Presidential Scandals: The Affairs of Warren G. Harding

“It’s a good thing I’m not a woman. I would always be pregnant. I can’t say no,” President Warren G. Harding speaking to a group of reporters at a private party at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

I’m a little obsessed with the TV show Scandal on ABC, a captivating saga of illicit relationships, unchecked power, and shocking political intrigue in the administration of President Fitzgerald Grant. Grant had been having an illicit affair with Olivia Pope who not only worked on his campaign but also in the White House as his press secretary. Now she’s a crisis management consultant whose job frequently involves the White House. Grant is married to Mellie, the ice-queen who would stop at nothing, even faking a miscarriage to get her husband elected. And then there is Cyrus, the Machiavellian chief of Staff who also happens to be gay, and Hollis Doyle, the Texas oilman who has a stake in the Grant Presidency. Oh, and did I mention that Fitzgerald Grant is a Republican? Although the show is of course fictional, looking back at past occupants of the White House, it’s clear that Shonda Rhimes has a lot of material to work with.

It wouldn’t be President’s Day without talking about one of the most Scandalous Presidents in U.S. History. No, I’m not talking about JFK or Bill Clinton. I’m not even talking about LBJ or Richard Nixon. No the vote for most Scandalous President in more than two hundred years goes to another Republican Warren Gamaliel Harding, our 29^th President. The Rodney Dangerfield of politics, he can’t get no respect. Poor Warren was only President for twenty-nine months before dying mysteriously on a trip out West (it was rumored that his wife Florence had poisoned him because of his adulteries). Like another reviled public figure, Marie Antoinette, he was also born on November 2 in 1865. In 2010 He was ranked #2 on a list of the 10 worst Presidents in US History in US News and World Report but at the time of his death, it was a different story.

He was the poor boy who made good; a self-made newspaper publisher from America’s heartland, one of 8 U.S. Presidents from Ohio. He was not only the first incumbent United States Senator to be elected President but also the first newspaper publisher. It was Harding who first coined the phrase “Founding Fathers” including it in his keynote speech to the 1916 Republican convention. Harding won the Presidency by promising Americans a ‘return to normalcy’ after World War I. His affable manner as well as his conservatism made him the compromise choice at the 1920 convention. He just looked presidential. In the election that year he won the popular vote by a whopping 60%. Everything seemed to be coming up roses for Harding. African-Americans loved him because he openly advocated African-American political, education, and economic equality, especially in the South, and sponsored an anti-lynching bill. Women loved him because he supported their right to the vote, improved health care for mothers, and he enacted the first child welfare program. The country’s unemployment rate dropped in half during his administration. When he died, millions lined the tracks to pay their respects as the funeral train moved through the small towns and cities on its way to Washington. It was the first such procession since Lincoln died.

After his death, the floodgates opened, and all sorts of nasty goings on came out in the press. Anyone remember learning about the Teapot Dome Scandal in school? That was just the tip of the iceberg. Like most incoming presidents, he rewarded friends and political allies with powerful positions in the government but Harding’s friends turned out to be a bunch of crooks for the most part. There were scandals involving the Justice Department, the Veterans bureau, the shipping department and the Prohibition bureau (Harding served liquor in the White House to guests despite Prohibition). “I have no trouble with my enemies,” Harding once said. It was his friends who “keep me walking the floor nights.” There was a rumor that not only was he part African-American, but also that he was a member of the Klu Klux Klan.

And then there were the scandals of a more intimate nature. It appears that long before JFK was sneaking women into the White House behind Jackie’s back; good ole Warren was having an illicit affair with not only a young campaign volunteer but there were other women as well. Two of the women were personal friends of his wife Florence, and the campaign volunteer was a young woman named Nan Britton who developed a big honking crush on the President when he was still a mere congressman and was determined to make him hers.

Like JFK and Lyndon Johnson, Harding was an unrestrained womanizer. The ladies thought him virile and handsome, plus he photographed well. “I cannot hope to be one of the great Presidents, “ he once said, “but perhaps I may be remembered as one of the best loved.” From Ohio, Harding had been a small-town newspaper publisher, two term state senator and lieutenant Governor, before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Although he considered himself to be uniquely unsuited for the job of President, he had actually had more experience in government than Obama and George W. Bush combined. However, he looked presidential, and that was good enough back in the 1920’s. Like Mellie on Scandal, his wife Florence, known as the Duchess, was the power behind the throne. Five years older than her husband, Florence married Harding against her wealthy father Amos Kling’s wishes. Her first husband had been the ne’er do well son of a wealthy family. As far as Kling was concerned, Harding was cut from the same cloth. But Florence saw a diamond in the rough and was determined to polish him up. Their marriage was a solid business partnership, not a love match. She brought drive and money to the table, and Warren brought her political opportunity.

Harding first cheated on Florence three years into the marriage with Susie Hodder, his wife’s best friend since childhood. Then he began a 15 year affair with another friend of the couple Carrie Fulton Phillips. Carrie was blonde and beautiful with the figure of a Gibson girl, tiny waist and a generous bosom. To make it even more complicated, Harding and Carrie’s husband were good friends. The affair started in 1905, a year after Carrie and her husband James lost their young son. James had a nervous breakdown and spent time at Dr. Kellogg’s sanitarium in Battle Creek. While he was a way, the grieving wife was comforted by Harding. Despite their respective marriages, Harding and Carrie found ample time for their trysts. They would sneak away when the two couples took joint vacations to Europe. Once they even managed to meet up in Montreal for New Year’s Eve.

Most historians consider Carrie to be the love of his life. More than 100 intimate letters were discovered in the 1960’s but publication of the letters has been enjoined by a court order until 2014. Historians who have seen them say that they are very touching in some ways and also very erotic. The relationship foundered when Carrie developed a passion for all things German, moving to Berlin in 1911, where she may or may not have become a spy for Germany during World War I. At the very least she was outspokenly pro-German. When Harding supported President Wilson’s aggressive response to the sinking of the Lusitania, Carrie was pissed. She threatened to reveal their affair if he voted for war with Germany, but she didn’t go through with her threat. Harding warned Carrie that if she kept it up she faced arrest. Still Carrie was such critic that the Bureau of Investigation put her under surveillance. The Bureau got wind of Harding’s affair but kept silent.

After fifteen years, Carrie was tired of being Harding’s mistress, she wanted to be his wife. Unlike President Grant on SCANDAL who was eager to divorce his wife despite the damage to his political career, Harding was not. While he had no passion for his wife, he did for politics. Carrie had had enough. During the presidential election of 1920, Carrie blackmailed Harding ending up with lump-sum of $25,000 and $2,000 a month for as long as Harding was in politics. She and her husband were also sent on an all expense paid trip to the Far East courtesy of the Republican party until the election was over.

There were minor flings with Augusta Cole, whom Harding impregnated and then forced to have an abortion; Rosa Hoyle, who gave birth to Harding's illegitimate son; a distraught New York woman who committed suicide when Harding refused to leave his wife. There is also some evidence that Harding may have been responsible for the accidental death of prostitute at one of the many wild parties he hosted. Apparently Hardings cronies had a secret bank account to buy the silence of his ex-flames.

His third mistress Grace Cross had been one of Harding's secretaries during his senate years, and received a substantial blackmail payment for the return of incredibly sappy and juvenile love letters Harding wrote her. But it was his fourth mistress who was the most infamous, a beautiful blonde named Nan Britton. Britton was a campaign volunteer began sleeping with Harding when she was 20 and he was 51. While other girls pasted photos of movie stars on their walls, Nan plastered his campaign photos on her bedroom walls. Harding and her father were friends, and he knew of her infatuation but pooh-poohed it at the time, insisting that she would meet someone her own age.

Harding helped her get a job in the newspaper business, and they began an affair that would last for six years. Nan allegedly lost her virginity to Harding in an New York hotel room but not before driving him into a frenzy of desire by coyly refusing to sleep with him. She followed him to Washington when he became a U.S. Senator, allegedly giving birth to a daughter named Elizabeth Ann in 1919 (concieved during a tryst in the Senate Office building). When Nan told Harding she was pregnant, he offered to pay for an abortion. Nan refused, moving to Chicago with the baby to live with her sister. She saw him secretly during the Republican convention, apparently he spent more time with Nan then he did attending to the business of the nomination.The affair continued even after Harding was in the White House, aided by two Secret Service Agents James Sloan and Walter Ferguson. According to Nan, Florence almost caught them in mid-tryst in one of the cloakrooms in the Oval Office after being tipped off by another agent.

After Harding’s death, Britton tried to get the Harding family to continue financial support for Elizabeth. While Harding was alive, he sent Nan money, $150 per week. Now Nan wanted part of Harding's estate, estimated at a half a million dollars. When no money was forthcoming, she wrote what many consider the first presidential kiss and tell book entitled The President’s Daughter. The book was so salacious, filled with titillating tidbits including a tryst in an Oval Office closet, that it was suppressed as obscene. Britton spent years arguing that her daughter was Harding’s heir before finally giving up. She busied herself with the Elizabeth Ann Guild, a foundation that provided legal aid for unwed mothers.

Some historians believe that Nan Britton's story of her affair with Harding was nothing but fiction.  There is no hard evidence one way or the other, no surving love letters.  Both Harding’s relatives and Elizabeth Ann’s descendents refuse to take a DNA test to prove conclusively one way or the other that Harding was her father.

It seems ironic that there was one ambition that Harding almost achieved. "I cannot hope to be one of the great Presidents, " he said, "but perhaps I may be remembered as one of the best loved."
For further reading:

James David Robenalt, The Harding Affair, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
Larry Flynt and David Eisenbach, PhD, One National Under Sex, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
Michael Farquhar, A Treasury of Great American Scandals: Tantalizing True Tales of Historic Misbehavior by the Founding Fathers and Others Who Let Freedom Swing, Perigee, 2003

Scandalous Romance: Crazy/Love - The Story of Burt and Linda Pugach

Happy Valentine's Day!  I wrote this blog post way back in 2007, when the documentary Crazy/Love came out. It was one of the most outrageous stories of love gone wrong, that if I read it in a novel, I wouldn't have believed it.  Linda Pugach recently passed away this January at the age of 75. If you get the chance, I urge you to seek out Crazy/Love on Netflix.

Everyone knows about Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuco. They had an affair while she was underage, he broke up with her, she shot his wife. Now allegedly they're back together. Well, meet the 1950's equivalent. Instead of Amy Fisher, we have Burt Pugach, the man from whom 1-800-Shyster could have been invented. Burt, not very good-looking, but apparently smart and charismatic works as an ambulance chaser in the Bronx. He's also a film producer, and owns a night club. He spies Lnda Riss, a sheltered dark haired beauty said to look like Elizabeth Taylor, on a park bench and decides than and there that he has to have her.

Linda comes from a broken home, with a mother who had to work to support them since her father apparently abandoned them with no support. So Linda like most girls of that era is looking for a husband who would be a good provider. So despite not finding Burt attractive, she goes out with him.

He puts on the full court press, taking her to work, picking her up at lunch, taking her out to dinner. You have to wonder when he found time to chase any ambulances. He's madly, passionately in love with her. She's impressed by the people he knows, his fancy car, airplane, and the night clubs that he takes her too.

Then she finds out he's married, and refuses to see him. He tells her he'll get a divorce but stalls. This goes on for two years while he is disbarred, and starts drinking heavily, imaging that she cheating on him. She refuses to give up the goods without a ring. He fakes a divorce. The upshot is, she finds out what a lying jerk he is, and dumps him, getting engaged to another man. Burt flips out and hires three guys to disfigure her by throwing lye in her face. She ends up virtually blind from the attack. Later on, she loses her sight completely.
 

Now things get screwy. I won't go into too much detail, but you have to see this movie to believe it. Burt goes to jail, although he feels he doesn't deserve too, after all, he didn't actually cause the attack. He claims that he just told the men that he hired to rough her up a bit. Linda testified at his trial that he told her "If I can't have you, no one else will, and when I get finished with  you, no one else will want you."  Once during the trial, Burt took out one of the lenses from his glasses and tried to slash his wrists crying, "Linda, I need you.  Linda, I love you.  Linda, I want you.'

He was declared insane three seperate times, only to have the decisions reversed at this behest.  Eventually he's sentenced to 15 to 30 years.  While in prison, he writes her constantly, promising to get her a seeing eye dog. Meanwhile her world shrinks to the point of loneliness, and she faces a future of clipping coupons and cats. He gets out of prison, and manages to convince her to marry him. Now when I first heard about this story, I couldn't believe it. Then I saw Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuco smooching for the cameras. So I thought, stop judging these people and see the film for yourself. So I went to a free screening last night, and I'm glad I did. Whatever draws Burt and Linda together, it seems to work for them.

The one moment that was telling for me was when Linda admitted that Burt sees her the way that she used to be, not as this disfigured woman. Of course, one can argue that the reason she's disfigured at all is because of him. But time seems to have stopped for both of them in 1959 when this all happened. Call it guilt or what have you, but strangely it works for them. You could call it redemption or revenge on her part. The director of the film mentioned in an interview that Linda always wore her dark glasses and never took them off once the entire time they were filming.  Apparently she dated a man in the 1960's, and she showed him what she looked like without the glasses and he recoiled at her scars. Burt not only knew her when she was beautiful, but in his eyes, she's still that woman.

I personally think that she married him because she felt that he owed her because of what he did to her, so taking care of her for the rest of her life was his punishment.  For him, I think it's the fact that she's elusive, she's there but she's not there. He seems to have her on some kind of pedestal. The ultimate dream girl for a not very good looking guy from the Bronx. A prize. The whole Madonna whore syndrome. The movie is also a cautionary tale about what happens when mistake love and obsession, and you opt for economic and material in a relationship. 

February Book of the Month – The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paul Byrne

Title:  The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things

Author:  Paula Byrne

Publisher:   Harper Collins

Publication Date:  1/29/2013

How Acquired:  Through the Publisher

What it’s about:  I came to Jane Austen relatively late in life it feels.  I didn’t read Pride and Prejudice until my senior year of high school.  As a moody teenager, I reveled in the gothic novels of Emily and Charlotte Bronte.  It was actually the film version of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson that got me interested in reading the book.  I found the movie so delicious and fun that I had to read the book.  Since then I’ve read Northanger Abbey, Emma and Persuasion and I’ve seen almost every single adaptation of all the books.  I’ve even read several biographies but I’ve never really felt as if I knew who Jane was.  She certainly wasn’t the character played by Anne Hathaway in BECOMING JANE that much is for sure.

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the Jane through the key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work.  Instead of a chronological ‘then she did this, and then she did that,’ birth to death biography, each chapter starts off examining a particular object; the topaz crosses that her brother Charles bought her and her sister Cassandra, marriage bans, her first royalty check, an Indian shawl.  Byrne uses these items to explore the lives of Austen’s extended family, friends, and acquaintances. Through their absorbing stories, we view Austen on a much wider stage and discover unexpected aspects of her life and character. We learn fascinating stories about Jane Austen’s paternal aunt Philadelphia Hancock and her extraordinary journey to India to find a husband.  Then there is Jane’s maternal aunt Mrs. Leigh-Perrot and her sticky fingers which led to jail time as she awaited her trial.   Byrne also uses the objects to examine how Jane used the things that she learned, the gossip, navy life to inform and enrich her writing.  The reader learns that Jane Austen was actually fairly well-traveled for her time, traveling back and forth from Bath to Steventon, the seaside villages of Lyme, naval ports such as Portsmouth and Southampton and many trips to London where she had the occasion to see actors such as Edmund Kean and Sarah Siddons grace the stage.

What Byrne does is so fantastic, that I’m amazed that other writes don’t tackle their subjects this way.  It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, as each layer is removed, more and more of the real person is revealed. My favorite chapters were actually the ones that dealt with characters and situations from Mansfield Park which is funny because it's actually my least favorite of her novels. However, Byrne's chapter in particular on the Earl of Mansfield and his great niece Dido Elizabeth Belle is so fascinating.  In each chapter, I met a new and fascinating person.  I think I spent almost as much time looking up people like the poet William Cowper as I did reading the book.

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things introduces us to a woman who was much worldlier than she has previously been portrayed. Jane was far ahead of her time in not just her independence and ambition but also in her opinions. Byrne also examines how later generations of biographers and family members created the image of the genteel, unworldly spinister, and hid the tougher, more biting, woman who was both politically and socially aware of what was going on in the outside world.  Austen may have focused her fiction on four or five families living in the country, but those characters all interact with others who come from the outside world.  Byrne points out how ballsy it was for Jane to want to be published.  Although there were women authors like Mrs. Radcliffe, Fanny Burney (a particular favorite of Austen's), and Maria Edgeworth, Jane's novels fell into a category all by themselves, altogether quieter but much more realistic. By the time I put the book down, I felt as if Jane Austen had become a dear and treasured friend.

My verdict:  I strongly encourage everyone to buy this book, even if you’ve read other Austen biographies.  You will walk away from this book looking at not just Jane Austen but the novels with fresh eyes.

New Exhibition: Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting

 

Frida Kahlo, Mexican, 1907-1954, Self-Portrait with Monkeys, 1943
Oil on canvas, 81.5 X 63 cm, Gelman Collection. Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D. F. /

 

While planning a future trip to Washington, DC, I stumbled upon an ad promoting this new exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA.  Entitled "Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting" the exhibition will feature some of the best examples of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's work, approximately 140 paintings mainly from collections in Mexico. According to the press release, the paintings will be exhibited chronologically and according to themes including: maternity, Mexcian identity, and portraiture.  The High Museum of Art will be the only U.S. venue for this exhibition, so if you want to see it, you'll have to book a plane to Atlanta.

I wrote about Frida Kahlo in Scandalous Women and I'm not afraid to admit that I became a little obssessed by her and her stormy relationship with her husband Diego Rivera.  Any time that you put two passionate people together, particularly if they are artists and sparks are bound to fly! "Frida & Diego" is particuarly significant because it marks the first time that important works by these two artists will be shown in the Southeast.  I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of Frida's works at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and well as an exhibit of Diego's work at LACMA in Los Angeles, but just the idea of seeing their work together is truly exciting.  If I can afford it, I may have to take a short jaunt to Atlanta!

The museum plans to position their work in the political and artistic contexts of their time.  Few contemporary artists have captured the imagination with the force of Frida Kahlo and her husband.  The exhibition promises to focus on their shared ideals and ideas instead of their often tumultuous relationship but that's particularly hard to do, particularly since many of Frida's paintings were autobiographical.

The exhibition kicks off with the special opening event “Party with Passion!” on Valentine’s Day and remains on view until May 12.  Of course there will be a full color catalogue which may have to suffice for those of us who can't haul our butts down to Georgia. “Frida & Diego” is also the first completely bilingual exhibition to be presented by the High, with Spanish and English versions of wall labels and audio tours, as well as bilingual tour guides on Sundays throughout the show.

The Power of a Kiss: Pericles and Aspasia

Scandalous Women is pleased to welcome author Vicki Leon to the blog with a fascinating guest post about Pericles and Aspasia.


You wouldn’t think that enthusiastic kissing would set off such a scandal. But even during the glory days of ancient Athens, it did. The couple caught in the act were celebrities around town; Pericles, the most brilliant political and military leader of his time; and Aspasia, the witty, well-spoken foreigner from the Greek city of Miletus.

Such public displays of affection were taboo in that era. And independent, eloquent women, even more so. Well-bred matrons shunned the public eye. Sneered at Aspasia, called her harlot and worse. Some secretly envied her, and the steadfast affection their leader had for her. Each morning, with the neighbors as witness, Pericles soundly kissed his love; and each evening, when he returned, he embraced her again before their jealous eyes. I’m willing to bet they had the most loving, full-bodied relationship of any couple we know from ancient times. Without being wed, either.

She was a many-faceted woman, Aspasia; deeply curious about life, a seeker of philosophical knowledge, she befriended Socrates and other men of note. Naturally this racy behavior made more trouble for her. Like her earlier Milesian countrywoman, the much-wed courtesan Thargelia, she weathered spiteful attacks from playwrights and politicians; shrugged them off.

Things grew worse as Athens got embroiled in conflict. First with the islanders of Samos, where Aspasia was accused of using womanly wiles to persuade Pericles to wage war against them. In 431 B.C., a war with Sparta erupted, turning the political climate even nastier.

Seeing her as a high-visibility scapegoat, opponents threw a charge of impiety (a vague but serious accusation) against Aspasia, which could have brought the death penalty. As a non-Athenian, she couldn’t even testify in her own defense. Pericles stepped up, making a tearful, impassioned plea about her innocence. Case dismissed!

More joy, mixed with tribulations, awaited. When her sweetheart was nearly 50, the two had a son together. Pericles longed to wed Aspasia; in a cruel irony, he’d passed legislation earlier that prohibited him from marrying a non-Athenian! Eventually, after some serious groveling, Pericles persuaded his fellow Athenians to amend the law so at least his son with Aspasia could become a citizen.

This devoted couple, gifted with such intelligence and spirit and bravery of love, had just two more years together before the Great Plague hit, tearing Pericles from her arms.

Little reliable testimony remains to tell us Aspasia’s story, and almost nothing from her point of view; but we can still hope for future finds. And relish the tatters we know of, the bold kisses we know they shared, defying the world around them. 

 

*******************

Author and historical detective Vicki Leon has spent 40 years, joyously researching her passions, from unsung female achievers to the ancient world. Leon also aspires to be uppity but feels that her impertinence still needs work. (www.vickileon.com)

Book of the Month: The Joy of Sexus

Title:   The Joy of Sexus - Lust, Love and Longing in the Ancient World

Author:  Vicki Leon

Publisher:  Walker and Company

Pub Date:    January 29, 2013

Pages:        302

How Acquired:  Through publisher

What it's About: 

In her previous books, Vicki León put readers in the sandals of now obsolete laborers, ranging from funeral clowns to armpit pluckers, and untangled the twisted threads of superstition and science in antiquity. Now, in this book of astonishing true tales of love and sex in long-ago Greece, Rome, and other cultures around the Mediterranean, she opens the doors to shadowy rooms and parts the curtains of decorum.

León goes far beyond what we think we know about sex in ancient times, taking readers on a randy tour of aphrodisiacs and anti-aphrodisiacs, contraception, nymphomania, bisexuality, cross-dressing, and gender-bending. She explains citizens' fear of hermaphrodites, investigates the stinging price paid for adultery despite the ease of divorce, introduces readers to a surprising array of saucy pornographers, and even describes the eco-friendly dildos used by libidinous ancients. Love also gets its due, with true tales of the lifelong bonds between military men, history's first cougar and her devoted relationship with Julius Caesar, and the deification of lovers.

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What others are saying:  

"A snappy ride into the stunning, sometimes barbaric, and alwauys entertaining sexuality of the ancient world...This is a fun, enlightening trip into the ancient world not covered in high school textbooks."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Enjoyable, edifying, and humorous."--Kirkus Reviews

Meet the Author:

Vicki Leon calls the central coast of California home but returns often to her Mediterranean sources. Having honed her research skills by unearthing nine hundred achievers for her Uppity Women series of books, she's delved deeply into the ancient world with Working IX to V, How to Mellify a Corpse, and, of course, The Joy of Sexus.

Should you buy it?  I must confess that I have had this book for 2 weeks now and I just dived into it last night and I'm glad I did.  This book will tell you everything that you wanted to know about sex and sexuality in the Ancient World.  Stuff that we all wanted to know but were afraid to ask or just didn't know where to look.  Readers will learn the answer to questions like 'Did anyone call themselves bisexual or transgendered?' 'And what about romantic love, did that exist in the ancient world?' Vicki Leon's latest book THE JOY OF SEXUS uncovers the astonishing true tales of passion and wide-open sexuality in teh Greek, Roman, and other long-ago cultures.  In 89 no-holds-barred essays or short chapters, Leon takes the reader on a randy tour of aphrodisiacs, buttocks worship, cross-dressing, and a Christian martyr named Perpetua (Seriously, someone needs to write a historical or historical romance where the heroine is named Perpetua stat!).

Here are just a few of the topics covered in the book:

• The first pornographers, and the first sexual manual
• The  gay-friendly military of the Greek city-states
• The surprising sex life of Socrates
• History's first cougar and her relationship with Julius Caesar!

As I mentioned, I just started reading the book, but already I've found quite a few Scandalous Women in its pages, that I'm now dying to write about! 

Review: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

Title:  Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker 
Author:  Jennifer Chiaverini 
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Publication date: 1/15/2013 
Pages: 352 
How Acquired:  Through Net Galley

Overview:  New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini illuminates the extraordinary friendship between Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, a former slave who won her freedom by the skill of her needle, and the friendship of the First Lady by her devotion. In Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, novelist Jennifer Chiaverini presents a stunning account of the friendship that blossomed between Mary Todd Lincoln and her seamstress, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Keckley, a former slave who gained her professional reputation in Washington, D.C. by outfitting the city’s elite. Keckley made history by sewing for First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln within the White House, a trusted witness to many private moments between the President and his wife, two of the most compelling figures in American history. In this impeccably researched, engrossing novel, Chiaverini brings history to life in rich, moving style.

My thoughts:  I was very excited to read this novel when I first heard about it, it seemed especially fortuitous since Gloria Reuben plays Elizabeth in the new film Lincoln.  I have written about Elizabeth Keckley and her friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln before, and I was interested to read a fictional interpretation of Elizabeth’s life.  The book opens up right before the start of the Civil War.  Elizabeth Keckley is a modiste who spent years working to buy her and her son’s freedom.  Now established in Washington City (present day Washington, D.C.), she has made a name for herself as a dressmaker for both Northerners and Southerners alike, one of her best patrons is Varina Davis, the wife of Senator Jefferson Davis (soon to be the President and First Lady of the Confederacy).  When Lincoln is elected, another patron arranges for Elizabeth to meet the new First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.  To be chosen as the modiste for the new First Lady would be the ultimate coup for any dressmaker, white or black.  Elizabeth is chosen and is soon privy to the innermost workings of the Lincoln White House. We see through Elizabeth’s eyes Mrs. Lincoln’s reckless spending and mood swings, President Lincoln’s death, and his widow’s subsequent penury.

There were many things that I liked about this novel. Jennifer Chiaverini’s characterization of the relationship between Mary Todd and Elizabeth is nuanced, revealing a friendship that is at times uneven and fraught with class and racial distinctions, but also warm and protective (on Elizabeth's part).  In a very poignant moment, Mrs. Lincoln calls Elizabeth her best friend. In Chiaverini’s hands, Mary is not quite the Satanic Majesty that she is called by one of the staff, but a woman who if not bi-polar clearly has emotional issues.  Unhappy at being shut out of the President’s political life and having her view dismissed, Mary seeks happiness through endless shopping.  While reading the novel, I was reminded of the scurrilous gossip aimed at Marie Antoinette and how she sublimated her unhappiness through partying and shopping.  Mary becomes dependent on Elizabeth whose own kindness eventually becomes a straightjacket in a way.  Elizabeth becomes more than just a modiste to Mary; she also arranges her hair, helps her dress, cares for her children at times and becomes her confidante. 

The book is not without its problems; at times the book gets bogged down through too much telling and not enough showing. There are endless pages devoted to telling what is going on with the war, which would be interesting if this were a history book instead of a novel.  The book comes alive when the war hits home for the characters, Robert Todd Lincoln wanting to enlist, Elizabeth’s friends fleeing from the disaster that was the first battle of Bull Run.  Instead of giving us vibrant scenes of Elizabeth’s trip with Mary Todd Lincoln to New York and Boston during the war, where she attempts to raise money for the Contraband Relief Association, we are told about it.   Another wasted opportunity occurs later in the novel when Elizabeth meets the abolitionist Frederick Douglass for the first time.  Again we are kept at a distance from the action, instead of plunged right into it.  Elizabeth is also curiously passive at that times but again she is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  As the reader, I wanted Elizabeth to stand up for herself more, to not let Mrs. Lincoln take advantage of her friendship the way that she does, but I had to remember that this was a different time and Elizabeth also owed Mrs. Lincoln a great deal as well. Her business as a modiste takes off because she worked for the First Lady.  

Once Mrs. Lincoln is widowed, the book really moves along as Elizabeth is given the task of helping the former First Lady sell her clothes and jewels to raise money, and then decides to write her memoirs.  At this point, we get to know a little bit more about Elizabeth and less about Mary.  Chiaverini also does a wonderful job at detailing the hardships that Elizabeth must go through during her stay in New York, having to move to a room in the attic of a hotel because they wouldn’t let her have a regular room, being forced to eat in the servants’ hall. It’s these little details of what life was like for a colored woman in post-Civil War America that really make the book come alive.  Although I found the portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln balanced and compelling, my real interest was in Elizabeth, her thoughts and feelings about the war, and her position in society.   One of the best sections of the novel occurs when Elizabeth goes to visit the family that once owned her.  In the end, that old adage, no good deed goes unpunished comes into play.  Elizabeth’s good intentions come to bite her in the butt.  Mrs. Lincoln cuts off her friendship once Elizabeth’s memoir is published, and the public chastises her for her revelations.  In the end, it is brought home to Elizabeth that no matter how far she has come; there will always be those who look down on her because of her color and want to put her in her place.

Despite my problems with the novel, I was intrigued enough that I’m looking forward to reading Chiaverini’s next novel about the Civil War spy Elizabeth van Lew.

My verdict:  Compelling account of the friendship between Elizabeth Keckley and Mrs. Lincoln.  Well worth reading for a glimpse into the inner workings of the White House during the Civil War.