Elizabeth Keckley

A couple years ago, there was a TV show called The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer that was a fictional account of the domestic staff of the Lincoln White House. Some “civil rights” activists got HIGHLY OFFENDED. Since I never saw the program, I can’t understand why. I guess those guys never heard of Elizabeth Keckley. Elizabeth Keckley was a white-skinned black woman (best guess is she was her slavemaster’s daughter) and she was such a talented seamstress that she managed to buy her freedom. She settled in Washington D.C. and, apparently, knew everyone in that town. She got a job as Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker. She and Mary Lincoln got to be very close, partially because they shared a family tragedy. Elizabeth Keckley’s son, whose father had been another slavemaster, was so light-skinned that he was able to enlist in the Union Army and was killed in action at almost the same time that Mary Lincoln’s son, Tad, died. Years after the war, Elizabeth Keckley wrote an account of her years at the White House. Just like The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, that caused a major scandal. I always find truth much stranger and compelling than fiction.