Born near here in Dinwiddie County in 1818, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, or Keckly, was a
dressmaker and abolitionist. She lived as a slave in Virginia and North Carolina but
eventually bought her freedom in 1855. By 1860 she had relocated to Baltimore and then
to Washington, D.C. Because of her dressmaking skills, she became a seamstress,
personal maid, and confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln's wife.
In 1868, Keckley's account, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years
in the White House, appeared and met with criticism from Mrs. Lincoln for its candor.
Keckley died in 1907.
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