Book Description
Originally published in 1868—when it was attacked as an “indecent book” authored by a “traitorous eavesdropper”—Behind the Scenes is the story of Elizabeth Keckley, who began her life as a slave and became a privileged witness to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Keckley bought her freedom at the age of thirty-seven and set up a successful dressmaking business in Washington, D.C. She became modiste to Mary Todd Lincoln and in time her friend and confidante, a relationship that continued after LincolnÂ's assassination. In documenting that friendship—often using the First LadyÂ's own letters—Behind the Scenes fuses the slave narrative with the political memoir. It remains extraordinary for its poignancy, candor, and historical perspective.
Customer Reviews:
Intimate recollections of the Lincoln White House.......2007-09-13
Although this volume comes from the memories of someone familiar with the Lincoln White House and who became a close friend of Mary Todd Lincoln, it must be read cautiously. For example, despite the book's basic authenticity I find its account of Stephen Douglas's love for young Mary Todd and her jilting of Lincoln implausible despite Keckley's claim that she got the story directly from Mary Todd Lincoln and Anson Henry (a close friend of Abraham and Mary, who was a matchmaker encouraging their romance). Possibly some errors might be attributed to one or more literary assistants who helped compile the book. If a reader needs to be certain a about a particular statement, comparison with other sources is wise. Still, the volume will be valuable to anyone interested in firsthand impressions of the Lincoln White House.
Friend and confidant to Mary Lincoln.......2007-03-22
I got this little book so that I could learn more about the Lincolns and their home life at the White House. It does an excellent job of telling the story of Elizabeth and Mary's friendship, which I wish could have continued, but alas, it didn't. I would recommend this book to all readers interested in US history, not matter what their age or gender, so that they can get an intimate view of the Lincoln's family life. Elizabeth was a strong and proud woman with a high moral and ethical character...if she were alive today, she would be swamped with interview requests and book deals!
Not What You'd Expect, But Read It As If You Lived 138 Years Ago.......2006-08-05
In 1868, three years after the War Between the States ended and Abraham Lincoln was murdered, Elizabeth Keckley sat down to write a partial history of her life as a slave and modiste (dressmaker) for Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House. If readers judge "Behind the Scenes" by the standards of modern biographies, they won't do the book justice.
"Lizzie" Keckley was a slave who insisted on buying her freedom, even after being offered it for nothing. In modern terms, she was an "Aunt Tom" for validating the notion that any human being can be bought and sold for a price. By her own standards, she was affirming her value to society. It's impossible to judge such a person in contemporary terms.
Lizzie's dressmaking skill attracted the attention of Mary Todd Lincoln in 1861. Mrs. Lincoln was quite addicted to clothes, and hired "Dear Lizzie" as her private modiste. Their association solidified into a deep friendship after the death in 1862 of Willie Lincoln (in the White House); Lizzie offered warmth and solicitude, badly needed by an erratic First Lady whose intemperate ways and harsh tongue had made her perhaps the most disliked person in Washington. The friendship persisted after Lincoln's assassination, when Lizzie aided Mrs. Lincoln in purging her monstrous debts (she owed $70,000 to department stores) by trying to sell off old dresses and jewelry.
"Behind the Scenes" ended the friendship. After its publication Mary Lincoln, her pride wounded, dropped "Dear Lizzie" and referred to Mrs. Keckley as "that colored historian."
For students of the assassination Mrs. Keckley's reminiscences are especially helpful. Several weeks after April 14, 1865, while Mrs. Lincoln was still in mourning inside the White House, Lizzie told her "the new messenger" (not identified by name in the book, unfortunately) was on watch, he being the same man who had abandoned his post outside Lincoln's box at Ford's Theater. Mrs. Lincoln excoriated the "new messenger" and accused him of complicity in the assassination. The messenger admitted his carelessness but denied complicity, insisting he had simply taken a seat where he could better watch the play.
Except for the ambiguous word "messenger," this account conforms precisely to the convential wisdom that prevailed until about 25 years ago, i.e. that John F. Parker, a Metropolitan Police officer assigned to White House duty, was responsible for guarding Lincoln's box on the night of the assassination, but left his post and allowed John Wilkes Booth clear entry (and how would Booth have known the coast would be clear?). Post-modern historians, possibly seizing on Keckley's use of "messenger" to describe Parker, contrived a theory that Parker's duties never included protecting Lincoln...which idea begs the obvious question, "Why would Mrs. Lincoln have been so angry at someone who wasn't responsible in the first place?" And, since Parker supposedly went on trial for negligence (the records were mysteriously destroyed), "Why would anyone have been put on trial for neglecting Lincoln at Ford's Theater if he had been only a White House functionary all along?"
One person's memior.......2005-04-26
This is a memior written by a woman who started life as a slave, then managed to buy her freedom, and later set up a successful living as a seamstress, eventually going to work for Mrs. Lincoln in the White House. As such, it is a bit rambling. There are two chapters about her early life as a slave, but the author knows that what is most interesting to the readers is her life in the white house, and so she skips ahead to that period, giving us her personal "insider account" of daily vignettes with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. These vignettes include an eyewitness account of Lincoln's second inauguration address, the death of Willie Lincoln, and events immediately after Lincoln's assasination. The author then goes on to describe her post-white house associations with Mrs. Lincoln, who became a personal friend, as Mrs. Lincoln deals with post-presidency debts. The book continues with an in-depth account of how Mrs. Keckley assisted Mrs. Lincoln with attempting to sell her personal effects (dresses) to raise money. This must have been of great interest to readers when the book was first published in the 1860's, but has limited appeal to modern readers.
Overall, however, the book is a very interesting glimpse into the daily life of a slave, an independent businesswoman in the 1860's, of someone who worked in the white house during the civil war, and of someone in the close confidence of the Lincolns. It is well-written and engaging.
The Life Of A Slave.......2005-02-18
This is my least favorite book on the Lincolns. It's the story of Elizabeth Keckley, who was a slave. Elizabeth eventaully becomes Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker and friend. This is a lot more about slavery than the Lincolns.I don't mind reading about the subject. I just didn't think it was a very well-written book on Elizabeth's part.
Average customer rating:
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Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave & Four Years in the White House
Elizabeth Keckley
Manufacturer: Reprint Services Corporation
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ASIN: 0781282276 |
Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University LibraryÕs preservation reformatting program.
Product Description
Formerly a slaveBorn into slavery, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (ca. 1824-1907) rose to a position of respect as a talented dressmaker to the political elite of Washington, D.C., and a confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In this unusual memoir, Keckley offers a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the formal and informal networks that African Americans established among themselves.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly), published by University of Rhode Island on June 1, 1999. The length of the article is 6689 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: The author argues that Elizabeth Keckley's "Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House" is a powerful example of autobiography written by former slaves. The article examines Keckley's treatment of her life as a slave and as a friend to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.
Citation Details
Title: Not "Altogether" the "History of Myself": Autobiographical Impersonality in Elizabeth Keckley's "Behind the Scenes. Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House."(Critical Essay)
Author: Michael Berthold
Publication:
ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1999
Publisher: University of Rhode Island
Volume: 13
Issue: 2
Page: 105
Article Type: Critical Essay
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
A unique account of human excellence, from the age of Homer to our own time.
Customer Reviews:
This is a human accomplishment!.......2007-10-05
Charles Murray is a gutsy social scientist. Back in 1994, he co-wrote the excellent Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book) with Richard Herrnstein. The onslaught of controversy from the politically correct faction exhausted Herrnstein (he died not long after the release of the book). But, Murray kept on trucking and a decade later released another politically incorrect outstanding bombshell with this book.
Being aware of the topic's controversial nature, Murray spends nearly as much time explaining his statistical methodology as he does analyzing results. After reading Murray's disclosure, you're overwhelmed by his data gathering effort. And, you are hard pressed to think off how a researcher could have been more objective in this endeavor.
From his extensive data, he develops a ranking of the top 20 contributors in tens of different fields. The usual suspects dominate the podium. In Western literature it is Shakespeare and Goethe. In Western Art, it is Michelangelo. In Physics, it is Newton and Einstein. In Western music it is the usual trio Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. And so on and so forth.
Murray makes a great effort in capturing non-Western culture by dedicating several inventories/rankings specifically for them, including numerous disciplines for the Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures. His research methodology renders him as well versed in Japanese Art as Arabic Literature. His related analytical commentaries are fascinating and educative.
Murray preempts politically correct concerns by addressing them head on. How about representation of women? As an abstract of his findings, if you are looking for the greatest composers of all time it is just impossible to come up with an alternative to the Mozart-Beethoven-Bach trio. And, the same is true for the other rankings he developed. He mentioned that in his gathered inventory of significant figures 98.5% are male. Speculating that all the well established sources had been heavily biased against women and had missed 50% of such significant figures; that would mean the percentage of male/female significant figures would be 97%/3% instead of 98.5%/1.5%. Murray does not believe the mentioned sources were biased. But, he adds even if they were it would not have made a material difference as stated above. Murray explicitly states men and women are of equal intelligence. It is just that our societies are patriarchal. Access to activities leading to superlative achievements is limited for women. Biologically, women incur the burden of reproduction and child rearing that is a constraint on the maniacal focus needed to become one of the all-time-greats in anything.
How about representation of foreign cultures? As mentioned, Murray already dedicated numerous inventories/rankings to other cultures to give them more than their fair share of representation.
After ranking individuals, Murray goes on to developing chronologies of major events in all the mentioned disciplines. Then, he moves on to analyzing trends in creativity over time and geographical location. You get that just a few places over short period of times generated an inordinate number of luminaries such as Athens during the Greek antiquity and a few Italian cities during the Renaissance.
Murray is intrigued by this phenomenon. In chapters 15 and 16, he analyzes the factors contributing to generating many luminaries at any one time within a specific country. From his multivariate regression models we learn that the major contributing variables to generating such luminaries per country are: 1) # of political and financial centers; 2) # of cities with an elite university; 3) population of the largest city; 4) # of luminaries in the immediate preceding generation (defined as a 20 year span); and 5) GDP per capita. On page 380, he discloses the results of this model. And, it is surprisingly good. Using this model he estimated within + or - 10 the number of luminaries per country from 1400 to 1950. Less than 5% of the defined per country-period have an error greater than + or - 10 in the estimated number of luminaries.
Next, Murray attempts to explain what the model has not. He extensively looks at the role of government with the expected assessment (totalitarian ones are bad as they don't allow individual creativity). He also advances that the reason why Europeans dominate the rankings is because of religious considerations. Confucianism and Buddhism in Asia valued tradition, family, responsibility to community, and detachment from desire and individual aspiration. Murray feels Christianity allowed more room for individual achievements hence related human accomplishments thrived in Europe more than else where. Murray makes a case that Christianity fostered human accomplishments more than our modern secularism. This is because he feels religion gives a greater sense of life purpose than secularism. He extends his theory by explaining why he feels that the rate and quality of innovation in the arts and sciences has declined in the 20th century. Remember, he is not talking just about technology. He is questioning whether our civilization will ever produce music composers of the quality of a Beethoven, or painters comparable to Michelangelo, playwright matching Shakespeare, or even scientists matching Newton or Einstein (ok this last one is just on the cusp belonging in good part to the first half of the 20th century). Even though many would disagree, Murray makes a very interesting point. Do we really have another Michelangelo or Shakespeare to come?
For a much different view of the interaction between science and religion, I also recommend Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Mike Shermer's Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design.
Statistics, what statistics?.......2007-08-28
The author tries to establish a statistical basis for "excellence". Apparently the argument is: because the Lotka curve applies to excellent golfers, and to commonly celebrated musicians or scientists, it follows that commonly celebrated musicians or scientists are excellent. [From the statistical basis provided, I'd guess the Lotka curve applies just as well to rare weather patterns or extreme events on the stock market]. The author admits to logical uncertainty in his probability argument (see [1] below), but assumes anyway that it validates his methods. He shores it up with the notion that anybody who remains noted over an extended time deserves it, and with the "face validity" test, which amounts to "if I recognise a famous name, that person is famous for good reason" (see [2] below).
The value of the book is in asking a lot of very hard questions, and showing that evaluating human accomplishment is no easy task. However, the value of the book is not in its answers to these hard questions.
[1] "These remarks by no means dispose of the argument about whether we are looking at fame or excellence.", quote from p. 106
[2] The results "look reasonable to a knowledgeable observer". quote from p. 80
Ranking the Greats.......2007-05-23
Charles Murray focuses on ranking the greats in this book, instead of ranking the IQ of the populace, which he did with Hernstein in The Bell Curve. He shows us how ranking the greats can be done objectively by using the surveys of histories of the various disciplines. Whoever gets the most mentions and space from the experts who have the ability to recognize greatness make it on to Murray's lists.
Murray does a good job of explaining why the greats are great. It is very difficult to create a work that will be renowned for centuries, let alone a few decades. It is very difficult to be the first to be able to explain how something works in a scientific discovery, such as how a flame starts. To give us an idea of what genius is, he mentions that Beethoven was able to compose music without an instrument in front of him, just by writing it in down on paper, knowing what the notes, harmonies, and melodies would sound like. He composed great music even after becoming totally deaf. This goes far beyond a merely talented musician in popular music who can just play well by ear.
Murray defends the legitimate canon that should be taught in universities rather than trendy, multicultural pseudo-intellectual fads. I must say that one of the problems of democratic societies is keeping standards of excellence up to a high standard when there is an obsession with making everyone and everything equal despite the greater or lesser talent of individuals.
Brilliant white males dominate the list of the greats in the arts and sciences. Jews have racked up quite a lot of accomplishments since their emancipation. The greats also come mostly from Britain, France, Germany, and Italy with a smattering of greats elsewhere around Europe. In the US, significant figures come from New England, the eastern part of the Midwest, and California with a smattering of people elsewhere in the US. The US is mostly known for technological breakthroughs.
There are some significant figures and events in the arts and sciences from China, Japan, India, and the Middle East. These were not compared to the West though, so the competition was not as stiff to make it on these separate lists.
Murray does not focus on race or IQ to explain why some societies produce significant figures and others do not. Instead, he uses cultural explanations. Societies that produce significant figures and events in the arts and sciences are not as strongly tied to tradition, families, and conformity as most other societies are. The individuality in Western culture has helped it produce great works and find great scientific discoveries by being competitive and argumentative. Murray thinks that Christianity after the influence of Thomas Aquinas has balanced faith and reason together to create great works of art and to discover great scientific findings. Significant figures and events come from societies that allow freedom of thought, expression, and inquiry between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. Both religious and secular tyrannies have rooted out creativity and discovery in the past. Great works of art and science are made by people who believe that life has a purpose. Murray has some evidence that the arts have declined in recent years, but he is optimistic that artists will get out of their adolescent nihilistic stage and artists will again create great works because they believe that life has a purpose again.
Of course, an individual may not like, appreciate, or understand great works of art or scientific discoveries. Even Murray mentions that he does not like Henry James' most critically acclaimed novels. Or Mark Twain quipped that "Wagner is better than he sounds". I'm really not that impressed with much of what Shakespeare wrote. Nonetheless, it is the experts' consensus on who is great that matters.
The book gave me more respect for the achievements of the greats, even though I'm not quite in awe of them as Murray is. The higher your IQ is, the better you are able to appreciate great feats of the intellect and the imagination. There is also the overlooked sin of taking things for granted.
Putting words in the author's mouth.......2007-01-23
I suspect that I do not share much in the way of political beliefs with Mr. Murray, but I am struck by how many of the negative comments about his work attack positions that he does not hold.
For example, from the Publishers Weekly review, "The book attempts to demonstrate ... that Europeans have overwhelmingly dominated accomplishment ... To this end, he has assembled a laundry list of people ... " This is sloppy attack garbage reminiscent of McCarthyism. Set up a false premise as a fact and then criticize it. The Publishers Weekly reviewer claims to know Mr. Murray's motives in pursuing his study and implies that he shaped his research accordingly. What is the reviewer's evidence for this position?
In any event I thoroughly recommend this book to all. While Mr. Murray had a higher purpose in mind, the book works on a very simple level - it is great fun. For many of us, Top 10 lists are always fun and all I can feel is envy that Mr. Murray had the wit and the time to assemble such an overwhelming volume and quality of evidence to strike a knock-out blow to support his list.
Thoroughly fascinating.......2006-11-03
A fascinating, alternative analysis of the progress of human achievement and the forces that make it possible (as opposed to those that drive it) that reaches a relatively unexpected, but comparatively well supported, conclusion.
Book Description
So begins Charles Murray's unique account of human excellence from the age of Homer to our own time. Employing techniques that historians have developed over the last century but that have rarely been applied to books written for the general public, Murray compiles inventories of the people who have been essential to the stories of literature, music, art, philosophy, and the sciences -- a total of 4,002 men and women from around the world, ranked according to their eminence.
The heart of Human Accomplishment is a series of enthralling descriptive chapters: on the giants in the arts and what sets them apart from the merely great; on the differences between great achievement in the arts and in the sciences; on the meta-inventions, 14 crucial leaps in human capacity to create great art and science; and on the patterns and trajectories of accomplishment across time and geography.
Why has accomplishment been so concentrated in Europe? Among men? Since 1400? Charles Murray presents evidence that the rate of great accomplishment has been declining in the last century, asks what it means, and offers a rich framework for thinking about the conditions under which the human spirit has expressed itself most gloriously.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on February 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1821 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Accomplishment--or fame?(Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit Of Excellence In The Arts And Sciences, 800 B.C. To 1950)(Book Review)
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publication:
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2004
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Issue: 140
Page: 35(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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