Mary Lincoln Biography Of A Marriage

Author : Ruth Painter Randall
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 482 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2016-08-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9781787200265

Get Book

Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage by Ruth Painter Randall Pdf

More fascinating than fiction, this is the moving story of the most misunderstood woman in American history... The truth about Mary Lincoln has for nearly a century been hidden under a mountain of myth. They said Lincoln really loved Ann Rutledge. That he had tried to avoid marriage to Mary Todd, that his wife hurt him politically though she drove him to the Presidency, that she embarrassed him financially as well as socially and inflicted on him the agony of adjustment to her psychopathic personality. Now for the first time, the true woman beneath the myth is presented. The veil of legend surrounding Mary Lincoln is torn aside and an entirely new picture of a woman and a marriage emerges. Here, through the eyes of the people who knew the Lincolns, through the long-lost telegrams and letters they sent each other, comes the story of their day-to-day life together. It begins in Springfield, and there, many years later, it ends. But the truth of those years gives evidence to restore Mary Todd Lincoln to her rightful place in history and in the affections of the American people. Acclaimed by the critics... “Never has such a story seemed better worth telling or better told.”—SATURDAY REVIEW “This is an important and definitive volume.”—AMERICAN HISTORY REVIEW “Out of the most searching scrutiny ever leveled on the Lincolns’ family affairs comes the picture of a tempestuous yet essentially happy marriage.”—NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE “This is a very moving book. It is also a nice example of what a first-rate historian can do with a difficult subject.”—THE NEW YORKER “It is a book that can be recommended without reservation: A combination of profound research and fine prose style, it meets both the requirements of the Lincoln scholar and the casual reader who is looking for a truly fascinating story.”—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Author : Ruth Painter Randall,Mary Lincoln
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2011-06-01
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1258032821

Get Book

Mary Lincoln by Ruth Painter Randall,Mary Lincoln Pdf

Author : Michael Burlingame
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2021-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781643137353

Get Book

An American Marriage by Michael Burlingame Pdf

An enlightening narrative exploring an oft-overlooked aspect of the sixteenth president's life, An American Marriage reveals the tragic story of Abraham Lincoln’s marriage to Mary Todd. Abraham Lincoln was apparently one of those men who regarded “connubial bliss” as an untenable fantasy. During the Civil War, he pardoned a Union soldier who had deserted the army to return home to wed his sweetheart. As the president signed a document sparing the soldier's life, Lincoln said: “I want to punish the young man—probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.” Based on thirty years of research, An American Marriage describes and analyzes why Lincoln had good reason to regret his marriage to Mary Todd. This revealing narrative shows that, as First Lady, Mary Lincoln accepted bribes and kickbacks, sold permits and pardons, engaged in extortion, and peddled influence. The reader comes to learn that Lincoln wed Mary Todd because, in all likelihood, she seduced him and then insisted that he protect her honor. Perhaps surprisingly, the 5’2” Mrs. Lincoln often physically abused her 6’4” husband, as well as her children and servants; she humiliated her husband in public; she caused him, as president, to fear that she would disgrace him publicly. Unlike her husband, she was not profoundly opposed to slavery and hardly qualifies as the “ardent abolitionist” that some historians have portrayed. While she providid a useful stimulus to his ambition, she often “crushed his spirit,” as his law partner put it. In the end, Lincoln may not have had as successful a presidency as he did—where he showed a preternatural ability to deal with difficult people—if he had not had so much practice at home.

Author : Kenneth J. Winkle
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2011-09-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780809330492

Get Book

Abraham and Mary Lincoln by Kenneth J. Winkle Pdf

For decades Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s marriage has been characterized as discordant and tumultuous. In Abraham and Mary Lincoln, author Kenneth J. Winkle goes beyond the common image of the couple, illustrating that although the waters of the Lincoln household were far from calm, the Lincolns were above all a house united. Calling upon their own words and the reminiscences of family members and acquaintances, Winkle traces the Lincolns from their starkly contrasting childhoods, through their courtship and rise to power, to their years in the White House during the Civil War, ultimately revealing a dynamic love story set against the backdrop of the greatest peril the nation has ever seen. When the awkward but ambitious Lincoln landed Mary Todd, people were surprised by their seeming incompatibility. Lincoln, lacking in formal education and social graces, came from the world of hardscrabble farmers on the American frontier. Mary, by contrast, received years of schooling and came from an established, wealthy, slave-owning family. Yet despite the social gulf between them, these two formidable personalities forged a bond that proved unshakable during the years to come. Mary provided Lincoln with the perfect partner in ambition—one with connections, political instincts, and polish. For Mary, Lincoln was her “diamond in the rough,” a man whose ungainly appearance and background belied a political acumen to match her own. While each played their role in the marriage perfectly— Lincoln doggedly pursuing success and Mary hosting lavish political soirées—their partnership was not without contention. Mary—once described as “the wildcat of her age”—frequently expressed frustration with the limitations placed on her by Victorian social strictures, exhibiting behavior that sometimes led to public friction between the couple. Abraham’s work would at times keep him away from home for weeks, leaving Mary alone in Springfield. The true test of the Lincolns’ dedication to each other began in the White House, as personal tragedy struck their family and civil war erupted on American soil. The couple faced controversy and heartbreak as the death of their young son left Mary grief-stricken and dependent upon séances and spiritualists; as charges of disloyalty hounded the couple regarding Mary’s young sister, a Confederate widow; and as public demands grew strenuous that their son Robert join the war. The loss of all privacy and the constant threat of kidnapping and assassination took its toll on the entire family. Yet until a fateful night in the Ford Theatre in 1865, Abraham and Mary Lincoln stood firmly together—he as commander-in-chief during America’s gravest military crisis, and she as First Lady of a divided country that needed the White House to emerge as a respected symbol of national unity and power. Despite the challenges they faced, the Lincolns’ life together fully embodied the maxim engraved on their wedding bands: love is eternal. Abraham and Mary Lincoln is a testament to the power of a stormy union that held steady through the roughest of seas.

Author : Daniel Mark Epstein
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 586 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2009-01-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780345478009

Get Book

The Lincolns by Daniel Mark Epstein Pdf

Although the private lives of political couples have in our era become front-page news, the true story of this extraordinary and tragic first family has never been fully told. The Lincolns eclipses earlier accounts with riveting new information that makes husband and wife, president and first lady, come alive in all their proud accomplishments and earthy humanity. Award-winning biographer and poet Daniel Mark Epstein gives a fresh close-up view of the couple’s life in Springfield, Illinois (of their twenty-two years of marriage, all but six were spent there), and dramatizes with stunning immediacy how the Lincolns’ ascent to the White House brought both dazzling power and the slow, secret unraveling of the couple’s unique bond. The first full-length portrait of the marriage of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln in more than fifty years, The Lincolns is written with enormous sweep and striking imagery. Daniel Mark Epstein makes two immortal American figures seem as real and human as the rest of us.

Author : Jean Harvey Baker
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 464 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2008-10-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0393075680

Get Book

Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography by Jean Harvey Baker Pdf

"A striking success…the account of the White House years is absorbing, the account of Mary Lincoln's life as a widow utterly compelling." —New York Times This definitive biography of Mary Todd Lincoln beautifully conveys her tumultuous life and times. A privileged daughter of the proud clan that founded Lexington, Kentucky, Mary fell into a stormy romance with the raw Illinois attorney Abraham Lincoln. For twenty-five years the Lincolns forged opposing temperaments into a tolerant, loving marriage. Even as the nation suffered secession and civil war, Mary experienced the tragedies of losing three of her four children and then her husband. An insanity trial orchestrated by her surviving son led to her confinement in an asylum. Mary Todd Lincoln is still often portrayed in one dimension, as the stereotype of the best-hated faults of all women. Here her life is restored for us whole.

Author : Catherine Clinton
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2010-01-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780060760410

Get Book

Mrs. Lincoln by Catherine Clinton Pdf

Abraham Lincoln is the most revered president in American history, but the woman at the center of his life—his wife, Mary—has remained a historical enigma. One of the most tragic and mysterious of nineteenth-century figures, Mary Lincoln and her story symbolize the pain and loss of Civil War America. Authoritative and utterly engrossing, Mrs. Lincoln is the long-awaited portrait of the woman who so richly contributed to Lincoln's life and legacy.

Author : Jason Emerson
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2007-09-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0809327716

Get Book

The Madness of Mary Lincoln by Jason Emerson Pdf

In 2005, historian Jason Emerson discovered a steamer trunk formerly owned by Robert Todd Lincoln's lawyer and stowed in an attic for forty years. The trunk contained a rare find: twenty-five letters pertaining to Mary Todd Lincoln's life and insanity case, letters assumed long destroyed by the Lincoln family. Mary wrote twenty of the letters herself, more than half from the insane asylum to which her son Robert had her committed, and many in the months and years after. The Madness of Mary Lincoln is the first examination of Mary Lincoln’s mental illness based on the lost letters, and the first new interpretation of the insanity case in twenty years. This compelling story of the purported insanity of one of America’s most tragic first ladies provides new and previously unpublished materials, including the psychiatric diagnosis of Mary’s mental illness and her lost will. Emerson charts Mary Lincoln’s mental illness throughout her life and describes how a predisposition to psychiatric illness and a life of mental and emotional trauma led to her commitment to the asylum. The first to state unequivocally that Mary Lincoln suffered from bipolar disorder, Emerson offers a psychiatric perspective on the insanity case based on consultations with psychiatrist experts. This book reveals Abraham Lincoln’s understanding of his wife’s mental illness and the degree to which he helped keep her stable. It also traces Mary’s life after her husband’s assassination, including her severe depression and physical ailments, the harsh public criticism she endured, the Old Clothes Scandal, and the death of her son Tad. The Madness of Mary Lincoln is the story not only of Mary, but also of Robert. It details how he dealt with his mother’s increasing irrationality and why it embarrassed his Victorian sensibilities; it explains the reasons he had his mother committed, his response to her suicide attempt, and her plot to murder him. It also shows why and how he ultimately agreed to her release from the asylum eight months early, and what their relationship was like until Mary’s death. This historical page-turner provides readers for the first time with the lost letters that historians had been in search of for eighty years. Univeristy Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools 2013 edition

Author : Carl Sandburg
Publisher : Read Books Ltd
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2013-04-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781447488446

Get Book

Mary Lincoln - Wife and Widow by Carl Sandburg Pdf

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Author : Michael Burlingame
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 659 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2023-10-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781421445564

Get Book

Abraham Lincoln by Michael Burlingame Pdf

Hailed as the definitive portrait of the sixteenth president, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame's impressive two-volume biography has been masterfully abridged and revised. Sixteenth president of the United States, the Great Emancipator, and a surpassingly eloquent champion of national unity, freedom, and democracy, Abraham Lincoln is arguably the most studied and admired of all Americans. Michael Burlingame's astonishing Abraham Lincoln: A Life, an updated, condensed version of the 2,000-page two-volume set that The Atlantic hailed as one of the five best books of 2009, offers fresh interpretations of this endlessly fascinating American leader. Based on deep research in unpublished sources as well as newly digitized sources, this work reveals how Lincoln's character and personality were the North's secret weapon in the Civil War, the key variables that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. He was a model of psychological maturity and a fully individuated man whose influence remains unrivaled in the history of American public life. Burlingame chronicles Lincoln's childhood and early development, romantic attachments and losses, his love of learning, legal training, and courtroom career as well as his political ambition, his term as congressman in the late 1840s, and his serious bouts of depression in early adulthood. Burlingame recounts, in fresh detail, the Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln marriage and traces the mounting moral criticism of slavery that revived his political career and won this Springfield lawyer the presidency in 1860. This abridgement delivers Burlingame's signature insight into Lincoln as a young man, a father, and a politician. Lincoln speaks to us not only as a champion of freedom, democracy, and national unity but also as a source of inspiration. Few have achieved his historical importance, but many can profit from his personal example, encouraged by the knowledge that despite a lifetime of troubles, he became a model of psychological maturity, moral clarity, and unimpeachable integrity. His presence and his leadership inspired his contemporaries; his life story will do the same for generations to come.

Author : W. A. Evans
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 429 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2010-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780809385607

Get Book

Mrs. Abraham Lincoln by W. A. Evans Pdf

First published in 1932, this was the first thoroughly researched biography of Mary Lincoln ever written, and it remains the most balanced and complete work on this controversial First Lady. Author W. A. Evans challenges the disparaging views of Mary Lincoln that were generally accepted at the time, offering a comprehensive and informed look at a woman whose physical and mental health problems have often been misconstrued or overlooked by other biographers. Evans conducted extensive research, interviewing Mrs. Lincoln’s family members, seeking advice and assistance from numerous Lincoln scholars and historians, scouring thousands of pages of contemporary newspapers and primary resources, reviewing correspondence Mary wrote during her stay at Bellevue Place sanitarium, and consulting with several medical experts. The result of all this research is an objective and detailed portrait of Mrs. Lincoln and her influence on her husband that still has a great deal of historical value for readers today. A new foreword by Jason Emerson, author of The Madness of Mary Lincoln, provides biographical information on Evans and background on the origins of the book and its reception and influence. Finally back in print, this classic biography is essential reading for all with an interest in the Lincoln family.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2024-06-30
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:795319830

Get Book

Abraham and Mary Lincoln by Anonim Pdf

For decades Abraham and Mary Lincoln's marriage has been characterized as discordant and tumultuous. In Abraham and Mary Lincoln, author Kenneth J. Winkle goes beyond the common image of the couple, illustrating that although the waters of the Lincoln household were far from calm, the Lincolns were above all a house united. Calling upon their own words and the reminiscences of family members and acquaintances, Winkle traces the Lincolns from their starkly contrasting childhoods, through their courtship and rise to power, to their years in the White House during the Civil War, ultimately revealing a dynamic love story set against the backdrop of the greatest peril the nation has ever seen. When the awkward but ambitious Lincoln landed Mary Todd, people were surprised by their seeming incompatibility. Lincoln, lacking in formal education and social graces, came from the world of hardscrabble farmers on the American frontier. Mary, by contrast, received years of schooling and came from an established, wealthy, slave-owning family. Yet despite the social gulf between them, these two formidable personalities forged a bond that proved unshakable during the years to come. Mary provided Lincoln with the perfect partner in ambition-one with connections, political instincts, and polish. For Mary, Lincoln was her "diamond in the rough," a man whose ungainly appearance and background belied a political acumen to match her own. While each played their role in the marriage perfectly- Lincoln doggedly pursuing success and Mary hosting lavish political soirées-their partnership was not without contention. Mary-once described as "the wildcat of her age"--Frequently expressed frustration with the limitations placed on her by Victorian social strictures, exhibiting behavior that sometimes led to public friction between the couple. Abraham's work would at times keep him away from home for weeks, leaving Mary alone in Springfield. The true test of the Lincolns' dedication to each other began in the White House, as personal tragedy struck their family and civil war erupted on American soil. The couple faced controversy and heartbreak as the death of their young son left Mary grief-stricken and dependent upon séances and spiritualists; as charges of disloyalty hounded the couple regarding Mary's young sister, a Confederate widow; and as public demands grew strenuous that their son Robert join the war. The loss of all privacy and the constant threat of kidnapping and assassination took its toll on the entire family. Yet until a fateful night in the Ford Theatre in 1865, Abraham and Mary Lincoln stood firmly together-he as commander-in-chief during America's gravest military crisis, and she as First Lady of a divided country that needed the White House to emerge as a respected symbol of national unity and power. Despite the challenges they faced, the Lincolns' life together fully embodied the maxim engraved on their wedding bands: love is eternal. Abraham and Mary Lincoln is a testament to the power of a stormy union that held steady through the roughest of seas.

Author : Jennifer Fleischner
Publisher : Crown
Page : 397 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307419156

Get Book

Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly by Jennifer Fleischner Pdf

A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary Lincoln wrote to Elizabeth Keckly in 1867, and indeed theirs was a close, if tumultuous, relationship. Born into slavery, mulatto Elizabeth Keckly was Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, confidante, and mainstay during the difficult years that the Lincolns occupied the White House and the early years of Mary’s widowhood. But she was a fascinating woman in her own right, Lizzy had bought her freedom in 1855 and come to Washington determined to make a life for herself. She was independent and already well-established as the dressmaker to the Washington elite when she was first hired by Mary Lincoln upon her arrival in the nation’s capital. Mary Lincoln hired Lizzy in part because she was considered a “high society” seamstress and Mary, as an outsider in Washington’s social circles, was desperate for social cachet. With her husband struggling to keep the nation together, Mary turned increasingly to her seamstress for companionship, support, and advice—and over the course of those trying years, Lizzy Keckly became her confidante and closest friend. Historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the intimate dynamics of this unusual friendship for the first time, and traces the pivotal events that enabled these two women to forge such an unlikely bond at a time when relations between blacks and whites were tearing the nation apart. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly is a remarkable work of scholarship that explores the legacy of slavery and sheds new light on the Lincoln White House.

Author : W. A. Evans
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2010-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780809329717

Get Book

Mrs. Abraham Lincoln by W. A. Evans Pdf

First published in 1932, this was the first thoroughly researched biography of Mary Lincoln ever written, and it remains the most balanced and complete work on this controversial First Lady. Author W. A. Evans challenges the disparaging views of Mary Lincoln that were generally accepted at the time, offering a comprehensive and informed look at a woman whose physical and mental health problems have often been misconstrued or overlooked by other biographers. Evans conducted extensive research, interviewing Mrs. Lincoln’s family members, seeking advice and assistance from numerous Lincoln scholars and historians, scouring thousands of pages of contemporary newspapers and primary resources, reviewing correspondence Mary wrote during her stay at Bellevue Place sanitarium, and consulting with several medical experts. The result of all this research is an objective and detailed portrait of Mrs. Lincoln and her influence on her husband that still has a great deal of historical value for readers today. A new foreword by Jason Emerson, author of The Madness of Mary Lincoln, provides biographical information on Evans and background on the origins of the book and its reception and influence. Finally back in print, this classic biography is essential reading for all with an interest in the Lincoln family.

Author : Jason Emerson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2018-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780809336753

Get Book

Mary Lincoln for the Ages by Jason Emerson Pdf

In this sweeping analytical bibliography, Jason Emerson goes beyond the few sources usually employed to contextualize Mary Lincoln's life and thoroughly reexamines nearly every word ever written about her. In doing so, this book becomes the prime authority on Mary Lincoln, points researchers to key underused sources, reveals how views about her have evolved over the years, and sets the stage for new questions and debates about the themes and controversies that have defined her legacy. Mary Lincoln for the Ages first articulates how reliance on limited sources has greatly restricted our understanding of the subject, evaluating their flaws and benefits and pointing out the shallowness of using the same texts to study her life. Emerson then presents more than four hundred bibliographical entries of nonfiction books and pamphlets, scholarly and popular articles, journalism, literature, and juvenilia. More than just listings of titles and publication dates, each entry includes Emerson's deft analysis of these additional works on Mary Lincoln that should be used--but rarely have been--to better understand who she was during her life and why we see her as we do. The volume also includes rarely used illustrations, including some that have never before appeared in print. A roadmap for a firmer, more complete grasp of Mary Lincoln's place in the historical record, this is the first and only extensive, analytical bibliography of the subject. In highlighting hundreds of overlooked sources, Emerson changes the paradigm of Mary Lincoln's legacy.