Salter Center Book Discussion: Mrs. Lincoln: a Life by Catherine
Clinton Mon, Mar 18 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Salter Community Center
Historian Catherine Clinton draws on important new research to
illuminate the remarkable life of Mary Lincoln. Her story is
inextricably tied with her husband's presidency, yet her life is
an extraordinary chronicle on its own. From an aristocratic
Kentucky family, she was an educated, well-connected Southern
daughter, and when she married a Springfield lawyer she became a
Northern wife--an experience mirrored by thousands of her
countrywomen. The Lincolns endured many personal setbacks,
including the death of a child and defeats in two Senate races.
Mrs. Lincoln herself suffered scorching press attacks. The
assassination of her husband haunted her for the rest of her
life. Her downward spiral resulted in a brief but traumatizing
involuntary incarceration in an asylum and exile in Europe
during her later years. One of the most tragic and mysterious of
nineteenth-century figures, Mar