Mary Todd Lincoln’s purple velvet dress (1861)
When Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of newly elected President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Washington D.C. in the winter of 1861, she immediately had to settle into her role as First Lady of the United States. She needed a wardrobe to reflect her new status, and fast, as she would be at a reception the day after Lincoln’s inauguration. A friend suggested seamstress Elizabeth Keckley, a former African American slave.
The first dress Keckley made for Mrs. Lincoln led to more, and soon Keckley was Lincoln’s trusted dressmaker, including this well-preserved purple velvet gown worn through the new First Lady’s initial winter season in the White House. Keckley would make nearly all of Mary Todd Lincoln’s gowns, finding a balance between the grand wardrobe expected of a First Lady and the fact that the American Civil War had just started, and troops were suffering, so it couldn’t be too flashy.
