Both of these events show her mettle and her savvy as to how to handle privileged white women. These qualities shine through in the narrative style, as in this excerpt when she relates how she met Mrs Lincoln and how she eventually won her confidence. Keckly is the paragon of virtue and dignity, morally spotless and fiercely sensible, clear-headed, and calm under pressure. The excerpt we have chosen from Behind the Scenes perfectly illustrates this power, her awareness of it, and her ability to wield it.īut this is no ‘kiss and tell’ book. Keckly’s dressmaking skill was sought after by the most famous families in the capital. An entire network of influential politicians’ wives and sometimes their husbands was dependent on her.

This was what shocked white readers at the time: that a black ex-slave woman should dare to narrate white lives, let alone the most famous in the country that she should have had such privileged access to them, and that she was an expert eye-witness to their behaviour.Įqually galling to white readers was the fact that she possessed such power in Washington, albeit a very different kind from political power. But the narrative is less about her than about her employers. The story becomes a revelation of the life ‘behind the scenes’ of the White House where she lived and worked for four years, until Lincoln’s assassination left her out of a job. Keckly tells us how she worked her way up to financial independence by being a skilled seamstress, eventually serving as Mrs Lincoln’s private tailor (or modiste as she pointedly calls herself, drawing attention to the artistry and skill that this label suggests). Although it begins as a slave narrative, revealing in a matter-of-fact way the horrors Keckly had to endure until her thirties when she bought her own freedom – including familial separation, cruel owners, brutal beatings, rape and ensuing pregnancy – the narrative shifts focus and form halfway through and becomes the story of a successful businesswoman with unparalleled insight into the lives of the highest-ranking political couple in the land: President and Mrs Lincoln. (Whilst her published name is ‘Keckley’, ‘Keckly’ is the spelling she used in the rest of her life). But Keckly’s autobiography stands out for several reasons. We have seen some of these accounts already in Ten-Minute Book Club so far. By 1868, when Behind the Scenes was published, readers were familiar with the genre of the slave narrative, which gave vital and moving eyewitness accounts of the atrocities of slavery and helped to fuel the abolition movement.

Behind the scenes by elizabeth keckley