All people—white and colored, slave and free, Union and Confederate—shared a common humanity belied by their outward differences. In a time of discord, in a land torn by war, no truth was more importa...
Nourishing
Women employees were reportedly hired for their personal attractions rather than their skills, and several young ladies claimed that they were refused employment until they yielded to the passionate e...
Then it occurred to her (Elizabeth Keckley) that if Tad (Lincoln’s son) had been a colored boy rather than the son of a president, and a teacher had found him so difficult to instruct, he would have b...
He nodded, rueful. I immediately caught myself
Smiles Form the Channel of a Future Tear
The manor
Lincoln turned away from her husband with a look of offended dignity, but before
Life and Letters (New York: Knopf, 1972); and John E. Washington, They Knew Lincoln (New York: Dutton, 1942). Of course, no work was more important than Elizabeth Keckley’s own memoir, Behind the Scen...
The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, re...
And as Miss Austen wrote, ‘It is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! The prope...
Loving one’s children does not guarantee that one will never fail them,
Brothers and I finished digging the grave he had already begun, and we buried him in the company of Mr. Orrick’s wife and two good German women, neighbors
One of the great advantages that we may derive from machinery is the check that it affords against the inattention, the idleness, or the dishonesty of human agents.
It’s painful to be the one not chosen, she murmured to Father Ryan, watching the younger pair. Even when you acknowledge, deep down, that the choice was the right one, it hurts to think that the one y...
Hope is never false. One’s hopes may not be fulfilled, but that does not mean it was wrong to hope.
Fear that people do indeed know what Hitler wants, and what he intends, and that is precisely why they vote for him. Not because they misunderstand him, but because they understand him very well, and...
May the New Year be as full of happiness and peace and friendship.
In the midst of her bereavement, Elizabeth found comfort in a heartfelt, compassionate letter from Mrs. Lincoln and from the gentle kindness of Virginia, Walker, and Emma, whose eyes brimmed with tear...
Ignorant people, whispering cruel rumors, her mother whispered. Pay them no mind.