Elizabeth Keckly
Elizabeth Keckly
-
Born
February 1818
Dinwiddie Courthouse, Virginia
Died
May 1907 (aged 88–89)
Washington, D.C.
Occupation Seamstress, Author
Children
George Kirkland
Elizabeth
Hobbs
Keckly
(February
1818-May
1907)[1]
(sometimes
spelled
Keckley) [2] was a former slave turned suc-
cessful seamstress who is most notably
known as being Mary Todd Lincoln’s person-
al modiste and confidante, and the author of
her autobiography, Behind the Scenes Or,
Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the
White House. Mrs. Keckly utilized her intelli-
gence, keen business savvy, and sewing and
design skills to arrange and ultimately buy
her freedom (and that of her son George as
well), and later enjoyed regular business with
the wives of the government elite as her base
clientele.
After several years in St. Louis, she moved
to Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1860,
where she had the country’s most elite wo-
men of the time requesting her services.
Through shrewd networking and hard work,
she ended up making gowns and dresses for
more notable wives such as Mrs. Varina Dav-
is, wife of Jefferson Davis, and Mrs. Mary
Anne Randolph Custis Lee, wife of Robert E.
Lee. Of all her clients, she had the closest
and most long-standing relationship with
Mary Todd Lincoln, devoting many of her
days during Abraham Lincoln’s administra-
tion to being available to her and the First
Family in a myriad of ways.
Early life
Elizabeth Keckly was born a slavey in Febru-
ary 1818 in Dinwiddie Courthouse, Virginia,
just south of Petersburg. Her mother, Agnes,
was a slave, owned by Armistead and Mary
Burwell. ’Aggy’ as she was called, was con-
sidered a ’privileged slave’, learning to read
and write despite the fact that it was illegal
for slaves to do so. Her biological father,
whose real identity was revealed to her later
on in life, was Armistead Burwell.[3] In fact,
Keckly didn’t find out that Armistead Burwell
was her father until her mother was on her
death bed, and announced it to her.[4]
The exact nature of
the relationship
betwe