Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself & HistoryClass for The American Promise 4e V1 (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

History

Johnson, Michael P.

Jacobs, Harriet

Roark, James L.

Stage, Sarah

Cohen, Patricia Cline

Fleischner, Jennifer

Americas

Bedford/St.Martin's

American Promise Value Edition & HistoryClass for The American Promise 4e V1 & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

Describes the events and people involved in the Dred Scott case and the effect on the nation

The Dred Scott Case: Testing the Right to Live Free (Spotlight on American History)

Children's Books

Education & Reference

Millbrook Pr

I Was Born A Slave: The Story Of Harriet Jacobs

Traces the life of a slave who suffered mistreatment from her master, spent years as a fugitive from slavery in North Carolina, and was eventually released to freedom with her children.

I Was Born a Slave: The Story of Harriet Jacobs

Biographies

Provides the inspirational story of a young girl who survived an abusive master and the chains of slavery in order to live to see womanhood and gain her own freedom in her later years. Original.

A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary Lincoln wrote to Elizabeth Keckly in 1867, and indeed theirs was a close, if tumultuous, relationship. Born into slavery, mulatto Elizabeth Keckly was Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, confidante, and mainstay during the difficult years that the Lincolns occupied the White House and the early years of Mary’s widowhood. But she was a fascinating woman in her own right, independent and already well-established as the dressmaker to the Washington elite when she was first hired by Mary Lincoln upon her arrival in the nation’s capital. Lizzy had bought her freedom in 1855 and come to Washington determined to make a life for herself as a free black, and she soon had Washington correspondents reporting that “stately carriages stand before her door, whose haughty owners sit before Lizzy docile as lambs while she tells them what to wear.” Mary Lincoln had hired Lizzy in part because she was considered a “high society” seamstress and Mary, an outsider in Washington’s social circles, was desperate for social cachet. With her husband struggling to keep the nation together, Mary turned increasingly to her seamstress for companionship, support, and advice—and over the course of those trying years, Lizzy Keckly became her confidante and closest friend. With Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly, pioneering historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the intimate dynamics of this unusual friendship for the first time, and traces the pivotal events that enabled these two women—one born to be a mistress, the other to be a slave—to forge such an unlikely bond at a time when relations between blacks and whites were tearing the nation apart. Beginning with their respective childhoods in the slaveholding states of Virginia and Kentucky, their story takes us through the years of tragic Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the early Reconstruction period. An author in her own right, Keckly wrote one of the most detailed biographies of Mary Lincoln ever published, and though it led to a bitter feud between the friends, it is one of the many rich resources that have enhanced Fleischner’s trove of original findings. A remarkable, riveting work of scholarship that reveals the legacy of slavery and sheds new light on the Lincoln White House, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly brings to life a mesmerizing, intimate aspect of Civil War history, and underscores the inseparability of black and white in our nation’s heritage.

Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave

Broadway

A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary Lincoln wrote to Elizabeth Keckly in 1867, and indeed theirs was a close, if tumultuous, relationship. Born into slavery, mulatto Elizabeth Keckly was Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, confidante, and mainstay during the difficult years that the Lincolns occupied the White House and the early years of Mary’s widowhood. But she was a fascinating woman in her own right, Lizzy had bought her freedom in 1855 and come to Washington determined to make a life for herself. She was independent and already well-established as the dressmaker to the Washington elite when she was first hired by Mary Lincoln upon her arrival in the nation’s capital. Mary Lincoln hired Lizzy in part because she was considered a “high society” seamstress and Mary, as an outsider in Washington’s social circles, was desperate for social cachet. With her husband struggling to keep the nation together, Mary turned increasingly to her seamstress for companionship, support, and advice—and over the course of those trying years, Lizzy Keckly became her confidante and closest friend. Historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the intimate dynamics of this unusual friendship for the first time, and traces the pivotal events that enabled these two women to forge such an unlikely bond at a time when relations between blacks and whites were tearing the nation apart. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly is a remarkable work of scholarship that explores the legacy of slavery and sheds new light on the Lincoln White House.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Crown

A historical portrait of the Apache tribes of the plains describes their life and culture prior to the arrival of the Europeans and recounts the violent disruptions that occurred when colonization attempts took their lands away.

The Apaches: People of the Southwest (Native Americans)

A work of historical fiction, Nobody’s Boy is loosely based on the real-life story of a slave named George Kirkland. George’s owner, Hugh Garland, the lawyer for Mrs. Emerson in the Dred Scott case, brought him to St. Louis at the age of about five. George’s mother, Elizabeth Keckly (dressmaker for and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln), bought his freedom and, in about 1860, sent him to college in Ohio. Like the main character in Nobody’s Boy, the light-skinned George ultimately joined a Missouri regiment in the Civil War, enlisting as a white man on the Union side. Not long after, he died in the battle of Wilson’s Creek. The early 1850s was an important time in Missouri—a turning point in the buildup to the war and the beginning of the historic Dred Scott case. The story of George’s short life is an intimate look at race and life in Missouri at this time, seen through the eyes of an African American boy who grew up on the color line.

Nobody's Boy (Volume 1)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Missouri Historical Society Press

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Books by Fleischner, Jennifer