Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

by Elizabeth Keckley

Overview

Part slave narrative, part memoir, and part sentimental fiction, Behind the Scenes depicts Elizabeth Keckley's years as a slave and subsequent four years in Abraham Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. As public drama privately experienced, Keckley's work presents Jefferson Davis and his wife, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, and even Stephen Douglas and "Mrs. Senator Douglas" in the foreground, with the war, and slavery as the issue that precipitated it, in the background. Through the eyes of this black woman—an ex-slave, seamstress, and dressmaker—we see a wide range of historical figures and events of the antebellum South, the Washington of the Civil War years, and the final stages of the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684221127
Publisher:	Martino Fine Books
Publication date:	05/25/2017
Pages:	166
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Keckley (1818-1907) was a former slave and was best known as being a personal confidante to Mary Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's wife and the First Lady. After being freed, she become a successful seamstress, author, and civil rights activist. Her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, not only gives a history of her life but also gives insight into the First Family's affairs.

Adenrele Ojo is an experienced audiobook narrator and actor. A self-described theater brat, she spent many late nights as a young child falling asleep on theatre chairs as her dad directed and her mother performed. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Philadelphia, she received her bachelor of arts in theater from Hunter College in New York.

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2022

Adenrele Ojo becomes Elizabeth Keckley in this superbly nuanced performance of the formerly enslaved woman's memoir. Keckley details her early life of enslavement and unhappy marriage, how she worked to buy her freedom and that of her sons, started her own dressmaking business in Washington, DC, and became so successful that she was hired by the wives of many powerful politicians, including Mary Todd Lincoln. Told as if in conversation, Ojo's warm, careworn voicing of Keckley's narrative is in stark contrast to those around her: young females who seek her help, Southern politicians' wives who hire her to sew, and their powerful husbands, including President Lincoln, whom she meets during fittings. Keckley's emotions are palpable throughout, from her humorous machinations to get the job with Mrs. Lincoln, her grief when Lincoln and his son Tad died, and her affection and concern for Mrs. Lincoln after the assassination. There is a musicality to the tone and rhythm in Ojo's reading that will keep listeners tuning in to Keckley's amazing story. VERDICT An engrossing look at the life of a formerly enslaved woman in the Lincoln household of 1860s Washington.—Stephanie Bange

Library Journal - Audio

"Invaluable...Elizabeth Keckley's memoir of her life as a White House dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln...[is a] curious gem"—Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review
"A remarkable vantage point on the Civil War"—Chicago Sun Times



"Invaluable...Elizabeth Keckley's memoir of her life as a White House dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln...[is a] curious gem"—Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review
"A remarkable vantage point on the Civil War"—Chicago Sun Times



"Invaluable...Elizabeth Keckley's memoir of her life as a White House dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln...[is a] curious gem"—Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review
"A remarkable vantage point on the Civil War"—Chicago Sun Times


"Invaluable...Elizabeth Keckley's memoir of her life as a White House dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln...[is a] curious gem"—Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review
"A remarkable vantage point on the Civil War"—Chicago Sun Times

From the Publisher