Tad - made for TV Movie

[Gene C]

Staring Kris Kristofferson as Abraham Lincoln and Jane Curtin as Mary Lincoln (she's pretty good). From 1995.
The White House years from Tad's perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBedzZ7QAW0

Haven't watched it yet, just the first 10 minutes.

[LincolnMan]

I just watched a few minures if it- not bad!

[Thomas Kearney]

I watched the whole thing. Very Good!

[Gene C]

Finally watched it. It is fairly good. A few historical inaccuracies, but that was to be expected. a A tough time for Tad during the years after his brother Willie dies.
My favorite scene is when he drives his goat and cart through one of his mothers receptions. Movie is a bit sad, and ends with them moving out of the White House. Worth watching.

[maharba]

Did Tad have a cleft palate and was it later surgically repaired? Was this part of a mosaic of some generalized disease affecting the brain or other regions, or just a simple cleft palate?

[RJNorton]

I think this article may be of some help on this topic.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860...w=fulltext

[Wild Bill]

Great article, Roger! Well worth reading.

[maharba]

Thanks for the article, a long read and a weighty one for me at least. Not sure I understood even half of it. The cited article seemed to confirm that Tad Lincoln did indeed have a cleft palate, though how involved it was with soft and hard tissue I could not determine. And it seemed to say that Tad Lincoln had some mental impairment, as well. My guess is that it mainly a cleft-palate which would be trivial in modern medicine, but its duration contributed to a loss in learning potential. Abraham Lincoln, as far as I know had no such similar condition, and neither did Thomas Lincoln his father. The article commented on Tad's very high and shrill voice. While Abraham Lincoln's voice was a reedy soprano and grating on the ears of some folks, yet I think Lincoln's voice carried over long distances. And so Lincoln's high piping voice was an asset in speeches and reaching out to thousands of folks convened. I'm guessing that Tad Lincoln's minor defect only endeared him all the more to family and friends.

[Eva Elisabeth]

...its duration contributed to a loss in learning potential...

No - certainly not any in potential. A cleft palate doesn't affect intellectual abilities. It may affect self-confidence/socialization, but he wasn't the most self-inconvenient kid, and in the White House years he had always had private tutors, thus wasn't exposed to bullying classmates. IMO there was no reason from the " cleft palate point of view" not to concentrate on and properly learn his RRR. I would think what is now called ADHD is what caused his deficiencies.

[RJNorton]

Here is a Tad Lincoln story I like. It comes from William Crook's Through Five Administrations:

"Haliday, aided by the gardener, was about to take up the carpet in the congressional, or state, dining-room. The long table made it somewhat difficult, and they were debating about which end to attack it from, when Tad appeared. He surveyed the field.

'Jim,' he said to Haliday. 'I have a favor to ask of you. Jim, grant it,' he coaxed.

Jim, of course, said 'Yes,' as every one had a way of doing—and yet it wasn't because it was the President's son.

'Now, Jim,' he said, taking an attitude of command, 'you work with the other man. I will boss the job.' And Haliday, talking about it, asserts to this day: 'He told us just how to go about it. And there was no one could engineer it better than he did."

[Eva Elisabeth]

I love that story, Roger, thanks for posting! (And the German education and discipline proved he was well capable, no? Just kidding - there were certainly equivalents in the US.)

[RJNorton]

I love that story, Roger, thanks for posting! (And the German education and discipline proved he was well capable, no? Just kidding - there were certainly equivalents in the US.)

Yes, Eva! In Frankfort Mary Lincoln wrote to Mary Harlan Lincoln that Tad was "doubtlessly greatly improved in his studies."

[L Verge]

And I suspect that discipline may well have been the key.

[Mylye2222]

And I suspect that discipline may well have been the key.

Certainly. AL indulged everything to Tad. He let him run the whole White House!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Well, I also think Tad was a typical ADHD kid.