Thirty Years a Slave, Four Years in the White House

Elizabeth Keckley was born into slavery in Virginia in 1818. Her enslaver was also her father. She learned this early. She said nothing. She learned to sew instead.

THE NEEDLE

While still enslaved, Elizabeth's needlework became so skilled that she single-handedly supported a household of 17 people with her sewing. She charged what her work was worth and saved every cent she was allowed to keep. She bought her freedom, and her son's, with her own hands, then opened a dressmaking shop in Washington, D.C.

MRS. LINCOLN

Elizabeth became the personal dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln and was called to the White House before inaugurations and major state occasions. She became part of the Lincoln family's inner circle. On the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Mary Todd Lincoln sent for Elizabeth before almost anyone else.

AFTER

Mary Lincoln gave Elizabeth the President's personal comb and brush. Elizabeth wrote her memoir, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. Washington society was scandalized that a Black woman published the private grief of a First Lady. Elizabeth Keckley did not apologize.