Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly by Jennifer Fleischner

The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave

The subtitle should read something more like Parallel Biographies of Women from Opposing backgrounds and the Story of their Relationship, since they don't actually cross paths until 2/3s through the book. I liked this book because it was fascinating and readable. I always find it interesting to read about details of the period.

I find very little to admire in Mary Lincoln. She probably had some abandonment issues (her mom died when she was six and her stepmother sent her away to a boarding school), made manifest by her neediness, emotional instability, and compulsive spending. One of the most interesting things about her, I thought, was that, according to this author, she pretty much guilted Lincoln into marrying her. She had great political aspirations, always claiming she was going to be married to the President some day, but it seems that Lincoln ultimately married her out of a sense of obligation and honor. I'd be interested to read more about Lincoln himself.

Elizabeth Keckly is the antithesis of Mary Lincoln. Resourceful and hardworking, she was sensible and smart with a good head for business. She was ambitious and practical. She was born into slavery, the daughter of a slave mother and white father. As a mulatto, she was given work in the Big House, tending the children (she practically raised many of her half-siblings and their children), sewing, and helping around the house. Eventually she was sent to live as the slave of one of her half-brothers and his wife in another town. She was raped there by a white neighbor, had a little boy, and eventually bought her and her son's freedom. She went on to open her own business as a renowned seamstress, ultimately sewing in the White House.

The "remarkable friendship" between Lizzy and Mary is founded more on the fact that Lizzy was reliable and dependable than anything else. Jennifer Fleischner claims that Mary felt safe and comfortable with Lizzy because of Mary's early experiences with a black "Mammy", although there also appears to have been trust and respect on both sides of the relationship. Elizabeth Keckly wrote a memoir, Behind the Scenes, about her years sewing for Mary Lincoln in the White House and in a way, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly is Fleischner's way of defending Elizabeth Keckly and her motives for writing the expose, which ended their friendship. According to Fleischner, Keckly's motives were pure and she intended only to help Mary but it backfired.

While it's never the main story, there is quite a bit of backdrop with the Civil War.

Mayflower

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick was an interesting read. It kind of debunks the whole mythology of pilgrims landing on Plymouth rock, practically starving but surviving (which is true) and then launching off into the Revolutionary War 150 years later. He gives more of a play-by-play of the pilgrims--how they got here, why they came, and how they survived, including the traditional 'first Thanksgiving' and interactions with Squanto, who was more mischievious and duplicitous than has been traditionally rendered. But the greater part of the book is about their relations with the Indians (and yes, he calls them Indians) and the war that ensued fifty years later, hence the subtitle, A Story of Courage, Community, and War. He doesn't take sides with the English or the Indians; as he says, they were both "too human" to be purely good guys and bad guys. It's an interesting issue to me, especially with the gospel perspective that we have. He gives some pretty gruesome details of King Philip's War (King Philip being the sachem, or tribal leader, of the Wampanoags, and the son of the leader with whom the pilgrims had been fairly intimate). I had no idea that being drawn and quartered was something that was done here by the colonists. It makes sense, seeing as they hailed from Shakespeare's England and that was still going on over there, but still. Yuck. Philbrick estimates that between 60 and 80 percent of the local tribes were killed in that particular war. He also concludes that about ten percent of modern Americans can trace their lineage to the Mayflower. I'm descended from Edward Doty and Faith Clark through my dad's mom's side. I know Austin says that the Calders are, but he can't remember which ancestor it was. Anyone know? Anyway, it was a good book. I find it all very fascinating.

I love history

I'm in the middle of two books right now.

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow is a really well written, detailed history of Hamilton's life, starting with his childhood in the West Indies and moving on through his immigration to the United States and his career with George Washington, first as his private secretary during the Revolutionary War and then as the first Treasurer. Apparently Hamilton was a doting father and husband, but he also had an illicit affair that he was later blackmailed with. He ended up dying in a duel (who knew people engaged in duels in this country?) and his wife outlived him by fifty years. Despite the affair, which became public, she adored him until the day she died.

It's a really dense biography but it's so interesting, it almost reads like a novel. I love this period in history. Chernow presents tons of information without bombarding you with his own opinion. He also gives mini biographies within the context of history of the people with whom Hamilton worked closely. In this aspect, I find that I'm learning more about George Washington in this book than I did in reading a biography solely about the President. It's also interesting that Hamilton is one of the only founding fathers who never attained the presidency. His moral failings aside, he played a pivotal role in shaping the country at its inception. And that's an understatement. His character is fascinating.

The other book I'm reading is called Hidden in Plain View by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard. It's about slave-made quilts and the underground railroad. We visited the National Cryptologic Museum and they have a big quilt in one corner (a modern sampler, not an actual slave quilt, as those are extremely rare) with excerpts from this book. Slaves used different quilt blocks as codes and hung them out as if airing them to send messages to those who were preparing to flee. I'm finding the book itself to be somewhat redundant, but the history they cite is interesting. The authors did a lot of research tying the quilts and symbols they used to African culture and secret societies.