From the Collection: Women at the White House
From the Collection: Women at the White House
by Jessie Cortesi and Abbie Meek
President Abraham Lincoln hosted many notable women at the White House during his administration. From advocating on behalf of the U.S. Sanitary Commission to urging him to expedite emancipation measures, these women left their marks on history and the political landscape of the nation.
Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797–1883) lectured on abolition, racial equality, and women’s rights. During the Civil War, she helped recruit Black troops for the Union and worked for the National Freedman’s Relief Association in Washington, D.C., where she met President Lincoln at the White House in 1864. Truth reported that Lincoln “showed as much kindness and consideration to the colored persons [visiting him] as to the white.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), sending a shockwave through the nation. President Lincoln read it along with her nonfiction rebuttal to critics’ response to the book. Stowe met with the president at the White House in 1862. Although she had previously criticized him, she came out of the meeting with a newfound admiration for his “religious faith.”
Jessie Benton Frémont (1824–1902) was a writer and antislavery activist. With Jessie’s urging, her husband, Major General John C. Frémont, issued a military order in 1861 freeing enslaved people in Missouri. Upon President Lincoln’s objection to the order, the general sent his wife to the nation’s capital to appeal for Lincoln’s approval. Refusing, Lincoln revoked the order himself. Jessie sensed a “sneering tone” in the president’s voice, and she reported that he called her “quite a female politician.”
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson’s (1842–1932) reputation as a public lecturer earned her an invitation to speak before Congress in 1864, the first woman to do so. President Lincoln attended her speech. She also met with Lincoln at the White House that spring and criticized his administration of the war. Dickinson reported that she told him, “I didn’t come here to hear stories. I can read better ones in the papers any day.” However, she reversed her position later in the year and advocated for Lincoln’s reelection.
Mary Livermore (1820–1905) was an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. She was the only female reporter at the Chicago convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860. At a White House meeting in 1862, she found Lincoln “haggard” and “ghastly . . . as he lay in his coffin.” Having gone there as a representative of the Sanitary Commission seeking “some word of encouragement,” she and her companion found none.
Lavinia “Vinnie” Ream (1847–1914) was an artist and sculptor whose supporters convinced President Lincoln to pose for her to sculpt a bust. For five months, Vinnie, then only a teenager, met with Lincoln every morning so she could complete the task. Later, in 1866, when Congress commissioned a full-size marble statue of Lincoln for the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, 18-year-old Ream became the youngest person and the first woman to receive an art commission from the federal government.