| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Madness of Mary Lincoln. By Jason Emerson. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007. xvi, 255 pp. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8093-2771-3.)

The alleged madness of Mary Todd Lincoln, the role of her son Robert Todd Lincoln, and the trial that led to her commitment in 1875, have long intrigued historians and others. Was Mary truly mad? What led her son to inaugurate commitment proceedings? Was he motivated by an altruistic desire to ensure her safety and well-being? Or was she the victim of a male chauvinist son embarrassed by her unseemly behavior and fearful that she would squander her estate? Historians have given a variety of answers to these questions, largely because of incomplete surviving sources. The discovery of Robert Lincoln's personal documentary record of the affair in his bedroom closet in Vermont in 1975 only strengthened protagonists on both sides.

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