Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Todd Lincoln... Sacrificed

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History has vilified Mary Todd Lincoln or cast her in a bad light, Why? I search and found her Champion a writer named Irving Stone a writer of historical fiction and Biographer. Many of his books were made into movies in the 1950's like Van Gough starring Kirk Douglas and Michaelangelo starring Charlton Heston were based on books by Irving Stone. He wrote a historical fiction novel about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln's marriage and implies the romance of the ages...

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I found this gem: Mary Todd Lincoln: Final Judgement? by Irving Stone... It is 16 pages long and out of print... I guess it was a speech he must have given on the topic...

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I found a website on the above pamphlet... Mary Todd Lincoln must be sacrificed so Lincoln can be a Folk-god...

Snippets...

IRVING STONE Mary Todd Lincoln: A Final Judgment? A the outset I would like to suggest that there is not one Mary Todd Lincoln to consider, but four.

The first three phases are important to American history. The last phase, of the lonely, haunted woman wandering over the face of the earth, waiting for the day when she would rejoin her husband, are of little importance to history.

Mary Todd Lincoln: A Final Judgment' been a man, she would have gone on to a university degree and the fulfilling career to which brains, character, training, good looks, and exciting personality would have entitled her.

IRVING STONE of commentators have carried backward their impressions from the post-assassination letters to form their judgment of what kind of a wife, mother and First Lady, Mary Lincoln had been before that assassination. There is solid evidence that this kind of prejudiced thinking is continuing to this day. Another part of the explanation lies in Herndon's indefatigable energies and hatred. Even three years after Mary's death he was still spewing forth in public such offal about Mary Lincoln as "liar, subject to fits of madness, a tigress, imperious, insolent, a she-wolf, soured, gross, avaricious." Hate can do no better. Unless, of course, it is the curious invention of an Ann Rutledge, of Lincoln's love for her... the one and only great love of his life. All of this rank nonsense designed to prove that Lincoln never loved his wife! Why? The core of the problem, I have come to believe, lies in the world's uncritical, all-encompassing adoration of Abraham Lincoln as something considerably more than a man. In many minds he has made the transition from folk-hero to folk-god, in something of the same process that enveloped Alexander the Great. As a folk-god, it would not have been possible for Abraham Lincoln to have loved a mortal woman, any mortal woman. Had he done so, that would have reduced him in stature. In order to maintain him as the great folk-god, it was necessary to give him a wife who would be the worst and most insupportable wife since Xantippe. To all of the tragic burdens which Abraham Lincoln had to shoulder during the Civil War, his stature as a folk-god would be enhanced by adding one more ever-present and inescapable burden, Herndon's "female wild cat of the age." The more we beat Mary Lincoln down, the more we raise up Abraham Lincoln, until he towers in the skies above us, a dark, bearded God, giving life to Adam, his American people. The more we hate Mary Lincoln, the more we love an immortal Abraham Lincoln. This is the mystique which has poisoned the pages of history on which the name of Mary Todd Lincoln appears. This is also the reason why there cannot be today, and perhaps never will be, a final judgment on Mary Lincoln. The uninformed American public has developed a vested interest in their condemnation

Links I found to the pamphlet...

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln2/5656420.0001.001?view=toc

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln2/5656420.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
 
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Interesting. I’ve often thought she was much maligned. I cannot imagine being a woman in her era, suddenly deprived of husband, (Sitting President) and then being left with nothing after his death..yes, she recieve a pension, eventually. And at this time in history we did not have the vote, we could not own property..so yeah, if she went a bit bonkers, I can understand.
 
I want to preface this post by admitting I know absolutely nothing about being a woman and would never pretend to do so but I know what will happen after certain actions and/or words by me as I have been happily married to the same woman for 46 years.

When I think about Mary Todd Lincoln, my heart fills with co mpassion and pity for the woman who lived an isolated life under the scrutiny of the occupants of Washington DC is. I know little about her but have read much of her experiences in life.

She was a well-educated woman from a well to do family of Southern culture which engender suspicion about her background and social graces. Coupled with the Lincoln’s Illinois background she faced an uphill battle to fit into the DC social scene. She experienced Northern prejudice for her Southern roots and Southern prejudice for her political beliefs.

Mary was unable to intermingle well with the important women of the capitol and suffered being isolated for faults. All of her attempts to fit in were for naught. Her closet confident was Elizabeth Keckley her black seamstress. I realize companionship is a necessary aspect of women’s social structure yet Mary was unable to secure friends. The poor woman had few acquaintances let alone friends.

The subsequent reputation of having a terrible temper, being uncultured and a spendthrift were all true. She suffered the loss of two sons before Lincoln’s assignation and a third soon so after in 1871. Then in 1875 her sole surviving son, Robert, had her committed for 3 months.

Not being a doctor I can only speculate that were she to be living today, Modern Medicine would be able to assist her to cope with all that she had experienced.
Regards
David
 
Good synopsis on Mary, Ole Miss. ( except she was a woman of great grace, not quibbling, felt the need to say something about below ) Thank you! Cannot tell you the number of Mary Todd Lincoln threads where we could have used it. Wish more people understood her place in History.

Read a war era editorial summing up attacks on her- writer said the attackers were too chicken to go for her husband. A woman was easy prey. He was correct. That claim was, attacks were sheer politics. I'm not saying it was or not- seems likely.


Not sure I agree with the theory she was sacrificed to make her husband some kind of godly person. More like sacrificed for cash. It's a repulsive past time of we humans, saying awful things about each other. Believing them is easier, if we share it because we can shuffle off responsibility. Being able to read awful things about someone? Best seller.

Have to say it has been surprising ( shocking ) how many women in Mary Todd Lincoln's position have been, if not vilified, at least somewhat separated from their husbands and viewed negatively. She holds the gold medal- but someone show me the sterling qualities anyone speaks of, in Mary Custis Lee and Varina Howell Davis. How striking is it, that there's an Ann Rutledge, to counter Mary's ' real ' marriage and a


The subsequent reputation of having a terrible temper, being uncultured and a spendthrift were all true.


Only thing in your post which isn't all together ' on '- she was wonderfully educated, well read and raised a Southern belle. Goodness, her name alone suffices. Honest- not uncultured, for want of a better word. Her family was not crazy over her marriage simply because Lincoln had not had her advantages- and was not of her world. Temper has been built on- Lincoln called it the Todd tongue. Women of the era were kinda not allowed to expostulate, at all. When one did? A witch. Legend grew from there.
 
she was wonderfully educated, well read and raised a Southern belle.

Irving Stones words ... I know no one ever reads my links... Mary Todd was an accomplish women of her day...

Mary was born into one of the best families of the south, the Todds of Lexington, Kentucky. She was raised in a home rich in culture, surrounded by books and intelligent friends who were the leaders in their professions, their businesses, and in American politics. She had an attractive face and figure and a seeking mind which absorbed education with eagerness and joy.


She was proud, ambitious, strong-willed, self-disciplined and, as one of her early friends said, Mary "now & then indulged in sarcastic, witty remarks that cut... but there was no malice in it."

Mary Todd Lincoln: A Final Judgment' had been a man, she would have gone on to a university degree and the fulfilling career to which brains, character, training, good looks, and exciting personality would have entitled her.

in 1839, she was twenty years old and, by all standards of the time, an adult. She had been trained in politics in Lexington by her father and had listened to many of the South's most influential politicos who came to the Todd home for food, drink, and political discussion. Springfield had been transformed as the capital of Illinois, and had become a mecca for young professionals and businessmen

She was popular, had admirers and beaux, among whom was Stephen Douglas, went to the dances and parties in her lovely gowns, and enjoyed life to the full.

 
It seemed many, and not all women, lived to make Mrs. Lincoln’s life as miserable as possible. Rumors, innuendos, snide remarks were all employed against her and she was just stuck in the White House as fair game.

I admit to being bewildered as to why she was criticized for everything from her selection of china to choice of dresses. I know she was guilty of overspending but did not most wives of that era have little idea of the family budget? Lincoln had a difficult time in attempting to curtail her shopping and spending and suffered because of it during their marriage.

Mary had a very poor experience being the First Lady and I feel sorry for her living in the shark infested waters of DC.
Regards
David
 
Summary of Mr. Herdon on Mary Todd... it differs from Irving Stones but you see where the vilifying of Mary Todd begins...

There is no doubt, as Donald shows, that Herndon's recollections and anecdotes, in attempting to demonstrate that Lincoln's marriage was troubled, tell an incomplete story, and thus make for a "distorted portrait," but that is very different from saying that he acted from malice.

Did Mary Todd Lincoln hate William Henry Herndon? The evidence suggests that she did with what appeared to her and many others to be good reason, but only after he published his offending Ann Rutledge lecture in November 1866. Did Herndon hate his partner's wife, and more importantly, did he frame, out of malice, a false and unfavorable picture of her? The current view that he did both, as I have tried to show, needs to be reconsidered, for it is almost entirely presumptive and is not based on established facts. Moreover, it often takes a form that verges on circularity: How do we know that Herndon hated Mary? Because he was out to get her. How do we know he was out to get her? Because he hated her. There is no factual basis for thinking that Herndon was openly or secretly hostile toward Mary Todd Lincoln prior to 1866, or vice versa, and no evidence to contradict his claim that she was always kind to him and that he, in turn, respected her. The evidence of his letters that refer to her, almost all written after Lincoln's death, suggests that while he often faulted her for her aristocratic ways and violent temper and that he believed Lincoln's home life was a "domestic hell," his mature view of her was complicated and heavily qualified, conceding to her many good qualities and valuable contributions. In spite of his reputation as her sworn enemy who in later years engaged her in "open warfare,"[78] a consistent theme in Herndon's correspondence from 1866 on is that Mary Todd Lincoln had been unfairly condemned as the sole source of difficulty in the Lincoln marriage, and that Lincoln, who was not an attentive and helpful husband, deserved a share of the blame. Herndon believed that they had married for the wrong reasons—she to land a successful politician and he to preserve his honor—and that this doomed their marriage. He further believed that she had changed over time—for the worse. They were not bad people, but they had a bad marriage. This caused Lincoln to be unhappy in his home life and Mary to sometimes behave as "the female wild cat of the age." In 1866, he had twice used a phrase that captures the essence of it: "what I know and shall tell only ennobles both—that is to say it will show that Mrs L has had cause to suffer, and be almost crazed, while Lincoln self sacrificed himself rather than to be charged with dishonor." [79]




 
Here are some other notes on Mary Todd ... good works...

https://myhero.com/MT_Lincoln_michigan_07_ul

Mary Todd Lincoln was a heroic person. She provided support for the Contraband Relief Association, which helped blacks who came to the North during the Civil War. "Mary Lincoln was well-educated and interested in public affairs, and shared her husband's fierce ambition. However, she was high-strung and touchy, and sometimes acted irrationally. She was almost instantly unpopular upon her arrival in the capital."

Mary Todd Lincoln was a heroic person. She had made numerous amounts of trips to hospitals, bringing injured soldiers food, flowers and company. Mary raised a thousand dollars for a Christmas dinner at a military hospital. Tad (Mary's son) also accompanied her at these visits. Mary Todd Lincoln was also a supportive woman because she was opposed to slavery although several of her family members sided with the South during the war. Several members of the family died fighting for the Confederacy.

here... http://www.dsd.k12.wi.us/faculty/sstorkson/Brianna K.pdf

Mary was also the first first lady to entertain black Americans in the White house, she even allowed a black Sunday school to have a picnic in the South lawn. Mary’s family owned slaves when she was a little girl, she saw the effect that her family had on the slaves and as she grew older, she also grew against slavery
 
Do you all on this forum know how many of her Confederate Half-Brothers and Brother in Laws Mary Todd Lincoln lost during the Civil War quite a few. Would you like to take a guess, I guess high?... Here is a woman who's husband is leading a war effort that took the lives of her direct family members, think about that stress... Here is the list of names and brief bios...

https://www.americancivilwarforum.c...others-in-law-of-mary-todd-lincoln-13416.html
 
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The Old Abe sycophant historian's own the day....

Its okay Irving Stone said as much:

The more we beat Mary Lincoln down, the more we raise up Abraham Lincoln,
until he towers in the skies above us, a dark, bearded God, giving life to Adam, his American people.


You all are in good company all Americans need their Folk-god:

This is the mystique which has poisoned the pages of history on which the name of Mary Todd Lincoln appears. This is also the reason why there cannot be today, and perhaps never will be, a final judgment on Mary Lincoln. The uninformed American public has developed a vested interest in their condemnation.

History is cruel ...
Edited.
 
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Mary Todd Lincoln and James Longstreet were destined to suffer badly in comparison to the Hero figures they accompanied during the Civil War. Lincoln and Lee died to soon to be critically judged by history while the two survivors served as the chosen scapegoats.

Neither Mary or James were equipped for slanders and libels that assaulted them when their partners were not alive to assist in their defense. Each of them were goaded and prodded from all angles and they were unable to respond in an effective manner.
Regards
David
 
Lunatic or grieving... Here is an article on Mary Todd Lincoln and I do not agree with all of it but...

Snippets...
Not only was there little time to grieve between incidents and duties, but women of Mary Todd Lincoln’s time were afforded little opportunity to do so. She was often shooed away from her children’s sick beds by the male doctors because she was too emotional. She was discouraged from attending the funerals, as it was considered unseemly for women to be seen grieving openly in public. (Women were expected to be the ones to give consolation, not to need consolation.) She desperately tried to stay with her dying husband, but her wailing and pleading with him not to die were unnerving to the attendants, so she was removed from the room, unable to say goodbye to the man she deeply loved.

That seems more than enough to make anyone go crazy! And while it is generally agreed that Mary was eccentric, neurotic and narcissistic, she tried to manage her grief just like so many of us. She shopped excessively, finding comfort in possessions while going deeply into debt. She sought mediums to help her communicate with those who had passed. (President Lincoln participated as well when their first son died, and Abe himself was subject to prolonged dark moods.)

She indulged in self-pity and anger, enlisting anyone to listen to her tale of woe. She wore black from the time of her husband’s death until her own. She vacillated between wanting to be alone and wanting to be with friends. She couldn’t sleep and be sometimes delirious as a result. She had panic attacks and took drugs for anxiety. She became greatly despondent on the anniversaries of her loved ones’ deaths. She couldn’t face returning to Washington, D.C., where her husband had been murdered and was fearful that harm would come to her and her surviving children so she chose to live overseas for several years. And when it took too long to settle the estate, she took action unbecoming a woman by making a public case out it. She also actively and successfully campaigned for a presidential widow’s pension, again stretching the boundaries of acceptable female behavior.

Lastly...

A study conducted at Johns Hopkins has proven that a broken heart can kill you, a condition known as stress cardiomyopathy. Neuroscience has demonstrated the neurological changes that can take place during prolonged grieving and how our emotions influence our brain function. Mary suffered migraines, backaches and a neurological condition. She sought alternative medical treatments, like spas, tonics and mineral waters.

Read and see more...
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/12/05/mary-todd-lincoln-a-lunatic-or-just-grieving/
 
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Mary Todd Lincoln on Opiates!!!

Post-war addiction causes and rates are under scrutiny, but there is at least one affluent, educated American woman who is known to have been dependent on morphine. Prior to living in the White House, Mary Todd Lincoln suffered from migraine headaches for twenty years. For this chronic condition, she probably took paregoric or laudanum. Once she became the First Lady, however, she had access to better medical care, which meant prescriptions for morphine. This undoubtedly led to her deeper dependence on the drug. It should come as no surprise that her habit reached new heights after her husband’s assassination. There are accounts of her purchasing a bottle of laudanum, drinking it on the street and then walking right back into the shop to buy another.

http://drdrew.com/2018/facts-myths-opium-morphine-use-nineteenth-century-america/

Mary Todd Lincoln suffered from agonizing migraines for most of her life. Along with liberal quantities of wine, Mary took paregoric, an opium product, to relieve the pain. She also used laudanum for her headaches and to help with childbirth.

https://www.shirleendavies.com/opium-use-the-rise-of-opium-dens-in-19th-century-america/

There is a book on her opiate addiction...

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Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president we have immortalized, has always been difficult for us to understand. She could appear poised and brilliant one moment yet rude and ugly the next. Sometimes competent and strong, able to entertain dignitaries from around the world, at other times she appeared dependent and weak. At times she seemed utterly beside herself with sobbing and screaming. Historians have mostly avoided saying very much about Mary Todd Lincoln except in reference to her husband, Abraham. To many it would seem that Mary Todd Lincoln is still an embarrassment in the tragic story of her martyred husband. But Mary Todd Lincoln lived her own tragic story even before Abraham was murdered. She was an addict, addicted to the opiates she needed for her migraine headaches. Seeing Mary Todd Lincoln as an addict helps us understand her and give her the compassion and admiration she deserves. In her time there had been no courageous First Lady like Betty Ford to help people understand the power of addiction. There was no treatment center. In Mary Todd Lincoln's time there were many addicts at all levels of society, as there are now, but it was a more socially acceptable condition for men to have than for women. More importantly, addiction was not very well understood, and it was often mistreated. Because Mary Todd Lincoln's only surviving son, Robert Lincoln, made a great effort to protect his mother and his family from journalists and historians, he intentionally destroyed most of Mary Todd Lincoln's medical records and many of her letters. What he could not destroy, however, is the record of Mary Todd Lincoln's pain and the record of how she behaved while living with this pain. In The Addiction of Mary Todd Lincoln, we can see clearly, for the first time, what Mary Todd Lincoln had to live with and the courage it took for her to carry on.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603810218/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
 
Here are her last days after she got her rights back...

https://featherfoster.wordpress.com/2016/12/26/mary-lincoln-the-last-sad-years/


Mary made a second voyage to Europe in 1876. This time she embarked from New York on October 1 aboard the steamship Labrador. The ship departed from the Transatlantic Company's pier at the bottom of Barrow Street. In all there were 48 passengers aboard the Labrador. Mary arrived in Le Havre, France, and from there traveled to Bordeaux and then to Pau. Much of her time was spent living in Pau during this trip. She settled in the Grand Hotel but later moved to the Henri Quatre.

During her second trip to Europe Mary visited such places as Marseilles, Avignon, Naples, Rome, and Sorrento. However, while in Pau, Mary took a fall from a stepladder. She injured her spinal cord. In December 1879 Ulysses and Julia Grant visited Pau but did not call on Mary.

.
Exile!!!!!!

In late 1880, Mary Lincoln, no longer able to live on her own, left Europe and returned to live with her sister in Springfield, Illinois. She was sixty-one.

The Widow Lincoln in Exile

When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April, 1865, the effects on the country would be far-reaching. So would the effects on his widow, who was 46 at the time. Her emotional health had always been fragile. She frightened easily, had submerged herself into the Victorian mode of perpetual mourning, and could barely cope with the realities of her situation.

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Mary Lincoln would never be the same after her husband’s assassination.

At the time of Lincoln’s death, Mary Lincoln had already lost two sons; one at three years, the other at eleven. She would lose another son at eighteen, and her sole surviving son would be lost to her by estrangement. Despite coming from a large family, she was, for all intents and purposes, alone in the world.

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Elizabeth Todd Edwards, Mary’s oldest sister, would be her lifeline for the rest of her life.

She had gone to Europe in 1868 to escape the humiliation and scandal from her aborted financial scheme to sell her clothing. Returning to America in 1871, she lost her last son, and saw her relationship with her eldest son Robert deteriorate along with her emotional health. By 1875, her condition had worsened to a point that Robert felt compelled to have his mother tried for insanity and placed in a sanitarium. Recovering from her “insanity” (which many historians believe may have been drug interaction from her various physical and psychosomatic ills), she lived for a time with her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield, Illinois, in the very house where she met and later married Abraham Lincoln.

Unable to face the second humiliation and scandal of her troubled widowhood, she once again departed for Europe. This time she went to Pau, France.

Mrs. Lincoln in Pau

Pau, in the south of France, was specifically chosen by Mary Lincoln, since it was said to have the best climate in Europe, and she was always prone to chills and fevers. Good weather was a necessity for her refuge and the solitude she claimed to want.

She lived in a residence-hotel, one of many she had lived in during those years of her widowhood. Unable and unwilling to move back to the Lincoln house in Springfield, with its sad memories, she became virtually homeless. Residence hotels were common in those times. People who were alone in the world favored them for providing the amenities they needed while relieving them of the responsibilities of home-ownership they could neither afford or maintain.

For the better part of three years, she remained in general seclusion, making a few superficial acquaintances, and indulging in her preoccupation with shopping. Then her physical health began to fail. She was losing her eyesight, likely due to cataracts (and possibly an undiagnosed diabetes some historians suspect). In addition, she suffered a severe back injury from a fall. X-rays would not be invented for more than another decade, but it is not unlikely that a bone or two may have been broken. The chronic pain would plague her for the rest of her life.

It was time to go home. The only place she could call “home” was her sister Elizabeth’s house in Springfield. She booked passage.

Mary Lincoln’s Belongings

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The home of Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield, IL. Mary was married in that house, and died in that house.

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Mary Lincoln’s brother-in-law, Ninian Edwards

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Lewis Baker, Mary Lincoln’s great-nephew. One of the few people she cared for in her later years.

One of the very few people who the Widow Lincoln cared for and trusted was young Lewis Baker, her sister’s grandson, now a young man around twenty. He was sent to New York to meet Mary’s ship, and escort her back to Springfield. He was also tasked with helping to ship her belongings to the Edwards’ house.

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Elizabeth Todd Edwards in her older years.

Despite Mary’s homelessness, she had a huge amount of possessions trailing after her wherever she went – like the scattered debris tail of a comet. More than sixty crates and trunks and boxes were filled with the stuff of her life. Clothing and jewelry and household goods she hadn’t used in years and never would, Lincoln memorabilia, mementos from her White House years, artwork and decorative items she had purchased. Some things had never been taken out of their original boxes.

Elizabeth and Ninian Edwards had agreed to have her come. She was family, and they knew she had nowhere else to go. But they were unprepared for the general disturbance Mary-in-residence would cause them. They knew she was demanding and difficult, but they were overwhelmed at the wagonloads of her baggage.

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A “doctored” photograph of Mary, said to be the last ever taken.

In those days, an upstairs room was usually assigned to store a family’s empty luggage. Trips usually lasted for several weeks; clothing and accessories required a great deal of care and room in packing. Families could easily have more than a dozen large trunks.

With Mary’s arrival, sufficient room needed to be found in the Edwards’ house to store her filled crates and trunks. Within days of Mrs. Lincoln’s arrival, the Edwards’ long-time housemaid resigned. It seems her bedroom was directly below one of the rooms containing Mary’s heavy trunks, and the ceiling was buckling. The maid had a legitimate fear that the ceiling would collapse from the weight, and fall on her when she was asleep.

more-mary.jpg

First Lady Mary Lincoln – in better days.

Mary Lincoln seldom (if ever) left the house, and usually kept to herself and her room. Instead, she “visited” her trunks and belongings. Despite her bad back, she climbed the stairs and remained on her knees for hours, bending over various cases, examining their contents, unfolding and refolding, and thinking whatever private thoughts came to her mind.

Springfield children, too young to remember the First Lady of two decades earlier, regarded her as a peculiar old woman who sat alone in a darkened room upstairs, never lifting the shades. They were not completely wrong.
 
Mary Todd Lincoln on Opiates!!!

Post-war addiction causes and rates are under scrutiny, but there is at least one affluent, educated American woman who is known to have been dependent on morphine. Prior to living in the White House, Mary Todd Lincoln suffered from migraine headaches for twenty years. For this chronic condition, she probably took paregoric or laudanum. Once she became the First Lady, however, she had access to better medical care, which meant prescriptions for morphine. This undoubtedly led to her deeper dependence on the drug. It should come as no surprise that her habit reached new heights after her husband’s assassination. There are accounts of her purchasing a bottle of laudanum, drinking it on the street and then walking right back into the shop to buy another.

http://drdrew.com/2018/facts-myths-opium-morphine-use-nineteenth-century-america/

Mary Todd Lincoln suffered from agonizing migraines for most of her life. Along with liberal quantities of wine, Mary took paregoric, an opium product, to relieve the pain. She also used laudanum for her headaches and to help with childbirth.

https://www.shirleendavies.com/opium-use-the-rise-of-opium-dens-in-19th-century-america/

There is a book on her opiate addiction...

41Dp7opqbzL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg


Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president we have immortalized, has always been difficult for us to understand. She could appear poised and brilliant one moment yet rude and ugly the next. Sometimes competent and strong, able to entertain dignitaries from around the world, at other times she appeared dependent and weak. At times she seemed utterly beside herself with sobbing and screaming. Historians have mostly avoided saying very much about Mary Todd Lincoln except in reference to her husband, Abraham. To many it would seem that Mary Todd Lincoln is still an embarrassment in the tragic story of her martyred husband. But Mary Todd Lincoln lived her own tragic story even before Abraham was murdered. She was an addict, addicted to the opiates she needed for her migraine headaches. Seeing Mary Todd Lincoln as an addict helps us understand her and give her the compassion and admiration she deserves. In her time there had been no courageous First Lady like Betty Ford to help people understand the power of addiction. There was no treatment center. In Mary Todd Lincoln's time there were many addicts at all levels of society, as there are now, but it was a more socially acceptable condition for men to have than for women. More importantly, addiction was not very well understood, and it was often mistreated. Because Mary Todd Lincoln's only surviving son, Robert Lincoln, made a great effort to protect his mother and his family from journalists and historians, he intentionally destroyed most of Mary Todd Lincoln's medical records and many of her letters. What he could not destroy, however, is the record of Mary Todd Lincoln's pain and the record of how she behaved while living with this pain. In The Addiction of Mary Todd Lincoln, we can see clearly, for the first time, what Mary Todd Lincoln had to live with and the courage it took for her to carry on.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603810218/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

The author's bio:
Anne E. Beidler
"Artist and College Art Professor specializing in Printmaking Artist Books and Asian Art."
 
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