Those of you who know me, know that I enjoy studying Mary Todd Lincoln. She is a fascinating person and I have read many books written about her. My husband Jim was born in Springfield, Illinois and grew up there. Most of his family still lives there. When we visit, I love to go to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and the Presidential Library across the street. It's a fantastic place to visit.
I receive the online newsletters from the museum. I was just looking at it on Thursday and saw a notice about an online lecture about Mary Todd. How exciting. I signed up for it. It was called " Much like an April Day". It was out on through a group called Road Scholars. The state historian of Illinois Samuel Wheeler gave the presentation.
These are some of the books Mr Wheeler mentioned at the beginning of the talk. He said Mary has been put into two groups....those who think she was insane and those who defend her actions. He wanted us to really look at who Mary Todd as a person and then try to understand her and her time through knowing her. It was a fresh look and I appreciated that very much.
This is her father and her step mother. Her father had 16 children between his two wives. Mary did not get along with her step mother. She was sent off to boarding school very close to home to get her out of the way! As a result, she was very educated, more so than most young women at the time.
This is the quote from her sister Elizabeth. It is now thought that Mary may have been bipolar most of her life. Read the quote and think about it.
Mr and Mrs Abraham Lincoln and their four boys. Mary raised them like little gentlemen and made their clothes. But, they were boys and acted like boys!
2 comments:
Sounds wonderful, there are so many online activities that are available. Sadly, I have had problems with the internet for the past few weeks so my days of browsing came to an end. I am thankful to be back on line. Take care.
It is very interesting. Have a nice week :)
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