New O'Reilly Children's Book

[Donna McCreary]

I have one of those memorial prints from 1865 depicting the box at Ford's Theatre. Even though it is an orginial engraving from an orginial piece of art work, it is still just that -- art work. The artists sketched Booth wearing a hat. Mary Lincoln wears a bonnet and an appropiate dress for the theatre. The cover of this book shows Mary as the modern eye remembers her -- wearing a ball gown and a floral head dress. She would not have worn such attire to the theatre. Off the shoulder gowns with trains were reserved for extreme formal occassions - balls, receptions, state dinners. Floral head dresses were usually worn to events that included dancing. A bonnet could be worn inside the theatre, although some women removed them and had a simple ribbon head dress or a jeweled head dress under the bonnet. Yes, gloves were worn by men and women at all times -- except when eating. Gloves protected people from dirt. Mary often had to remind Lincoln to carry an extra pair of gloves with him in case the pair he was wearing became soiled.
Do we know the exact seating arrangment in the theatre box? Most images show Lincoln on the far left side (when inside the box, not the image itself); however, the engraving I have has Mary on the extreme left. Etiquette required the lady have the 'inside' seat - thus Mary should have been seated to the far left against the wall.