The Truth About Mary Todd Lincoln

Ms. Romano is the author of the forthcoming book “An Inconvenient Widow: The Torment, Trial, and Triumph of Mary Todd Lincoln.”

The Tony-winning Broadway show “Oh, Mary!,” which portrays Mary Todd Lincoln as a chaotic, resentful alcoholic former cabaret singer, has thrust America’s former first lady back into the public imagination over the past year. One might expect that a comedic character written (and originally played) by the playwright Cole Escola, who did, by their own admission, deliberately “less than no research” into Mary’s life, would be seen as hilariously preposterous. And yet, for audiences, the play’s burlesque can ring a little true, largely because it embodies a cultural image of Mary as crazy that has endured for 160 years and is familiar to them from decades of distorted scholarship.

She has existed in the historical record as........

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