Looking back at a ‘Southern Girl, Northern Woman’
Author of new Mary Lincoln biography to speak Jan. 29 at Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
 

[January 21, 2015]  SPRINGFIELD – Mary Lincoln grew up a daughter of the South, where slavery was embraced and women were expected to focus quietly on home and hearth. She died as the unconventional widow of a president who led the nation to abolish slavery. The author of a new Mary Lincoln biography discusses that historic life Jan. 29 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Stacy Pratt McDermott will sign copies of “Mary Lincoln: Southern Girl, Northern Woman” at 6 p.m. before speaking in the museum’s Union Theater at 6:30. The event is free, but reservations are required. Please visit www.president lincoln.gov  and click “Special event reservations,” or call [phone].

McDermott argues Abraham Lincoln’s biographers have focused on the negative when discussing Mary Lincoln, failing to go beyond a few “infamous stories” about her temper, spending and mental health. “The juxtaposition of Lincoln’s good and Mary’s evil has been far too irresistible for some biographers to resist.”

Even her name has been a source of confusion and misunderstanding, McDermott says. Historians often write of “Mary Todd Lincoln,” but Mary never called herself that. Once she was married, she was known exclusively as “Mary Lincoln” and thought of herself as a wife and mother, not a public figure.

“Mary Lincoln: Southern Girl, Northern Woman” attempts to go beyond the caricatures of Mary Lincoln and put her life into context, particularly as someone coping with 19th-century ideas of proper behavior for women. “We are drawn to Mary Lincoln because of the extraordinary circumstances of her life, but her life can also be an interesting focal point for understanding the lives of women more broadly,” McDermott writes.

Eileen Mackevich, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, said, “While we know that Stacy Pratt McDermott offers an even-handed assessment of Mary Lincoln and her tumultuous life, we’re certain that Mary’s fans will not be disappointed.”

McDermott is assistant director and associate editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project devoted to locating all Lincoln letters and documents from his lifetime. She is also the author of “The Jury in Lincoln’s America.”

[Chris Wills, Abraham Lincoln Library & Museum]