Elizabeth Keckly (1818-1907): Textile Artist, Author and Activist at the time of the American Civil War

Elizabeth Keckly (also spelled Keckley) is often referred to as “Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmaker” but she was so much more. Becoming a dressmaker to Mrs. Lincoln was something she aspired to and achieved. It’s what she did, not who she was. Who she was is a woman who achieved under the most challenging conditions, an activist and civil rights leader, a visionary, and an author. She wrote and published her memoir, Behind the Scenes or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, in 1868.

Doing the math reveals that was actually 38 years a slave. Four years in the White House shows that was a small part of Keckly’s life. Many remark on her close friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln. Though it may have been a friendship, we must not forget that Keckly was employed by Mrs. Lincoln who called Keckly to do her bidding, often not dressmaking, at her own whim. While there was likely tenderness and care on both sides, the power dynamic was not in Keckly’s favor. In the end it seems the “friendship” became a burden to Keckly and cost her much hardship and loss of income.

Not often mentioned is that while serving as modiste for Mary Todd Lincoln, Keckly also ran her own successful dressmaking business with employees in D.C. She was highly esteemed as a textile artist. Her dresses were unique and highly sought after.

“She employed 20 seamstresses at her 12th Street business. It generally took two to three weeks to make each dress. As she began hiring seamstresses to make dresses for her clients, Keckley focused her attention on fitting garments and the seamstresses made most of the garments. She had a talent for draping fabric and fitting garments. The Smithsonian Institution states: “She was known to be the dressmaker in D.C. because her garments had extraordinary fit.” Her dresses were considered to be expensive, yet she sometimes made much more money from the commission for manufacture of the fabric than for the actual construction of the article of clothing”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Home_for_Destitute_Colored_Women_and_Children).

I found the last line of the above quote to be very interesting but I have not been able to find any more about Keckly’s manufacturing of fabric.

After Keckly published her memoir, she was erased and silenced. The book was controversial because she chose to share many of the dynamics inside the White House and the marriage of the Lincolns. While it was her own experience she was writing, this was not something the country was accustomed to. A Black woman writing about white people and revealing some of their secrets was seen as scandalous.

And then there was a final blow:

“After Behind the Scenes was so ill-received, Mary Todd Lincoln’s son Robert successfully petitioned to have it removed from the shelves of bookshops and libraries. As a result, the book’s sales were dismal. In addition, Keckly lost many of her white customers. She continued to earn a small living by sewing, but her business was never the same. In 1892, Keckly accepted a position as head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts at Wilberforce until her health forced her to return to Washington, where she died in 1907 at the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children, an institution ironically funded in part by the Contraband Relief Association Keckly had founded four and a half decades earlier” (Perkins-Valdez in intro. BS Loc 162).

 

Elizabeth Keckly, Gown and Cape. Chicago History Museum.

More recently Keckly and her work have received greater interest and appreciation.

“Although the American public was not prepared to read the story of a free Black woman assuming control of her own life narrative at the time of publication, her recollections have been used by many historians to reconstruct the Lincoln White House and better understand one of the nation’s most fascinating and misunderstood first ladies. Her story is integral to White House history and understanding the experiences of enslaved and free Black women” (https://www.whitehousehistory.org/from-slavery-to-the-white-house-the-extraordinary-life-of-elizabeth-keckly).

The remainder of this post will focus on the ambitions and successes of Elizabeth Keckly.

Ambition to be free

She was born Elizabeth Hobbs in Virginia in 1818, enslaved by Armistead Burwell who was also her biological father. In her 38 years enslaved, she endured much hardship— being separated forever from the person she acknowledged as her father, watching her mother suffer and assigned to care for a white child while she herself was still a child.

She was subsequently “given away” to the son of her enslaver at age 14. While there  she was beaten and raped. She gave birth to her son, George, and then was moved to St. Louis, to the home of the daughter of her former enslaver whose husband, Hugh A. Garland, could not find a way to support the family. Keckly ended up supporting them all with her sewing skills. She did this to prevent her elderly mother from being sent out to work as a servant in another home to support the Garlands. She begged Mr. Garland to let her try and she succeeded to support 17 people with her skill.

“I told Mr. Garland so, and he gave me permission to see what I could do. I was fortunate in obtaining work, and in a short time I had acquired something of a reputation as a seamstress and dress-maker. The best ladies in St. Louis were my patrons, and when my reputation was once established I never lacked for orders. With my needle I kept bread in the mouths of seventeen persons for two years and five months. While I was working so hard that others might live in comparative comfort, and move in those circles of society to which their birth gave them entrance, the thought often occurred to me whether I was really worth my salt or not; and then perhaps the lips curled with a bitter sneer”(BS loc 494).

She decides it is time to purchase her and her son’s freedom. When she asks Mr. Garland he tells her she needs to pay $1200.

In her years of sewing dresses for prominent white women she formed many connections and relationships. After watching Keckly struggle for 8 years to raise the money by herself, these women gave her the money to buy her freedom

“The twelve hundred dollars with which I purchased the freedom of myself and son I consented to accept only as a loan. I went to work in earnest and in a short time paid every cent that was so kindly advanced by my lady patrons of St. Louis”(BS loc 628).

When freedom was purchased, she moved to Washington, D. C. and was quickly recommended as a seamstress to the prominent women there.

Freedom achieved.

Ambition to work in the White House

“Ever since arriving in Washington I had a great desire to work for the ladies of the White House, and to accomplish this end I was ready to make almost any sacrifice consistent with propriety”(BS loc 723).

 

Her first big job in Washington was for the family of Senator Jefferson Davis (1808-89), senator from Mississippi and future president of the Confederate States of America, married to Varina Davis.

How interesting she worked for both Davis and Lincoln. Elizabeth Keckly was a powerful entrepreneur:

“Mrs. Davis, wife of Senator Jefferson Davis, came from the South in November of 1860, with her husband. Learning that Mrs. Davis wanted a modiste, I presented myself, and was employed by her on the recommendation of one of my patrons and her intimate friend, Mrs. Captain Hetsill. I went to the house to work, but finding that they were such late risers, and as I had to fit many dresses on Mrs. Davis, I told her that I should prefer giving half the day to her, working the other in my own room for some of my other lady patrons. Mrs. D. consented to the proposition, and it was arranged that I should come  to her own house every day after 12 M. It was the winter before the breaking out of that fierce and bloody war between the two sections of the country “(BS loc 652).

After the Davis’ leave D.C., Keckly is promised a meeting with Mrs. Lincoln in exchange for making a dress in an unreasonably fast period of time for another woman. She succeeds and is soon hired by Mrs. Lincoln to be her modiste.

Position in White House achieved.

Ambition to start a nonprofit aid society

In the summer of 1862, Keckly notices a lot of freed people coming to Washington from Maryland and Virginia rudderless and confused.

“Fresh from the bonds of slavery, from the benighted regions of the plantation, they came to the Capital looking for liberty, and many not knowing it when they found it. . . Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race—the transition from slavery to freedom was too sudden for you! The bright dreams were too rudely dispelled; you were not prepared for the new life that opened before you, and the great masses of the North learned to look upon your helplessness with indifference—learned to speak of you as an idle, dependent race. Reason should have prompted kinder thoughts. Charity is ever kind”(BS loc 994).

 

Contraband Camp in Northern Virginia, 1862 (National Archives)

Thus she gained the idea and inspiration to form the Contraband Relief Association and right away had 40 members. Subsequently she accompanied Mrs. Lincoln on trips  to New York City and Boston, taking the opportunity to gather more members, funds and contributions. She was the president of this association for many years and well known and respected by other members of the Civil Rights movement including Frederick Douglass.

“The organization changed its name in July 1864 to the Ladies’ Freedmen and Soldier’s Relief Association, to “reflect its expanded mission” after blacks started serving in the United States Colored Troops. The organization provided food, shelter, clothing, and medical care to recently freed persons, who were called contrabands because they were not legally free people and considered seized property, or contrabands, of war” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Keckley#Ladies’_Freedmen_and_Soldier’s_Relief_Association).

Formation of aid society achieved.

Ambition to write and publish a book

In her memoir, Behind the Scenes, Keckly details private conversations between the president and the first lady in which the first lady asserts herself and her ideals for what she thinks is best for the country. She worries that her husband is too trusting and warns him of several people by name. Keckly exposes Mrs. Lincoln’s jealousy and tempestuous nature as well as her going into deep debt to try to keep up with the demands of the White House entertainment requirements without telling Mr. Lincoln.

Keckly writes about many private moments with tenderness and care, showing her deep intimacy with this family and her great regard for the President for what she considers a great service to her people. Keckly details the death of their son Willie Lincoln:

“During the evening she [Mrs. Lincoln] came upstairs several times, and stood by the bedside of the suffering boy. She loved him with a mother’s heart, and her anxiety was great. The night passed slowly; morning came, and Willie was worse. He lingered a few days, and died. God called the beautiful spirit home, and the house of joy was turned into the house of mourning. I was worn out with watching, and was not in the room when Willie died, but was immediately sent for. I assisted in washing him and dressing him, and then laid him on the bed when Mr. Lincoln came in. I never saw a man so bowed down with grief”(BS loc 924).

“Previous to this I had lost my son. Leaving Wilberforce, he went to the battle-field with the three months troops, and was killed in Missouri—found his grave on the battle-field where the gallant General Lyon fell. It was a sad blow to me, and the kindly womanly letter that Mrs. Lincoln wrote to me when she heard of my bereavement was full of golden words of comfort”(BS loc 947).

Wilberforce, named for William Wilberforce, leader in abolishing slave trade in Great Britain, is the oldest private historically Black college in the U.S. founded in 1856 in Ohio.

Keckly is the one Mrs. Lincoln first called for upon the assassination of President Lincoln. She tries to comfort her but the imbalance of their relationship begins to become clear. Mrs Lincoln assumes that Lizzy will go to Chicago with her when she leaves the White House.

“I cannot go West with you, Mrs. Lincoln,” I said, when the idea was first advanced.

“You forget my business, Mrs. Lincoln. I cannot leave it. Just now I have the spring trousseau to make for Mrs. Douglas, and I have promised to have it done in less than a week.”

“Never mind. Mrs. Douglas can get some one else to make her trousseau. You may find it to your interest to go. I am very poor now, but if Congress makes an appropriation for my benefit, you shall be well rewarded.”

“It is not the reward, but—,” I commenced, by way of reply, but she stopped me:

“Now don’t say another word about it, if you do not wish to distress me. I have determined that you shall go to Chicago with me, and you must go.”(BS loc 1685).

Later, on the train ride she has a headache and as Lizzy rubs her temples she says:

“Lizabeth, you are my best and kindest friend, and I love you as my best friend. I wish it were in my power to make you comfortable for the balance of your days. If Congress provides for me, depend upon it, I will provide for you.”(BS loc 1694).

But Mrs. Lincoln never does. Though Keckly returns to her life in D.C., Mrs. Lincoln yet depends on her for support, both emotional and otherwise. Destitute, Mrs. Lincoln calls her to New York City to help sell her dresses. The effort goes disastrously bad for Mrs. Lincoln and she abandons Keckly there to finish the job.

After Keckly publishes her memoir, Mrs. Lincoln refuses to ever speak to her again.

Elisabeth Keckly the author must have known some of the text would be upsetting to Mrs. Lincoln, especially knowing her temperament so well. She chose to do it anyway. She must have thought it important enough to be worth that risk.

Ambition to write and publish a book achieved.

Elizabeth Keckly is a Nasty Woman Writer, activist, and textile artist.

©Theresa C. Dintino 2025

Works Cited

Keckly, Elizabeth Hobbs. Behind the Scenes or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. Originally published by G.W. Carleton & co, Publishers, 1868. Republished by Eno publishers 2016. Intro by Dolan Perkins-Valdez 2016.

Mann, Lina. “From Slavery to the White House: The Extraordinary Life of Elizabeth Keckly.” The White House Historical Association. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/from-slavery-to-the-white-house-the-extraordinary-life-of-elizabeth-keckly

Websites:

National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Home_for_Destitute_Colored_Women_and_Children

Elizabeth Keckly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Keckley#Ladies’_Freedmen_and_Soldier’s_Relief_Association