Portrait of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly

This portrait of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly was the frontispiece, or an illustration facing the title page of a book, for her memoir Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, published ca. 1868 by G.W. Carleton & Co. Her memoir detailed her life when she was enslaved, her rise to prominence as a businesswoman and seamstress, and her friendship with First Lady Mary Lincoln. Her memoir provides ample insight into the Lincoln White House, her family life, and the brutalities she experienced under slavery.