Was former slave her true friend?

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MRS. LINCOLN AND MRS. KECKLY: THE REMARKABLE STORY OF THE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN A FIRST LADY AND A FORMER SLAVE

By Jennifer Fleischner

Broadway, $26, 372 pages, illus.

REVIEWED By ERIN MENDELL

The "remarkable story" of the relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly, turns out to hardly be a story at all, as the two don't meet until Page 202 of Jennifer Fleischner's account.

That's not to say Miss Fleischner's story isn't compelling or that Keckly's life alone isn't remarkable. At the very least, "Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly" gives a voice to a largely forgotten former slave whose remains lie in an unmarked grave. But it also weaves an interesting narrative out of the well tread biographical ground of the former first lady.

From her early childhood, Keckly used her talent as a seamstress to her advantage, eventually buying freedom for herself and her son and building a dressmaking business that brought her to the White House. Her rise is difficult to explain without acknowledging the class distinctions within the black community at the time, a nuance to which Miss Fleischner pays less-than-due attention. Keckly's lighter skin gave her an edge over field hands, and she worked in the slave owner's home, where she received the education that allowed her to develop her ambitions.