Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[kerry]

I'm curious about the source for Robert's suppression - I can't figure out where that comes from.

I do not think I have seen a specific source either. The following, however, is typical of what I have seen in books:

In Mary Lincoln's Dressmaker: Elizabeth Keckley's Remarkable Rise from Slave to White House Confidante author Becky Rutberg writes:

"Robert Lincoln was so furious over the book's disclosure of private information and intimate details of his parents' relationship that he prevailed upon the publisher, Carleton & Company, to recall it from the market. He persuaded his friends to buy and burn all remaining copies."

No footnote or endnote for this.

Robert was 25 when the book was released in 1868, and that is the same year that he married Mary Harlan. Could Senator Harlan have been the force behind the attack on the book?

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Found this note in an 1967 article in American Heritage: When Mrs. Keckley found out that her instructions had been disobeyed, she hurried to Robert Lincoln to explain and apologize. She was brusquely turned away. Years later, when about to retire to a home for the destitute, the aged seamstress appealed once more to Mr. Lincoln. Once more he utterly refused to see her.

If true, Robert sure knew how to hold a grudge.

Interesting - I wonder where the author of that article got the information. If he was forewarned, it would make more sense that he was able to stop production. I'm still suspicious of the story, though, because I still haven't found it footnoted anywhere.