http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070624/2keckly.htm*********************
EXCERPT:
Dressing Up for History
A Seamstress Traveled from Slavery to the White House
By Diane Cole
Posted 6/24/07
She comforted Mary Todd Lincoln when the first lady's young son Willie died and when her husband, Abraham, was shot. She was Mrs. Lincoln's dressmaker and confidant, and she owned her own business at a time when few women did-especially if they were former slaves.
But despite her presence at some of the most dramatic moments of American history, Elizabeth Keckly has remained largely hidden behind the scenes. Keckly was "a radical in terms of her entrepreneurial achievements" and "a kind of a genius" as a designer of the intricate gowns of the era, says her biographer Jennifer Fleischner, author of Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly. And, as part of the first generation of African-Americans to enter the middle class, she served as a role model for a new kind of American success story-up from slavery-in post-Civil War America.
*****************
Gay
