Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (February 1818 – May 1907)Fleischner (2003), pp. 29, 323. was an African-American seamstress, activist, and writer who lived in Washington, D.C. She was the personal dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. She wrote an autobiography. Elizabeth also started the Contraband Relief Association in August 1862, later called the Ladies’ Freedmen and Soldiers’ Relief Association, to help formerly enslaved people and the families of Black soldiers during the Civil War.

She was born enslaved to Armistead Burwell who had also fathered her. Keckley would later be bound to Armistead's daughter Anne Burwell Garland, the wife of Hugh A. Garland. She became a nursemaid to an infant when she was four years old. She received brutal treatment—including being raped and whipped to the point of bleeding welts—from Burwell's family members and a family friend. When she became a seamstress, the Garland family found that it was financially advantageous to have her make clothes for others. The money that she made helped to support the 17 members of the Garland family.

In November 1855, she purchased her and her son's freedom in St. Louis, Missouri. Keckley moved to Washington, D.C., in 1860. She established a dressmaking business that grew to include a staff of 20 seamstresses. Her clients were the wives of elite politicians, including Varina Davis, the wife of Jefferson Davis, and Mary Anna Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee.

After the American Civil War, Keckley wrote and published an autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, in 1868. It was both a slave narrative and a portrait of the first family, especially Mary Todd Lincoln, and it was controversial because of information it disclosed about the Lincolns' private lives.

Slavery

Early life Elizabeth Keckley (or Keckly)Fleischner (2003), p. 7. Mrs. Keckl(e)y's husband was an enslaved person; we do not know whether he was literate or from what family he acquired his name. The spelling of his name remains in question. Fleischner (2003) refers to Keckly's husband as "James Keckly", p. 149. Historian Kate Masur writes, "Jennifer Fleischner has convincingly demonstrated that Elizabeth Keckly herself spelled her surname without a second e." Washington (2018), They Knew Lincoln, p. lxvii, n.1.Michelle Krowl writes that, upon publication of Keckly's book Behind the Scenes, "for over a century," Keckly "lost her name itself. She signed documents using the surname 'Keckly,' but the book was published under the name 'Keckley.' While ... her surname had been misspelled before, Behind the Scenes perpetuated the spelling as 'Keckley' with an additional 'e' for years to come". Krowl, Michelle, "Not-So-Final Resting Places: Grave Reflections on the Historical Reputation of Elizabeth Keckly", in Final Resting Places: Reflections on the Meaning of Civil War Graves, edited by Brian Matthew Jordan and Jonathan W. White. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2023, p. 233.The marker on Keckly's grave, installed in National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland, in 2010, spells her name "Keckly". Krowl, Michelle, "Not-So-Final Resting Places", pp. 237-238 (with a photograph of the grave marker). was born into slavery in February 1818, in Dinwiddie County Court House, Dinwiddie, Virginia, just south of Petersburg. She was the only child of her mother Agnes, a light-skinned Black woman whose white ancestors were members of the planter class.Washington (2018), p. 205. Her mother, nicknamed "Aggy", was a "house slave" who had learned to read and write even though it was illegal for enslaved people.Fleischner (2003), p. 88. She made clothes for 82 people: 12 members of the Burwell family and the 70 people they enslaved. Keckley learned that her father was Armistead Burwell from her mother just before she died.Washington (2018), pp. 205–206.Fleischner (2003), pp. 29, 88. He permitted Agnes to marry George Pleasant Hobbs, a literate enslaved man who lived and worked at a neighbor's house during Keckley's early childhood. When Hobbs' owner moved far away, Hobbs was separated from Agnes. Although they were never reunited, Agnes and George corresponded for many years. As an adult, Elizabeth Keckley noted "the most precious mementos of my existence are the faded old letters that he wrote, full of love, and always hoping that the future would bring brighter days."

Keckley was enslaved by Burwell, who served as a colonel in the War of 1812, and his wife Mary. She lived in the Burwell house with her mother and began working when she was 4 years old. The Burwells had four children under the age of 10, and Keckley was assigned to be the nursemaid for their infant Elizabeth Margaret.Fleischner (2003), p. 38. Keckley was harshly punished if she failed to care properly for the baby. One day she accidentally tipped the cradle over too far, causing the infant to roll onto the floor, and Mary Burwell beat her severely. As she grew up, Keckley helped her mother make clothes.

Teenage years

At the age of 14, in 1832, Keckley was sent "on generous loan" to live with and serve the eldest Burwell son Robert in Chesterfield County, Virginia, near Petersburg, when he married Margaret Anna Robertson. Robert was Elizabeth's half-brother.Fleischner (2003), p. 66. She was their only servant. The new bride expressed contempt for Keckley, perhaps because her obvious white ancestry made the older woman uneasy; perhaps Keckley resembled Robert. Margaret made home life unpleasant for the young Keckley for the next four years. The family moved to Hillsborough, North Carolina, where Robert was a minister and operated the Burwell School for girls from his house from 1837 to 1857. Keckley stated that Margaret seemed "desirous to wreak vengeance" upon her.Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 13.

Margaret enlisted neighbor William J. Bingham to help subdue Elizabeth's "stubborn pride". When Keckley was 18, Bingham called her to his quarters and ordered her to undress so that he could beat her. Keckley refused, saying she was fully grown, and "you shall not whip me unless you prove the stronger. Nobody has a right to whip me but my own master, and nobody shall do so if I can prevent it."Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 14. Bingham bound her hands and beat her, then sent her back to her master with bleeding welts on her back. The next week, Bingham flogged her again until he was exhausted. Again Elizabeth was sent back to her master with bleeding welts upon her back. A week later, Bingham flogged her again until he was exhausted, while she suppressed her tears and cries. The next week, after yet another attempt to "break her", Bingham had a change of heart, "burst[ing] into tears, and declar[ing] that it would be a sin" to beat her anymore.Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 15. He asked for her forgiveness and said that he would not beat her again. Keckley claims that he kept his word.Fleischner (2003), p. 81.

When she was 18 years of age, about 1836, Keckley was given to her owner's friend, Alexander M. Kirkland. Also in Hillsborough, he was a prominent white man of the community. He raped Elizabeth for four years of what she called "suffering and deep mortification".Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 16. In 1839, she bore Kirkland's son and named him George after her stepfather.Fleischner (2003), p. 87.

Adulthood

She was returned to Virginia where she served Mary and Armistead Burwell's daughter, Ann Burwell Garland and her husband, Hugh A. Garland. Ann was her half-sister. The Garlands moved several times and ended up in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1847. Aggy, Elizabeth, and George were taken with them for their child care and sewing skills. Keckley became an accomplished seamstress and, by working long hours, all of the money earned from her labor supported the 17-member Garland family,Washington (2018), p. 206. who suffered significant financial reverses by that time. Nearly 12 years of living and working in St. Louis gave Keckley the chance to mingle with its large free black population. She also established connections with women in the white community, which she later drew on as a free dressmaker.Fleischner (2003), p. 131.

Road to freedom

Keckley met her future husband James in St. Louis, but refused to marry him until she and her son were free, because she did not want to have another child born into slavery. When she asked Hugh A. Garland to free them and he refused, she worked for two years to persuade him, agreeing to purchase her freedom. In 1852, he agreed to release them for $1,200 ().Fleischner (2003), p. 142. His wife, Anne, put the conditions in writing in 1855. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Le Bourgeois, her patron, took up a collection among her friends to loan to Keckley, who was then able to buy her and her son's freedom and was manumitted on November 15, 1855. The papers indicate that she was married to James Keckley by that date.Washington (2018), pp. 206–207.Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 24. She stayed in St. Louis until she repaid the $1,200 loan, after which she intended to leave St. Louis and James Keckley.Fleischner (2003), p. 186.

Career Early years In 1860, she enrolled her son, George Kirkland, in the newly established Wilberforce University in Ohio. That year, she moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she stayed for six weeks. She intended to teach young "colored women" her method of cutting and fitting dresses, but found that she would not be able to earn a sufficient living for herself and her son.Keckley & Andrews (2005), p. 28.

Seamstress in Washington

Keckley planned to work as a seamstress in Washington, but she could not afford the required license for a free black to remain in the city for more than 10 or 30 days. One of her patrons, a woman by the name of Miss Ringold, petitioned Mayor James G. Berret for a license for Keckley, which he granted to her free of charge.Fleischner (2003), p. 183. Ringold, a member of General John Mason's family from Virginia, also vouched that Keckley was a free woman, another requirement for residence.

Keckley steadily built a client base so that she had enough work to support herself. When she completed a silk dress for Mary Anna Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee, to wear to a dinner party for the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, Lee was complimented roundly for her dress and Keckley's business grew rapidly. She employed 20 seamstresses at her 12th Street business. It generally took two to three weeks to make each dress. As she began hiring seamstresses to make dresses for her clients, Keckley focused her attention on fitting garments and the seamstresses made most of the garments. She had a talent for draping fabric and fitting garments. The Smithsonian Institution states: "She was known to be the dressmaker in D.C. because her garments had extraordinary fit." Her dresses were considered to be expensive, yet she sometimes made much more money from the commission for manufacture of the fabric than for the actual construction of the article of clothing.

The wife of Stephen A. Douglas, Adele Cutts Douglas, was a client. Keckley later became the favored family seamstress of Varina Davis, the wife of then Senator Jefferson Davis, who with her husband discussed the prospects of war in her presence. She made clothing for Davis and her children. Davis provided an introduction to Margaret McLean of Maryland, a daughter of General Edwin Vose Sumner. Although Keckley said that she was unable to complete an urgent order for a dress due to her established commitments, McLean offered to introduce Keckley to the newly elected president Abraham Lincoln, and his wife.Fleischner (2003), p. 200. Keckley hired seamstresses to finish the dress for McLean, who arranged a meeting the following week for her with Mary Todd Lincoln.

Mary Todd Lincoln