Mrs. Lincoln, the president’s wife, used to visit my studio frequently. Ordering me around, she would search out the best lighting to enhance her importance. She was a vigorous custodian of her public image and censored what she deemed not worthy of who she believed herself to be.
She loved clothes and seemed to subscribe to the maxim that such matters were not disguises but revelations of true character. One night, bored with sentimental novels that seemed to share this folklore, I dreamt first about Mary Lincoln in my studio, then found myself on Broadway surrounded by ladies of fashion parading up and down the boulevard. It was a sort of public theater of ostentation and self adornment so I suspect that it must have taken place in the late 1850’s or even during the war. I even fantasized that phrenologists had become fashion consultants, advising their clients on appropriate ways of revealing (or veiling) their phrenological extremes. Hats and hairstyles were opportunities to become whoever you wanted by veiling your defects.
What I saw on Broadway that day were yards of inflated material made even more magnificent with an excess of petticoats enlarged and held firm with steel hoops-ruffled and flounced, braided, pleated in gauze, brocade, organdy in dark and lavish colors. In the midst of these fashionable ladies I see Mrs. Lincoln, whose presence precludes anyone else from shining or casting shadow on her elevated existence. Her voice is sonorous as it clarity trumpets even over the boom of Lower Broadway. This voice still rings in my ears with its fathomless magic made denser in autumn. Hear her...
