and figure out how to make the noises he was claiming were spirits. here at the soldiers home, he recounts noises they were hearing and when the lights turned on, they were able to prove he was a fraud. it does not seem that she was aware that she was being defrauded. after it was revealed this man was a fake, she was quite embarrassed by that. and there was an attempt to conceal or cover up the incident. whenever she writes about this place, she talks about how much she was looking forward to coming out here. she saw it as fulfilling her dream of what her family would experience in washington, d.c. even though death and of the war were surrounding them, it gave them a little bit of respite from the chaos of downtown washington d.c. host: it is available for public tours, put it on your list of out of the way spots, a time capsule for history. you were visibly wanting to react to the spiritualism. guest: this is in some ways the lincoln presidency in miniature. there is a school of thought that says her condition worsened after that very severe head injury that she experienced. the date is significant, july 2, 1863. the second day of the battle of gettysburg. the president's attention is focused elsewhere. gettysburg and vicksburg, he did not pay as much attention to his wife. host: is there speculation that the carriage accident was an assassination attempt? after the election, there was a documented assassination attempt the pinkerton service saved them from. there was a constant threat on the lives of these people. that stress we should take into account. guest: she was living through all of that. it was a horrible time to be in the white house, i would think. host: we are in the midst of a five-year 150th marking of the civil war events. we could not capture all of the tumultuous and significant events, but here are a few of them. 1861, the civil war began. 1863, they issued the emancipation proclamation. and as richard said, the gettysburg address. 1865, the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery is proposed. and april 9, the court house in virginia, the confederate army surrenders. it bookends the lincoln administration. you mentioned her unannounced visits to military hospitals. guest: that goes to the controversy. there is a significant body of evidence that calls into question some of her conduct. for example, she was surrounded by people that very clearly were there to take advantage of her. she needed money. never forget the fact that from the day she arrived there, she needed money. she needed money because she was $27,000 in debt to her dress makers. the president had to be reelected because if he was, she could keep those bills at bay. if he was not, who knew what might happen? she was spending public funds on the white house proper. there were always people around her that were eager to serve their own interests by appearing to serve hers. there was a shady character by the name of henry, a chevalier of the new york herald. he befriended her and the president's annual message to congress in 1861 appeared in the new york herald the same day it went to congress. you get the picture. there was no shortage of people like the chevalier that were eager to line their own pockets or serve their own interests. i think the legitimate criticism of mrs. lincoln has nothing to do with her mental condition. you can only feel empathetic for that. but legitimately, there is criticism about how she conducted herself in ways that were always a danger, if exposed, of embarrassing the president. guest: it was the gardener that took the letter and gave it to the press. guest: that was the story that was -- guest: and then the gardener leaves for scotland. he must have been paid to do this. guest: the other side of the argument is that it was the story they created to cover up what happened. host: candace in fredericksburg virginia. caller: i am enjoying the show very much. i have a question regarding the broken first engagement and then they got back together a year-and-a-half later. why do you think they broke up? and did they get back together? did lincoln love her throughout their marriage? host: i will hold the question because as the program progresses, we will go back in time and answer your question, i promise. let's take another from chad. caller: my question is about elizabeth keckley. she served with mary lincoln i'm not sure? guest: she made dresses for a variety of people including jefferson davis'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 that she rented. and she was very popular among congressional wives that recommended her to mrs. lincoln. guest: she bought her freedom in st. louis through dress making. host: as the lincolns traveled back and forth, they had contraband camps. guest: people escaping from slavery, in particular, with their families. or enslaved people that were emancipated but had no place to go. there were several contraband associations across the nation. mrs. keckley was one of the founders of the washington of -- contraband association. host: we have many people on facebook and twitter asking us questions about her views on slavery. since she was friends with henry clay, did she also prescribe to the gradual emancipation and colonization of the slaves? or did you follow lincoln's change of heart and scrapping the colonization efforts? was she anti-slavery and support the 13th amendment. guest: she was anti-slavery and certainly supported the thirteenth amendment. guest: they say she influenced the president into the immediate emancipation, but i think it was a war strategy. guest: i think you are right. guest: she was encouraging him to go ahead and do it. guest: henry clay, in some wasy, what brought them together was to be shared love of politics. again, a lady of the era and in particular, henry clay was a neighbor and good friend lincoln's political hero. in some ways, he is the political matchmaker behind this unlikely union. host: our next visit is to springfield, illinois. the place where abraham and mary would meet. let's talk about the collections to the lincoln library, the first lady artifacts. we will learn more about how that city preserves our memory. >> here we have some things that mary lincoln had in the white house. she continued to be interested in books. here are two volumes of what we think was a 27-volume set of the works of sir edward bulwer lytton. not a name recognized today, but this novel is remembered. "the last days of pompeii." mary signed these books 1864. she was a pretty good writer of letters. monogram m.l. on it. notice no "t" in there. she never called herself mary todd lincoln, she never called herself mary t. lincoln. she was mrs. lincoln, mrs. abraham lincoln, or mrs. president lincoln. mary todd is a 20th-century invention. this is the letter that shows some of her difficulties in the sense that her reputation suffered. she is writing to the assistant secretary of the treasury. asking if he can find a job for her dress maker, elizabeth keckley because she doesn't any longer need the services and wants to get elizabeth onto the jobs list at the treasury. "i promise i will never ask you for another favor." of course, she did. over and over. personally, it was the death of willie. this was a piece of sheet music that we just acquired, only two copies report it anywhere. we suppose there are a few out there. it is hard to imagine how many people would have wanted to buy this outside of the lincoln's immediate circle of friends. a substantial publisher in new york, william hall, printed it. he was the first child to die in the white house and not one of -- and one of only two presidential children to die in the white house. host: from springfield, illinois. going back to her need for money, abraham lincoln was a very successful lawyer in springfield. he worked the railroads and made quite a bit of money. what was his income? guest: that is a great point. it is interesting. if you go back and look at the accounts, her money seems to be something that started with washington. there are friends and neighbors that talk about how thrifty she was. what a good housekeeper she was during his legal days. we talked about it a little bit already, she was a national figure representing people. people were condescending to her and her husband. she had a place of status and an appearance to maintain. i think it was as simple as that. i think it got out of hand. $85,000 was in his estate at the time of his death. his widow would inherit 1/3. you would think that she was in debt $27,000. host: she got duplicates, hundreds sometimes, of parasols and things. guest: that is true, that is the nature. over time, it became more pronounced that she would go and buy dozens of sets of gloves at a given time. guest: wearing gloves in washington with all of those people coming in, i am sure she was aware of the germs people had. i think that was a significant thing. mrs. keckley kept some gloves of the president that mrs. lincoln took off of his hands and gave to her. whenever there were meetings and people coming by, they wore gloves. this was in the movie, this was real. the movie showed his servant saying that mrs. lincoln wants you to wear these gloves. she knew about the disease. host: but she did buy 300 sets of these -- guest: one of the touching and counterpoints to this is that lincoln loved to see her in beautiful clothes. it was one of the few extravagances he was comfortable with. host: indulgent on one hand and critical in the other? guest: i would say he is more indulgent than critical. host: we can't do justice to the tumultuous years in the white house, but was there a question he was going to seek reelection? guest: there was no question he would seek reelection but a profound question of if he would be. it was wholly dependent on the course of the war. sherman's march before atlanta had fallen, it became very clear it was only a question of time that the north would win. lincoln himself believed he would not be reelected. you can imagine the mood upstairs around mrs. lincoln. guest: he had bouts of melancholy. a lot of them. she was one of the few people that could bring him out of bed. host: here is what mary lincoln had to say shortly after the reelection. "our heavenly father sees fit to visit us at such times for our worldliness. how small and insignificant world honors are when we are so surely tried." guest: there is still part of the debate about lincoln. clearly, mary was a devout churchgoer. she had some doubts planted by the death of willie. lincoln himself never joined a church, but even as far back as springfield, he spent hours and hours with the minister going over the bible. he knew his king james bible front and back. in some ways, how he taught himself to write. host: 1865, they were pretty avid theatergoers and to make a decision to go to ford's theater where he is assassinated. tell us of his death and mary's role. guest: she witnesses it. she cries out, the president has been shot. people assume that it is part of the show. they take him across the street to a boarding house. he is sick. it was very strange that his cabinet members are all around him while the doctor is there and she is hysterical. i guess that she would be, you know? they get one of her female friends to take her out of the room and a keeper there. -- and they keep here there. it takes him all night to pass away. 7:22 in the morning. the sad thing is they would not let her see him at the end because they did not want to hear her hysteria, from what i gathered. guest: the secretary of state took charge of the house that night and said, take the woman out of the room. robert todd lincoln was at his father's bedside, but mary was not there. host: let's hear a call from st. petersburg, florida. you there? caller: yes. first, thank you for taking my call. i have enjoyed the entire series and i have followed it with margaret truman's biography of the first ladies. devotes quite a bit of time to mary todd lincoln and remarks that she ranks at the very bottom of the list. i don't agree with that, and i wonder how your commentators would also rank her in terms of first ladies. guest: oh, boy. put it this way. i certainly would disagree with those that would rank occur at rank her at or near the bottom. it is a less than compassionate thing. i also think her years and her story is really unique in the annals of white house history. i think she is a unique figure. 150 years later, we are having this discussion and still debating her motives, it tells you that she is an important first lady. i will leave it at that. host: important because of the man to whom she was married? guest: important because of the man, important because of the part she plays in the story that is still being debated after all of these years. we still feel as if we do not know who she was and we are not having this debate over angelica van beuren. guest: she is one of my favorites. not my true favorite, but i divide them up into eighteenth nineteenth, and 20-twenty first century. among the nineteenth century once, she and abigail adams would be my favorite. i rank her quite high. you have to look at her vision as a partner. there were several first ladies that consider themselves to be partners with their husband. not that they were trying to tell them what to do, but to advise and take care of them whether mentally, physically, or politically. i think she was a very significant influence. guest: she is a tragic figure. part of the tragedy is that very partnership that helped contribute to him becoming president was destroyed by the war and what they hoped to achieve. guest: the vilification. caller: this is a wonderful program. i watch every night. carl sandberg's lincoln television movie in 1974. today's is good, but people should watch this type of movie. you can also talk about his body almost stolen from his crypt at the time. there is so much information about the lincolns, it would take a year to earth up. i would rank her with roosevelt and kennedy. host: 100 years later when john f. kennedy was assassinated, jacqueline would look to the plans for the lincoln funeral to guide her through the decisions of the kennedy funeral. guest: the lincoln funeral, was nothing like it before or since. 20 days, they retraced the inauguration route from springfield to washington. with a couple of exceptions, they retraced that route. there were 10, in effect, state funerals along the way. 1/3 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. mrs. lincoln was not along for any of it. keeping with tradition, she stayed at the white house grief-stricken. guest: -- host: elizabeth keckley ascribes her missing the celebrations and wailing with grief repeatedly. guest: i can understand it. considering all the things that she had to go through in her early part of the marriage getting to the white house, the triumph of that. the death of their son, his assassination in front of her. i can understand that. maybe this blow on the head might have exacerbated her emotional state. she was letting it all come out. it was very sad, but i can understand it. host: kentucky and illinois claimed the lincoln's as they're wrong. mary todd was born in lexington, ky. we will visit. >> we are at the mary todd lincoln house, where she lived from 13-21. this is not where she was born but her birthplace no longer stands. this is the most significant property still standing relating to her childhood. we are in her bedroom, she shared with various sisters and cousins that live with them. they had family members that came to live with them and lexington. that was primarily so that family members could attend school. lexington was known for educational and cultural institutions. she had nine years of formal schooling, attended the academy within walking distance of her birthplace. as she went on to attend an academy where she learned everything that was expected of women of her class like needlepoint and dancing. they also learned higher levels of traditionally male subjects like literature and arithmetic. her formal education made her one of the most educated women of her generation. the popular image is often very dark. her childhood, many of the stories associated represent a typical childhood. she had a pony she rode around town. she and her siblings would catch minnows in the creek. she and her cousin attempted to create their own hoop skirts and wear them to sunday school. mary, parents, and her siblings would spend the evening together. in addition to the family members, there were enslaved african americans that this -- at this home. on average, they had five slaves that provided all of the household labor. it included three women and two men. we had a portrait of mary's she is said to be a formative influence on mrs. lincoln. she was well-educated, she spoke french fluently. she is also interesting with her views in regard to slavery. in her will, she chose to provide for the gradual freeing of her slaves after her death. this represents her political position of gradual emancipation. this is the dining room of the home. this is where they would have entertained other prominent families of the day, including politicians. one of the greatest politicians and a neighbor of the todds was henry clay. leader of the whig political party. her father was also a member of that political party. they shared some political ideas, especially in regard to slavery. they supported the american colonization society, the movement to re-settle blacks 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 would have been off-limits to the women, but according to mary todd lincoln's cousins, mary liked to sit in on some of the conversations happening when her father was entertaining other prominent men of the day, and it is said that mary may have paid attention to politics due to her father, who was very active in state and local politics. >> and our next caller is from lexington, kentucky. john. welcome. caller: i appreciate her unique 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, emilie, emilie todd helm, who married a man who would eventually become a confederate general in his own life. my question is, could you all talk a little bit about mary's perception of her confederate siblings while in the white house, and especially for mourning? did she mourn for her confederate kin? thank you very much. much. much. much. much. thank you. interesting question. richard norton smith 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. and there were three at least three or four of her siblings or stepsiblings who fought actively for the confederacy. and some of them died. mrs. lincoln said, we do not need any help from you in deciding who our guests will need and, anyway, mary made it very clear that her siblings had taken up arms, not only against her country, but against her husband, and she saw no reason to mourn her loss. susan swain nancy: is in bristol, indiana. you're on, nancy. caller: oh, thank you. this wonderful, unique woman is my hero. and something that's 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 and paregoric that she took. 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 i don't understand why more people don't bring this up, especially as her mental condition got worse as she got older. susan swain: thank you, nancy. do you know anything about her treatment of her headaches? richard norton smith: it was migraines all her life. lincoln used to leave the office thunderstorms, too. she was terrified at thunderstorms. at the first sign of a thunderstorm, they would go home. susan: our next caller, thank you. caller: hey, good evening. i'm fascinated by the program. i've been listening since it's been on and watching every night that it appears. i'd like to know, how did the lincolns come to know each other? who courted who? and how did they get to meet? susan: 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? ♪ [video clip] susan 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, so over the course of those 17 years, they added on and added on and created this 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 and so most of the day-to-day oversight would have been mary lincoln. she was very decisive. she knew exactly what she wanted, so it was probably not too tough of a project for her. they were able to add five bedrooms. there's a guest bedroom, which would have been a luxury. mr. lincoln and mrs. lincoln then were able to have their own space, not necessarily to highlight problems in their marriage, but just so that each had their own space. privacy is not something you get a lot of in the 1850s and '60s, so mr. lincoln could stay in here, work midnight, 1 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 trundle bed, pulled out from under her bed, and then across the hall was another bedroom that was robert's initially. as the oldest son, he got his own room. but as soon as he went away to college, his younger brothers moved right in. and then the last bedroom up here was the hired girls' room. they had a hired girl almost every year they lived here, and that girl then had her own space at the end of the hallway right up from the kitchen. we're in mary's bedroom now. and this would have been a sanctuary for her, as she was 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 that 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. home. this stove is called a royal oak stove, and you can see the oak leaves and the acorns on the stove door, or the oven door and 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. and 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 that she wasn't going to be doing a lot of cooking once she got to the white house, so they left it here for the renters that they had rented the house to. the neighborhood that they were in was starting to become a little bit more middle-class. it had started out a little bit lower-middle-class, small houses, 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. [end video clip] susan: so that's a glimpse of the lincolns' life together in springfield. but a question was asked, how did the couple meet? they were 10 years apart in age. richard that's right. : well, she left lexington, it's been speculated that a relationship with her stepmother may have been a factor. but 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 hierarchical. susan and she was wealthy and : well-educated. richard she was : yes, this is something that i think 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 conversationalist, highly educated, you know, for women of her day, a compelling, magnetic figure. and lincoln stood off to one side, almost his mouth hanging open, the contrast between his own lack of formal education his own lack of polish. and one of the things that mary did that i think 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, and her famous strawberry socials in the parlor on the first floor were just one tangible way in which she conducted a campaign for him. susan well, 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? and here's something that 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 be not one cheerful face on earth." can either of you tell us how they finally got back together? richard: actually, yes. the local newspaper editor, a man named simeon francis, his wife, in effect, stepped in and said, "well, this is ridiculous. you know, you care for each other. let's be friends," and, in effect, reignited the friendship. and by november of 1842, without really telling anyone, they announced i think that very day mary let it be known to the edwards family that they were marrying that night. ninian edwards and his wife insisted, no, we have to do it at our house, et cetera, et cetera. the great tragic irony of all of this is that it was in that same house 40 years later that his life came to an end. susan: our next caller is from christie in west fargo, north dakota. dakota. dakota. dakota. hi, thank you for having me. and i'm calling today because i wanted to know your feelings about what mary would have thought when lincoln signed for the slaves to become 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. and being a native american from north dakota, i was just wondering on your comments. what did mary did she know about this? and if she did, what were her feelings on it at the time? susan dr. terborg-penn, do you : know? rosalyn: 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? richard i don't. : i know lincoln tried to reduce that number. the original list was much, much larger than that, and he reduced it significantly. and one sense is that he went along with the whole thing somewhat reluctantly, but i don't know more than that. susan cindy in denver. : hi, cindy. caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. i had a question. well, first of all, 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 from mental illnesses that we would today acquaint with being bipolar or manic depressive. susan well, thank you for asking : that question. we've got many people on twitter and facebook all wanting to put a name on mary lincoln's anguish. and how possible is that to do when you're looking back through a lens of 150 years, with the disciplined psychology or psychiatry that didn't exist in that day? rosalyn: well, that's what i thought. that's what i was thinking. and they used to call it manic depressive before we got the 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 or -- susan but still, how possible is : it for us? richard: yes, but, you know, first of all, i'd point out the obvious. neither one of us is professionally trained... rosalyn: from what i understood none of the physicians could , figure it out. they couldn't really come up with anything conclusive in diagnosis. richard but, you know, as a : girl, she was called high-strung. you know, later on the euphemisms were mercurial. who knows? susan elaine, cochran, georgia. : good evening. caller hi. : thank you for the program. i will mention that the book and supper club that my husband and i are in with three other couples has read patricia brady's biography of martha washington, so i was excited when that program was on. susan wonderful. : thanks for being with us for the series. caller two months ago, we read : joseph ellis' "first family" about john and abigail adams and so that has been had added more to my knowledge of those two. and one another book that we read, which is fictionalized i will say that we've read "team of rivals," by the way another one that we read which is a fictionalized biography of mary, so i know how you might feel about that. but it did nothing and it was new to me or contradicted anything i've heard from other sources, 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. but 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 on that or know anything about it. richard: only that one of the criticisms that has been made and i almost -- i alluded to it earlier is that some of her conduct fed gossip. that's how i would characterize it. fed gossip. that suggested that 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. susan and we also should say : that this was the first time in history that newspapers were having columnists... richard: well, that is right. susan coleman opinion writers. so this opinion of her was spread in the newspapers across the country. richard: yes. susan and this was the : really, a change in the way that first ladies were treated by the press. roger: and think of how incredibly intense the popular emotions were. they were in the middle of the civil war, and so naturally that carries over to coverage of the president and his family. we're going to look next at another video visit to the springfield home. and this one helps us understand more that political partnership that richard norton smith referred to between the two lincolns.(begin video clip) susan 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 the events of the day. this is where he became the president. mr. lincoln was a very ambitious person. he had a lot of goals in life, but those were then enhanced when he met and married mary todd. she also was very ambitious. she 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 then helped develop it, lessons in etiquette in the dining room that helped kind of polish him up for washington society, the political parties that they had where they invited a lot of very important people, the strawberry-and-cream parties talking with the wives of those very important gentlemen. she wielded a lot of power both over mr. lincoln and over where he was going. this is the dining room. when they moved in, it was an eat-in kitchen, and that's not something that a polished, high-society, upper-class person would do. mary had grown up with a formal dining room in lexington kentucky, and she felt she needed to have one here, because her she didn't want her children growing up without proper manners. and in a lot of cases, mr. lincoln needed that polishing, as well, so 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, so there were a lot of visitors coming to springfield. one of them was william seward who ended up being mr. lincoln's secretary of state. mary being an excellent hostess, she would, of course, have had trays of something that maybe a slice of her famous white cake or the macaroon pyramid from wadkins confectionary that was downtown springfield, that they we know they bought lots of those macaroon pyramids. so you could get your refreshments in here, maybe relax a little bit more after the formal side of meeting mr. this is the double parlor, and these are the two nicest rooms in the house. mary spared no expense to some extent. there's marble-top tables, there's brass valances, the windows, there's gilded candlesticks, there's a walnut whatnot 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. so this was fancy place. this is 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 start at the front door met mr. lincoln here. he was probably standing in the archway between the two rooms, maybe went through the dining room, picked up a little bit of refreshment, and then met mary in the sitting room before going out the front door again. this is where mr. lincoln met with the republican national convention committee that told him he had been nominated to run for president. so this was the seat of power in this house. mary helped to basically showcase what her husband had done, how far he had come from that one room, log cabin in the middle of nowhere, kentucky, to this beautiful house, very comfortable house, and kind of hinted at where they were headed, stating to the world that abraham lincoln had made it and he was ready to move on. [end video clip] susan: next is tim. go ahead. caller: i is never seen anything in there about how influential she was on some of the policies that abraham enacted while he was president, and i am just wondering if either of your guests could elaborate further as to the extent of her influence on the political divisions -- decisions that were made in the white house during abraham's term in the white house. susan: was she interested in politics or in policy? richard: 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 i think it was a source of frustration for her. the relationship that they had had before the presidency was in some ways greatly diminished. so 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. susan we have just eight minutes : left and still a lot of story to tell. mary lincoln lived for 17 years after abraham lincoln's assassination. what were those years like for her? rosalyn: well, part of the time she was in a mental institution, , because her son, robert, put her there. and 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. and so she had to struggle, but she managed to plug in people who could help her, and i thought that was admirable, even with her problems, that she was able to do that. richard you know, she did : something that was just not done. i mean, she was obsessed with money. and at one point, she moved to sell off a number of her white house dresses, which just made you know, the public impression all the worse. susan but she was in debt, was : she not? robert she was in debt. : remember, those $27,000 that she owed. no, she needed the cash; there's no doubt about it. she petitioned congress over and over for a pension, which finally belatedly was granted, $3,000. susan a month? :richard a year. : and subsequently raised to $5,000. susan so that was her : contribution to future first ladies. rosalyn: but only after she found out that another first lady and i can't remember which one it was was getting $5,000. and then she said, "now, if you're giving her $5,000, you should be able to give me $5,000." richard i think that was mrs. garfield. she went to live in europe because actually it was cheaper, and then, of course, she had another great tragedy, in 1871 when thad -- susan how did he die? :richard ted died of : tuberculosis, it's believed. susan: and how old was he? richard: he would have been, i would say, 16. susan: and our next caller. call a -- caller: 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. richard: yes. 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. rosalyn: i think his personality was also similar to hers. and i think they were simpatico on that. i think she recognized that, and he recognized that. so i would think that that's another reason why they would be close. susan so she spent : immediately a time in chicago, in the hyde park section of chicago. richard: that is right. susan and then she went to : europe. richard: 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 convinced 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, and 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, and that was in 19 -- 1882. susan donna in benton, illinois, : you're 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? richard: yes. there was what you might call a formal reconciliation, and i emphasize formal. rosalyn: i do not think she trusted him. susan: robert had no children. richard robert had a son : abraham lincoln ii, who died. and i used to remember the lines, but the last direct descendants died in the 1970s. susan this is one of those great : questions to wrap up the program, and 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? want to go first? rosalyn: well, ok, that she and elizabeth keckley had a great relationship, they were the same age, they both lost sons because keckley's son was lost in the army during the civil war, and that mary supported the causes that elizabeth keckley susan and what does that tell : you about mary lincoln? rosalyn: that she's a very sensitive person, that she could empathize. susan and how controversial : would it have been for her to be friends with an african-american? rosalyn: i think it would have been, to some extent, even though people kept calling elizabeth keckley her servant, but i don't think mary looked at her as a servant. i think she considered her to be a companion. susan: richard, your favorite story? richard: it was mary who managed the campaign to get him in. at $3000 per year. it was mary who wrote the letters, and then when it was offered in his place the governorship of the oregon territory, it was mary who turned it down, telling him that oregon was not -- was likely to be democratic and it would not , advance his long-term political interests to be the governor of the oregon territory. susan we have just a short time : left. we'll go to pami next in denver colorado. caller hi. : i was calling, i would just like to know a couple of things. what do you think she would have wanted her legacy to be today? and also, the second thing is, would she have been for or against the women's movement in the '60s, if she could travel through a time machine? susan: all right, thank you very much. let's do the legacy, and you can do the women. richard: legacy? susan: what would she want the legacy to be? richard: that she loved her husband and her family and her country, in that order. rosalyn: i will answer that. she wanted people to get along and that is something she tried to do early in the white house years, which was to be fair and greet people and encourage people regardless of what party they were in, in terms of women i think she may have been persuaded to be a feminist, but it is kind of hard to tell. susan: well, we are out of time, and i hope we have done what we set out to do, which was 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 our partner throughout our series, 35 installments of this all together, and to our two special guests, richard norton smith and rosalyn terborg-penn, for your contributions tonight. thanks for being with us. rosalyn: my pleasure. richard: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ announcer: american history tv is each ring the series of first ladies at 8:00 p.m. eastern time on sunday nights throughout the rest of this year. next week, we look at a liza johnson. this is american history tv every weekend on c-span3. announcer: like many of us, first families take vacation time, and like presidents and first ladies, a good read can be the perfect companion for your summer journeys. what better book than one that peers inside the personal life of every first lady in american history. first ladies, presidential historians on the lives of 45 iconic women inspiring stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house, a great summer time read, available from public affairs as a hardcover or e-book through your favorite bookstores or online bookseller. announcer: monday night on the communicators, a research founder, nutrition founder and a democratic representative from georgia, hank johnson, talking about technology issues and patent legislation before congress. >> 97% of people who are sued have to settle. they do not have the $3 million to defend themselves. 97% of them settled. they pay an average of $300,000 to those suing them. now, if they agreed to the settlement, they are locked up under a nondisclosure agreement which the contractor says they are never allowed to tell anybody what happened to them. >> so far, they seem very excited to have legislation on the topic, and we're going to see if there is anything possible to discuss what is the best way of helping entrepreneurs. more important, being able to run their businesses. for company like ours. >> what we are concerned with currently has to do with closing the door to those who are making it more difficult for them to actually use the courts to enforce their property rights, so that is a hurdle that we will have to overcome. announcer: monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the communicators on c-span2. announcer: each week, reel america brings you archival films for historical con

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Bristol , City Of , United Kingdom , Lincoln Library , Illinois , Chad , Fredericksburg , Virginia , West Fargo , North Dakota , Henry Clay , Kentucky , Brooklyn , Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , Florida , Minnesota , Indiana , Georgia , Oregon , Washington , District Of Columbia , Denver , Colorado , Hyde Park , Tennessee , Lafayette Park , Petersburg , Sankt Peterburg , Russia , Poland , France , Chicago , Polish , Americans , America , Scotland , Virginian , French , American , Patricia Brady , Louisa Adams , Richard Ted , Edwards Jr , A Liza Johnson , Mary Lincoln , Gary Robinson , Dolly Madison , Margaret Truman , Susan Swain , Thad Susan , Steven Spielberg , Jefferson Davis , Lincoln Springfield , Joseph Elli , Richard Robert , Richard Norton Smith , Susan Swain Nancy , Emilie Todd , Carl Sandberg Lincoln , Abigail Adams , Susan Donna , Susan Cindy , Mary T Lincoln , William Hall , Mary Todd , Susan Elaine , Mary Todd Lincoln , Abraham Lincoln , Stephen Douglass , Susan Coleman , Rosalyn Penn , Simeon Francis , William Seward , James Mcpherson , Hank Johnson , Catherine Clinton , John Bell , John F Kennedy , Robert Todd Lincoln ,