First Ladies: Influence and Image

[Dawn E Foster]

Next Monday's episode of C-SPAN's First Ladies series is going to be a special two hour one all about Mary Todd Lincoln.

http://firstladies.c-span.org/FirstLady/...ncoln.aspx

[RJNorton]

Dawn, thank you for posting this!

[LincolnMan]

I love the picture of Mary on the website. Did any of our Forum members contribute to the program?

[Gene C]

This looks pretty interesting, thanks for letting us be aware of it.

[Sally]

This is a great series. I've seen every episode so far. I'm really looking forward to the MTL installment. I also like that they are rerunning many episodes of the "Lives of the Presidents" series from 1999. Mr. Lincoln is supposed to be featured this Sunday night, but it's not listed on C-Span's schedule yet.

On Monday, the "First Ladies" program featured Jane Pierce and Harriet Lane (James Buchanan's niece). I was interested to learn that Jane Pierce was similar to Mary Lincoln in several ways. She, too, experienced great loss--all three of her sons died at a very young age. Many of you probably know that the last surviving son, Benjy, was killed in a train derailment only a few weeks before Pierce's inauguration, and both parents witnessed his death. Terrible! As a result, Jane was (understandably) a virtual recluse for the first two years of the administration. She did very little official entertaining and pretty much stayed in her rooms on the second floor of the White House. She was also involved, at least to some extent, with spiritualists. Evidently, Pierce found it so difficult to be around her inconsolable grief that he had her family members come to Washington so he wouldn't have to deal with it alone. Also, some of Pierce's friends, (including Nathaniel Hawthorne) didn't care much for Jane. They thought she was the "wrong wife" for Pierce. Even before the loss of her children, she was always sick with a chronic "cold" and often feigned illness when she wanted to get out of things. Unlike Mary Lincoln though, she supposedly hated politics and wanted nothing to do with it. She was angry at Pierce for getting elected president, and blamed him for their son's death, considering it God's retribution for his high ambitions. Also unlike Mary, she was never supportive of Pierce, politically speaking.

I think this illustrates that Mary Lincoln's "issues" were not so unique. Granted, she seems to have been a difficult person with many emotional problems. But the excessive flack she's gotten over the decades has always seemed unfair to me. No doubt if she had been married to one of the country's worst presidents instead of its greatest (I know, I know--we have dissenters who will disagree with my opinion, but whatever!) history--i.e. writers like Messrs. Herndon and Burlingame--would not be so unkind to her.

[Mike B.]

Was anyone else underwhelmed at this program?

There are a number of historians that would have been much better and had more knowledge of the subject.

I don't know how you can have an "expert" on Mary who has never read Herndon?!

[antiquefinder]

(04-22-2013 10:34 PM)Mike B. Wrote:  Was anyone else underwhelmed at this program?

There are a number of historians that would have been much better and had more knowledge of the subject.

I don't know how you can have an "expert" on Mary who has never read Herndon?!

Mike B.- I'm so glad youv'e pointed this out! I watched the whole program and thought the same thing. How did that lady end up on the show as an expert? I would have expected Jason Emerson who wrote a book on Mary Todd Lincoln or someone in his realm??!! I really thought I would have learned some new things about Mary, but I didn't. I learned more about Mary from this forum. I think the guy(I forgot his name) was very knowledgable, but that lady was pathetic. I was very disappointed in this show. I wonder what everyone else thought who saw it?

[RJNorton]

I did not see it, but I found that it's online here.

[Gene C]

I agree with the above, I was disappointed, but glad I watched it. It was interesting, I only caught the last hour of the show. Of the two experts, Ms Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, was not dealing in her specialty, and had in my opinion, limited knowledge on Mary Lincoln. I'll blame "C-Spam" for not getting someone more knowledgable about Mary. The guy, Richard Norton Smith, was much better.

Correct me if misunderstood her, but she stated the reason Mary purchased so many gloves for Mr. Lincoln was to protect him from germs. It was almost comical. She blamed paragoric and laudanum for much of Mary's erratic behavior. She was also very critical of Robert Lincoln.

To me, the more you learn about Mary, the more interesting she is. I think they could have used the 90 minutes much better. After watching the program, I don't feel they portrayed the real Mary Lincoln.

PS. thanks Roger, I'm going to watch this again to see what I missed

[L Verge]

Richard Norton Smith comes with some high credentials, including curating the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum when it first got off the ground. He is also quite good at being interviewed.

I never heard of Ms. Terborg-Penn. What is her specialty? I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't up to par because I have several of my museum guides who have really liked the series so far. It's a shame that the one First Lady that they really need to know about fell short on this segment.

As for the gloves, was it Donna McCreary on this forum or the Mary Lincoln Enigma book that pointed out that people of that day, especially the President who stood in so many receiving lines, soiled or wore out many pairs of gloves in just one night. Mary would not have known about germs, but I bet she was fastidious when it came to things being soiled and shabby.

[Mike B.]

It seems they could have just got Donna McCreary herself to do the show and got someone who actually knows about Mary Lincoln.

All Ms. Terborg-Penn did was say some pollyanaish stuff about Mary Lincoln, a person she had only the most rudimentary knowledge of.

Some of it was downright absurd.

When she said that she "heard" Herndon hated Lincoln and took out his hate of Lincoln by attacking Mary in his book, I almost hit the floor.

Those who could be put in Mary Lincoln defender camp usually say that Herndon wrote down Mary to make Lincoln look good instead. This is the exact opposite.

And having an "expert" on Mary who is unfamiliar with Herndon is like having an expert on the battle of Gettysburg and had "heard" that Pickett's Charge was bad but has never read about it.

[L Verge]

I have not yet clicked on the link that Roger provided. Maybe I shouldn't?

[Liz Rosenthal]

I didn't watch this program, but - wow! Based on what has been posted here, I've just lost respect for C-Span! Clearly, C-Span's staff didn't/doesn't know what they're doing! That's disgusting.

[Gene C]

I think they had an off night. That's the only episode I've seen. The concept of the show is pretty good. Roger posted a link above to the episode on Mary Lincoln. Watch it and tell us what you think

[Donna McCreary]

(04-23-2013 02:47 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Richard Norton Smith comes with some high credentials, including curating the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum when it first got off the ground. He is also quite good at being interviewed.

I never heard of Ms. Terborg-Penn. What is her specialty? I'm sorry to hear that it wasn't up to par because I have several of my museum guides who have really liked the series so far. It's a shame that the one First Lady that they really need to know about fell short on this segment.

As for the gloves, was it Donna McCreary on this forum or the Mary Lincoln Enigma book that pointed out that people of that day, especially the President who stood in so many receiving lines, soiled or wore out many pairs of gloves in just one night. Mary would not have known about germs, but I bet she was fastidious when it came to things being soiled and shabby.

Yes, Mary did indeed purchase many, many pairs of gloves. While we do not know if she actually purchased the 300 pairs between January to April, 1865 (no bills of sale exist), it would not have been unreasonable. When actress Sarah Bernhardt arrived in New York in 1881 (she was on the Amerique along with Mary Lincoln), the newspapers reported that her trunks contained 350 pairs of white gloves.

Due to the large crowds at White House entertainments, Lincoln used as many as five pairs of gloves during one reception. Mary would not have used as many. If she soiled as many as three pairs per reception, those 300 pairs of gloves would have lasted no longer than seven months.

Laurie is correct - Mary knew nothing about germs. But, I have a feeling she could spot a dirty glove from the other side of the room.