Elizabeth Keckley

I plan to write about Elizabeth Keckley for my midterm paper. She was born enslaved who bought her own freedom and eventually rose to be a successful seamstress in the Washington D.C. area - so much so that she became the personal dressmaker and close confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. Four years after the Civil War, she published her autobiography Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. I will be mainly using this text for my research. Her novel is an extra special gift because within it not only does she recount what it was like to exist through slavery as a woman, but the book also serves as a rather revealing biography of the first family. This added context will hopefully provide solidity and well-roundedness to my retelling of Ms. Keckley's story.