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Raised
in Lexington, Kentucky as the daughter of a socially prominent family,
Mary Todd (1818-82) met Abraham Lincoln as a young lawyer in Springfield,
Illinois. They married in 1842 and had four sons: Robert, Edward,
William, and Thomas. Politically astute, Mary encouraged her husband's ambitions and served as an accomplished hostess throughout his career. However, she suffered extreme mental and emotional anguish after Edward died in 1850, and again after William's death in 1862 and her husband's assassination in 1865. Afterwards, she moved to Chicago to be with Robert; in 1875, he confined her to a mental hospital in Batavia, Illinois, where she stayed three months. Mary spent the next several years traveling abroad, finally returning to Springfield in 1880; she died there two years later. |
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Mary
Todd Lincoln
by Mathew Brady, 1861 Click image to enlarge. Copyright 2002 The Chicago Historical Society |
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