Home > Research > Take a Closer Look > Elizabeth Keckley > Details

White House Secrets
Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. Call number: Rare E457.15 K26

Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House was one of the first memoirs by a White House insider, and it is both a vivid slave narrative and an important source for Lincoln scholars. The press criticized Keckley for her intimate portrayal of the Lincoln family, especially for publishing numerous letters Mary had written to her. In a letter to her publisher, Keckley wondered if she was being denounced “because my skin is dark and I was once a slave?"

Keckley may have used a ghostwriter, although not the name in the handwritten notation on the title page of this first edition. James Redpath, antislavery journalist, probably helped Keckley edit and publish her autobiography. View enlarged image

Ann Powell Burwell commonplace book, 1746–1839
Call number: Mss5:5 B9585:1

This Burwell family commonplace book includes recipes, household inventories, and lists of slaves owned by Col. Armistead Burwell of Dinwiddie County. Elizabeth Keckley's birth is recorded fourth from the bottom: "Lizzy– child of Aggy, Feby 1818." Aggy (Agnes) Hobbs was Elizabeth's mother. View enlarged image

Harper's Weekly, October 26, 1867
Call number: AP2 H23 o.s.

After the assassination, Mary Lincoln fell into debt, and she arranged to sell some of her clothes and jewelry. She wrote and asked Keckley to accompany her to New York for the sale. The newspapers wrote scathing reports about the "vulgar" sale, illustrated here in this engraving from Harper's Weekly. The clothes did not sell, and Mrs. Lincoln returned to Chicago, but Keckley stayed in New York and began work on her autobiography. View enlarged image

Gown Made by Elizabeth Keckley for Mary Todd Lincoln
click here to view gown

One amusing story from Keckley's book concerned a gown that she made for Mrs. Lincoln for a White House dance. On the night of the party, President Lincoln waited patiently for his wife to get ready. When she finally swept into the room wearing her ball gown which had a long train, Lincoln studied her and then remarked quietly "Whew! Our cat has a long tail tonight." "Mrs. Lincoln did not reply." click here to view gown (Smithsonian Institution web site)