The “rubber box” or did Laura Keene indeed held Lincoln’s head?

[Tom Bogar]

I realize that I will never convert any naysayers on this long-debated issue (Keene in the box), but I have come down on the side of her being there based on the same factors which kept her biographer, Ben Graf Henneke, similarly convinced until his recent death: her consummate, rigorous professionalism. This was a woman who had succeeded as a theatrical manager in an essentially otherwise man's world, who always reacted instinctively to control and manage any even potentially disruptive situation. Many of her company members over the years commented on this singular trait of hers, even at times to the point of denigrating her rigidity. Tom Gourlay's knowledge of the backstage geography of Ford's Theatre and the saloon/residence building to its south would have been appreciated by--and immediately made use of by--Keene, who would have realized after her unsuccessful attempt to quiet the crowd, that she could never make it up to the box through the audience. While this is of course only my own humble professional judgment call, I remain convinced of her presence, especially considering her vivid detail, in her one public statement, that looking down at the wounded president reminded her of Mantegna's "Dead Christ" and its foreshortened perspective. It will be so much easier for future historians studying our own era of omnipresent video monitoring!