Behind the scenes: thirty years a slave and four years in the White House

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1968;1868

Biography

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She was born in 1818 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, to Agnes Hobbs, an enslaved woman working on a plantation owned by Colonel Armistead Burwell, Elizabeth’s biological father. Agnes’s husband George Pleasant Hobbs, who was enslaved on a nearby plantation, treated Elizabeth as his own daughter and as an act of resistance, Agnes gave Elizabeth George’s last name. Unusually for enslaved people at the time, Elizabeth was allowed to learn to read and write, and when George was forced to leave with his owner, she was able to keep in touch via letter. At age 14, Elizabeth was sent to work for Colonel Burwell’s son in North Carolina, before being hired out to a neighbour who abused her for many years. While there, Elizabeth gave birth to her son, George. In the same year, she was sent back to the plantation in Virginia and given to Colonel Burwell’s daughter, Ann Garland, as a wedding gift. When the Garlands, Elizabeth, her son and mother, moved to St Louis, Elizabeth began sewing and quickly became one the of best dressmakers around. In 1852, she asked the Garlands for her freedom and was told she and her son could be emancipated for $1,200 – an impossible price, given that, as an enslaved woman, her earnings went to her owner. However, with the help of her wealthy clients, who raised the money for Elizabeth and her son’s emancipation, they became free people in November 1855. Elizabeth spent five more years working as a dressmaker in St Louis before moving to Washington DC and establishing a new client base in the city. She made dresses for the wives of some of the city’s most well-connected and powerful men, including First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, whose inauguration gown she made and with whom she became close friends. By 1865, Elizabeth owned a dress shop on 12th Street and employed 20 women. Elizabeth was also active in the Civil War relief efforts, becoming president of the Ladies’ Contraband Relief Association. In 1868, she published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, an insight into her experience of enslavement and her involvement in the Lincoln White House. Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert Todd, suppressed the publication and Elizabeth suffered a blow to her reputation and her dressmaking business. After a brief time as head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts at the University of Ohio, Elizabeth suffered a stroke and moved into the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children. She died in 1907, aged 89.

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