Madness of Mary Lincoln

[kerry]

(11-11-2017 08:54 PM)Steve Wrote:  I agree that Mary has sometimes received a raw deal from some historians, such as Burlingame, who seem to have an axe to grind against her. I haven't read the Madness of Mary Lincoln, but I did read and enjoy Emerson's Giant in the Shadows.

I do think we should think of Robert's actions in light of the views of treating mental illness of the time and that he thought he was acting in the best interest of his mother.

I definitely have sympathy for Robert's situation, but it's hard to figure out exactly if he was trying to act in her best interest. Understandably, he had his own interests to worry about, including his own mental health, and Mary was definitely hard to deal with and did need some sort of help. I can completely get if Robert just couldn't handle it anymore, and he doesn't seem to have gotten much advice/support.

But reading Davis saying "now you can get back to business" and that a financial conservatorship only would be called for in cases of a woman of a "different temperament" shows a pretty cold view. The same with Robert saying it would be different if she wasn't Lincoln's widow getting herself in the papers. Those statements were kind of an acknowledgement that she didn't exactly *need* to be institutionalized, or not for any long period, but that it would be a relief to them if she was because she was hard to deal with. It was tough because there weren't really treatment options short of institutionalization. Spiritualism was probably the closest she got to a support/therapy group. There weren't a lot of good options.

But I think the biggest issue is they seem to have totally underestimated her. She was not going to sit quietly in the institution - her "temperament" wasn't like that. As her sister said, her "proud spirit" couldn't handle it -- it was never a good solution, unless she was violently out of control. Instead, she was allowed to live very freely, unlike the other patients, who were out of control. Women like her were not typically in these institutions. She did benefit from the structure imposed by it, but that could only stabilize her. They never make any reference to her intelligence in all the letters - only comments about her "temperament" etc. Had they taken her seriously, they may have avoided her campaign for release, which could have gotten a lot uglier. But it didn't occur to them that this might happen, apparently, which I think relates to sexism. As does Robert not recognizing Myra Bradwell as the first attempted female attorney in Chicago but instead believing she is a high priestess in a gang of spiritualists. She wasn't on his radar and he underestimated her, too.

And then there's the idea that Mary had behaved like this for a while, and that Lincoln had not institutionalized her. No doubt it worsened after his death, but the more I research her, the more it is clear this stuff started pretty early. Sadly, Robert's best bet was to just accept her shopping/hoarding and wandering ways and spiritualist leanings, as Lincoln did despite bad press, but society at the time expected him to do *something.* We don't know exactly what happened, so it is hard to judge. But her friend Prof. Swing said it was only a few days or weeks out of the year when she needed help, and he advocated brief commitment and release, which is how we do it today for people who infrequently have severe episodes. That probably made the most sense, but the publicity of it, coming after Mary had already been so eviscerated in the press, was a high cost.