Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography [Paperback]

Jean H. Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1989

Mary Todd, daughter of the founders of Lexington, Kentucky, was raised in a world of frontier violence. First abandoned at the age of six when her mother died, Mary later fled a hostile stepmother for Springfield, where she met and, after a stormy romance, married the raw Illinois attorney, Abraham Lincoln. Their marriage lasted for twenty five years until his assassination, from which Mary never fully recovered. The desperate measures she took to win the acknowledgement she sought all her life led finally to the shock of a public insanity hearing instigated by her eldest son.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A revisionist's view of the maligned Mary Todd Lincoln, usually portrayed as a shrew of doubtful sanity, is offered by Goucher College history professor Baker (Affairs of Party, etc.) in this richly documented and sympathetic study. Mary, an orphaned, well-educated, but socially unpopular, Lexington, Ky., aristocrat, was vulnerable to the suit of the outwardly uncouth Lincoln. During their Springfield years she bore him four sons and, despite their opposite natures, appears to have provided a comfortable home life and support for his political ambitions. As first lady, she was much criticized for her alleged extravagances on clothes, entertaining and redecoration of the shabby White House. A dedicated spiritualist, Mary made mourning for her dead husband and two sons a permanent condition, causing some to conclude that excessive grief had deranged her mind. Several months of her last tormented years were spent in an asylum to which her son Robert had her committed, unjustly, according to the author, followed by four years of voluntary exile abroad, from which she returned shortly before her death in 1882 in Springfield. Photos not seen by PW. BOMC, History Book Club and QPBC alternates. (August 17pditto?
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In the thriving cottage industry of Lin coln studies Baker's readable and sympathetic biography is easily the definitive account of the troubled former First Lady. Baker's principal contribution is in recognizing Mary Todd Lincoln on her own terms. Although we can never separate her from Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln's importance derives less from her marriage than from her personal suffering as a woman. Politics, tragedy, and poverty denied her the family comfort and identity she craved. Baker's chapters on her last years of alleged insanity and real loneliness reveal a jealous and proud 19th-century American woman trapped by the conventions of Victorian domesticity. Recommended for major libraries and universities. Randall M. Miller, History Dept., St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 429 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393305864
• ISBN-13: 978-0393305869
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sensitive, serious study, July 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (Paperback)

Not your typical summer fare, this book is serious and sweeping. It's a staggering chronicle of loss, beginning with the death of Mary's mother when she was a girl, through the deaths of her sons, the murder of her husband, the loss of her place in society, and the virtual loss of her oldest son and her only grandchild. The toll these tragedies took on Mary was mighty, but understandable. And Dr. Baker makes this sad saga imminently readable. I am haunted by a statement about the young Mary -- she did the wrong things well. Her unique strengths and talents were unfashionable for the time, and this cost her dearly.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating account., March 4, 2000

By 

MelloCello (Upland, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (Paperback)

While Jean H. Baker has done meticulous research and her work is liberally footnoted, reading between the lines one finds a sympathetic account of one woman by another. Mary Todd Lincoln was one of the most misunderstood and reviled women of her day, for behavior that today we might understand as acting out depression, grief, anxiety and fear. I couldn't help but also feel a connection to this woman trying to survive in a repressive, male-centered society. So much has been written that portrays her husband as a saint and her as a shrew, that it's refreshing to read a more balanced view that is probably much closer to the way it really was. Mary Todd Lincoln deserves another look, both as a brave first lady enduring unimaginable tragedy and as a woman who was perhaps better suited to a different time in history.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mary Todd Lincoln as a real person, January 23, 2004

By 

R. BULL "a reader" (Kansas City, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (Paperback)

Jean Baker succeeds in presenting Mary Todd Lincoln as a troubled, but real human being, which is an accomplishment given her reputation. (I mean Mary's reputation, not Ms. Baker's ;))With the loss of her mother and the subsequent losses through out her life, Mary comes across as a person who expected and worst and whose expectations were frequently met. In another time she could have been a CEO or an attorney. It is easy to see what Lincoln was attracted to and how Mary was likely to resond to a man interested in her thoughts and political insights, not just her family background and prospects as a mother. Lincoln, at least, had a caring stepmother which is more than Mary had. She was a complex woman with many strengths and serious emotional problems.