On December 13, 1818, Mary Ann Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky. She was the fourth child and third daughter of Robert Smith Todd and Eliza Ann Parker. The family would have two more children before Mrs. Todd passed away in 1825 when Mary was just six years old. Her father was a successful, well-educated banker and businessman who quickly found love. Sadly, there was no love lost between Mary's stepmother and the young Mary. She was the fourth child born to her parents, and she had numerous siblings. Her parents were slave owners, thus there were never any money issues in the household. Todd had grown up in a world of ease and luxury. She was assigned to a school where she took classes in social graces, theater, dance, literature, music, and drama. Additionally, she studied French and spoke it well.

Mary was thrilled to get the chance to go to Dr. John Ward's academy. Dr. Ward was a very intelligent Episcopal priest. Mary attended the academy for six years before leaving at the age of fourteen to enroll at Madame Mentelle's French school for girls. There, she continued her French studies as well as the Old World arts of sewing, writing, and math. In fact, French was used for virtually the whole talk at Madame. She enjoyed reading Shakespeare and Robert Burns, and the boarding school cultivated her passions for literature and fashion, but it had no effect on her childhood enthusiasm for politics. When she was just eight years old, she rode to the house of the orator and family friend Henry Clay and offered to be his hostess if he ever won the presidency. After spending four years at Madame's, Mary went back to Dr. Ward's for two more years of education.

Mary Todd wasn't well-liked in Washington, in part because of her extravagant spending. She was used to purchasing pricey clothing for herself and residing in large, comfortable homes because she hailed from an affluent family.

A sizeable sum of money was provided to the First Lady shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected US president for the purpose of redecorating the White House. An interesting fact about Mary Todd Lincoln is that she spent more money than she was permitted to, despite having a more than generous budget. Because of the hardships caused by the Civil War at the time, society blamed her for what she did.

Although purchasing the White House during a moment of national crisis may seem wrong to us today, historical context puts this in proper perspective. Congress gave Mary $20,000 to use to renovate the White House soon despite the threat of war. Sadly, Mary exceeded this budget by $6,000, which infuriated the President. He argued that it was improper to exceed the budget at a time when "the poor soldiers did not have blankets," and he paid the overage out of his own pocket.

Once Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) won the 1860 presidential election, word of Mary Lincoln's shopping preferences and the majority of other elements of her life began to circulate.

Mary has received harsh criticism from the press for her spending habits both then and today. She ultimately caused the President and herself a great deal of worry due to her spending, but when considered in perspective, her purchasing can be better appreciated.

It was not surprising that Mary Lincoln was shocked when her husband was killed because she had witnessed the crime. She was ejected from the room where her husband was brought in, so she was unable to say goodbye to him. She started crying since she was unable to control her sentiments and emotions. One of the things upper-class ladies were not expected to do was cry or exhibit their feelings in public. The following day, almost everyone was aware of the spectacle she had created in the White House.

Alone in the living room, Mary Todd Lincoln paces. A angry Secretary of War Edwin Stanton expelled Mary from the president's bedside after she started to cry hysterically. She had just witnessed her husband Abraham Lincoln's point-blank murder at the neighboring Ford's Theatre hours earlier. Her husband was passing away close by, but his 23-year-old wife wouldn't be there to witness it.

She may have bipolar disease, which would explain her erratic conduct, or she may have experienced trauma and loneliness in the tumultuous days that followed her husband's murder by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. However, Mary's actions at the time were interpreted as proof that she was a bad lady.

The high standards that were held for women in her time had always been difficult for Mary Todd Lincoln to meet. Women, especially famous spouses, were expected to devote their time to the home and refrain from seeking attention or going out in public, but Mary had a talent for publicity and liked the limelight. When her husband was alive, this caused conflict, and it would be terrible after his passing.

Mary Todd, also known as Molly, was the daughter of wealthy parents and attended elite all-girls institutions where she excelled in the arts and cultural studies. She developed a deep interest in politics as a result of her father's social interactions with powerful people. In 1840, when Molly and Lincoln first met, she was 21 and he was 31. Despite her family's concerns about his poverty and lack of political ambitions, she fell in love with the tall, gangly, and kind Lincoln and accepted his proposal of marriage. However, he abruptly called off their engagement in the early months of 1841. They were estranged until the fall of 1842, when they reconciled. According to other sources, they reconnected a year prior but chose to conceal their connection. Regardless, they quickly got engaged after getting back together and was married on November 4 as a result.

The death of their 11-year-old son Willie in 1862 certainly prompted his lovely wife to acquire illnesses and erratic behaviors, which the devoted Lincoln anxiously observed over their marriage. In 1863, she was also involved in a carriage accident and suffered a brain injury. She afterwards reported having migraines. According to biographers and academics, she struggled with severe anxiety and depression.

As he progressed from the Illinois assembly to become one of the most charismatic political orators in the nation to speak out against slavery, Mary Todd backed his political career. Soon after moving in with her sister Elizabeth Edwards, Mary Todd had her first encounter with Abraham Lincoln. It came out that she and Lincoln enjoyed talking about books and politics. In addition, both of them detested slavery in its purest form, which is an interesting fact about Mary Todd Lincoln.

A Chicago court deemed Mary Lincoln, his 56-year-old widow, crazy and confined her to a mental facility ten years after Abraham Lincoln's murder. She arrived to Bellevue Place, a luxurious, private sanitarium in the Fox River Valley, on May 20, 1875. Less than four months after she made the earnest attempt to get herself released, her sister Elizabeth took over her care in Springfield.

Mary Lincoln's frequent and erratic mood swings may have been caused by bipolar disorder, which was unheard of at the time. She fell into a profound despair as a result of all the awful losses that she experienced. Lincoln's lone surviving son committed his mother to a mental facility to assist her. She only stayed there for a few months, but that was enough for her to make the decision that she would never again speak with her son.

Robert could easily see his mother because Bellevue Place was only a 90-minute train journey from Chicago. He said, "My mother is, I suppose, under as good care and as happily situated as possible under the circumstances," to reassure Sally and probably himself. Robert was misled into believing that his mother was "happier in every aspect, in her freedom from care and excitement, than she has been in ten years," however. Instead, authors Justin and Linda Turner penned this "Robert tried to understand his mother's mental anguish while wishing for the best and intending the best. She may have appeared calm, but her mind was churning with plans to get her released."

Mary was able to hasten the release from her indefinite detention with the aid of attorneys James and Myra Bradwell. Mary Lincoln is no more insane than I am, Myra remarked to a reporter from a Chicago newspaper. On September 11, 1875, Mary was discharged from Bellevue Place and placed in the care of Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards. In a Chicago court, Mary was formally deemed sane on June 15, 1876.

Mary Lincoln has not fared well throughout history. The same histories that extol the virtues of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, also tend to demonize his widow, portraying her as an irrational, scandalous spender whose protracted grief pushed her to alleged "madness."

Some experts have made an effort to retroactively diagnose Lincoln with everything from bipolar disorder to chronic weariness, as Kat Eschner reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2016. However, these descriptions frequently fail to convey the intensity of Lincoln's trauma, which included the murder of her husband and the deaths of three of her four children. The first lady (now known as Mary Todd Lincoln) used to go by the moniker Mary Lincoln.

Mary Lincoln was always the center of attention. Despite her best efforts, she was never able to integrate herself into that era's society for women. She enjoyed the spotlight and never turned down the chance to command everyone's attention. Such inclinations went against the widely held belief that women should devote their entire attention to home obligations and should venture out into public as infrequently as feasible.

Many rumors were spread because of Mary Lincoln's spending patterns. She received $25,000 as part of Abraham Lincoln's estate after his passing. The money was not enough to cover her $38,000 in debt, though. An interesting fact about Mary Todd Lincoln is that she came up with the idea of selling her clothes and jewelry in order to raise the cash she so sorely needed.

To recoup debts accrued during her time in the White House, creditors started knocking on her door. She liquidated her gowns to cover part of the obligations and gave jewels and other goods back to their original retailers. She traveled to New York with her dressmaker, but from the beginning, everything went wrong. When she attempted to sell her gowns and jewelry at a public auction, her identity was quickly discovered, and she was unable to generate any revenue. She quickly became the target of derision as the news of her selling made it into the newspapers.

With a wealthy banker, she refinanced the remaining loan at a very high interest rate. To manage her finances and solicit donations for the Mary Lincoln fund, she employed Alex Williamson. Mary was able to pay off a significant portion of her obligations thanks to his efforts, albeit many others disapproved of her strategies. Whatever the case, she was pleased with herself.