Mary Todd Lincoln, Spiritualist

Did the first lady’s supernatural interests convince Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation?

A “spirit photograph” of the first lady by William H. Mumler (Public domain, circa 1870)

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…