Mary's Move from the White House

[Rob Wick]

Quote: She had all of Lincoln's papers and artifacts to store

Donna,

Just a nit-picking point here, but she did not have Lincoln's papers. From David Mearns history of the Lincoln papers:

Immediately after the assassination, Robert Lincoln asked Associate Justice David Davis to undertake the administration of the estate. The Judge came on from Chicago, gathered up bonds, securities, and outstanding household accounts, and urged the prompt removal of the files. They were packed by Nicolay and Colonel Hay, and within a fortnight were secured within the vault of the National Bank at Bloomington. The Judge, for reasons not yet discovered, experienced a sense of relief in the knowledge that they were safely out of Washington, although he did mention his fears lest they fall into dangerous hands. It is barely possible that he infected Robert Lincoln with his forebodings, for Robert Lincoln spoke of some which 'would be damaging to men now living.' That was on April 27th, 1865; on June 6th he wrote that 'the papers relating to the Administration' were 'in such a confused state' that they could not then 'be got at.' They seem to have remained subject to the Judge's order until 1874 when Robert Lincoln directed that they be sent to Mr. Nicolay, in Washington, for use in the preparation of the authorized biography of his father. They were still in Mr. Nicolay's custody when he died in 1901 and appear to have been stored thereafter in the State Department with the approval of Secretary Hay. When Hay died in 1905, Robert Lincoln took them to Chicago, where for a time they were housed in his office in the Pullman Building and, later, in his safe deposit. When Robert Lincoln retired and came to Washington to live he kept the papers in his Georgetown home in winter, and in summer they were shipped to his country house in Manchester, Vermont. In the spring of 1919, probably as an expression of gratitude to the government for the construction of the Lincoln Memorial, and under the misapprehension that that temple was nearly completed, Robert Lincoln placed the papers in the Library of Congress on condition that their presence in the institution should not be made known. On January 23rd, 1923, he conveyed them to the Library by deed of gift, with the stipulation that they should be withheld from 'official or public inspection or private view' until after the expiration of twenty-one years from the date of his death. 6 He died July 26th 1926.

As for your other comments, I'm not convinced that she wasn't a hoarder. It seems to me that given her constant fear of not having enough money (when she had more than enough), the possession of items gave her some kind of strange comfort. It proved to her that she did have money. As to how many gloves were truly necessary, it seems a comparison to other first ladies might be in order to answer whether MTL was over the top.

Best
Rob