Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly By Jennifer Fleischner

Book Review Student name Institution Affiliation The author, Jennifer Fleischner has made a classic production in the delightful biography of a friendship established in Washington during the war between Mary Lincoln and her confidante Elizabeth Keckly who was also her seamstress. Their story is an exciting one that Jennifer narrates in a profuse absorption detail. However, as much as the book clearly sympathizes with Keckly, who is the former slave, the penetration of Mary Lincoln portrait will side with some of the greatest knowledge on the disputable first Lady. With an organization of biographical chapters that are alternating, the book treads on the heels of each woman from their birth until the time of their demise. Notably, there is a drawing of some infuriating correspondents while focusing on their intimacy years. The intimacy period being limited could be termed as a basic defect in this story CITATION Jen07 \l 1033 (Fleischner, 2007). The period lasted for about only six years making the binary biography to cause a feigned record. It is clear that the 1868 Keckly’s decision on having their relationship published in an unauthorized and revealing narrative was definitely alienated. The author holds the ordeal abruptly, in just limited pages and gives no great perception into the drama of the betrayal which is emotional. Notably, to add more to the reader's disappointments, Fleischner dumps the final years of Mrs. Lincoln being a widow and the 39 years that are a remainder of Keckly’s life in a seven-page appendix that is rather deemed flat CITATION Jen07 \l 1033 (Fleischner, 2007). Even so, the author is working as a historian and the disadvantages of the evidence she gives should not cover up too much of what her achievement was on the investigations she carried out and most definitely her substantial skills in literature. At the beginning of the book, the author wanted to restore Elizabeth Keckly to her place in history. Keckly having been born in the same year as Elizabeth, Lizzy or Mary Todd, she was the results of a relationship between the slave and the master that sparked up when the mistress of the plantation was in preparation of giving birth to her tenth child. Lizzy’s mother, serving as a seamstress and nurse was deemed one of the privileged slaves of the Virginia Burwell family although the clan was very unhappy and faced significant amounts of debt that made them move quite often CITATION Jen07 \l 1033 (Fleischner, 2007). Sent at the age of fourteen, Lizzy was living with the eldest son of the family and his new wife even though the household was smaller and quite troubled. As a servant, Lizzy faced beatings that were terrible and faced several accounts of rape by a white male associate of the family she was working for in the difficult and godforsaken years. As a result of the abusive relationship, the young slave Lizzy gave birth to a son. Her choice of having that baby was from the memories of her mother’s husband who was enslaved due to her avoidance of the masters who was also her real Fathers name. Jennifer narrates the disorderly coming of age story in quite a persuasive and sympathetic manner. The author’s reinstatement of Keckly’s early years is quite a representation of the slave biography CITATION Jen07 \l 1033 (Fleischner, 2007). Her subject’s life story aids without a doubt, but Fleischner goes deeper and beyond the workplace. Lizzy is reunited with her mother and the other members of the Burwell family following her return to Virginia. She had lived in Petersburg, a small free black population in Virginia in the mid-1840s. She then moved to St. Louis with her owners and hired as a dressmaker for different families within the city. She had married James Keckly who was a slave regarded himself as a free man in those year...