Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House

ELIZABETH HOBBS KECKLEY (1818-1907), dressmaker to the elite of Washington D.C. on the eve of the Civil War, was, remarkably, a free black woman who'd purchased her emancipation through the fruits of her own hard work. In 1861, she became the personal designer to Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as one of the First Lady's closest confidantes. Only a few years later, however, that relationship was in ruins, when this 1868 book created a scandal. Intended by Keckley to rehabilitate the reputation o...