Mary Todd Lincoln, Spiritualist
Did the first lady’s supernatural interests convince Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation?
Today marks the death of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, on July 16, 1882. She died dejected by a nation that had taken her husband’s life, a son who briefly had her committed to a sanitarium, and journalists who wrote her off as a slightly unhinged widow given over to séances and table rapping.
History’s assessments have never fully captured Mary Todd Lincoln and never will until she is also understood as a protofeminist and religious radical whose points of view reveal an early and influential marriage of protest politics and occultism, and who made a potentially seismic impact on the nation.
Several months after occupying the White House in March 1861, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln experienced the nightmare of so many midcentury parents: Their 11-year-old son, Willie, was gripped by a serious fever, probably from typhus. A sensitive, precociously religious child, Willie was the family favorite. After illness struck, weeks of struggle and bedside vigils did no good. Late one afternoon in February 1862, the boy died.
For Mary Todd, the loss was overwhelming. She began to frequent trance mediums in desperate hope of contact. And, in the…
