Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

Keckley, Elizabeth

ISBN 10: 1684221129 / ISBN 13: 9781684221127

Published by Martino Fine Books, 2017

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House
• Publisher: Martino Fine Books
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1684221129
• ISBN 13: 9781684221127
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

2017 Reprint of 1868 Edition.  An autobiographical narrative, Behind the Scenes traces Elizabeth Keckley's life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln's administration. It was quite controversial at the time of its release--an uncompromising work that transgressed Victorian boundaries between public and private life, and lines of race, gender, and society.

Keckley's first 30 years were spent as a slave, and the cruelties and injustices of her life are related clearly and succinctly. This enlightening memoir recounts how she was beaten and how she became a dressmaker to support her master and his family, how determined she was to purchase freedom for herself and her son, how her friends in St. Louis came to her aid, how she became Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker and close friend, and her perspectives and experiences from her inside view of Lincoln's White House. Keckley emerges as a calm and confident person who speaks of a very tumultuous period of American history.

From the Back Cover

Only a few years later, however, that relationship was in ruins, when this 1868 book created a scandal. Intended by Keckley to rehabilitate the reputation of the former First Lady--who had run up extensive debts on clothing and other luxuries while in the White House, and found herself unable to repay them after the President's assassination--the book was perceived instead as a betrayal of friendship.

Perhaps one of the first examples of celebrity gossip publishing gone awry, Behind the Scenes does, nevertheless, offer an insider perspective on the Lincoln White House that will intrigue armchair historians and fans of biography alike.