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Mary Lincoln was at the center of politics at a time when society’s expectations for women were rigid and circumscribed. The product of Southern aristocracy, she grew up among an influential clan of politicians and elites who founded Lexington, Kentucky. Mary’s early exposure to the male-dominated world of politics instilled in her a keen political acumen and a fierce ambition. Proclaiming as a child that she was destined to become the wife of a president, she played a crucial role in boosting her husband to greatness.

But her hopes for a triumphant experience at the pinnacle of power were lost to the Civil War and unfathomable family tragedies. Still, Mary persevered. She steadfastly supported the Union war effort, visited encampments, tended to wounded soldiers, and generously donated money and gifts to refugees from slavery. She was an unconventional, larger-than-life character who dressed too ostentatiously, grieved too publicly, suffered a shopping addiction, and seemed unable or unwilling to corral her emotions, her temper, and her opinions. She made enemies—influential men who wrote her story for her, often unfairly. After Lincoln was assassinated, she was all but abandoned by the nation he had given his life to defend and preserve.

Former Washington Post writer and columnist Lois Romano rectifies the tortured legacy of Mary Todd Lincoln, who was failed at nearly every turn in her widowhood—by her family, by her government, by medical professionals ill-equipped to diagnose her mental illness, and finally, by history. Romano draws on hundreds of archives, letters, and memoirs to provide the most complete portrait—of not simply of an inconvenient widow, but of a brilliant and flawed woman, who possessed uncommon tenacity in the face of extraordinary adversity and personal torment, and helped launch one of America’s greatest presidents.

Lois Romano is a long-time national political journalist who was an editor, columnist, and reporter for The Washington Post and POLITICO, and who has covered numerous first ladies.

This event is for Filson members only.

Abigail Bailey Maupin and Gregory Maupin bring you a parlor-sized adaptation of the holiday classic. The words are straight from Charles Dickens, and the storytelling style is exactly what belongs in front of an old and massive fireplace: voices, shadows, and music. Run time is approximately one hour. 

 If you're a theatergoer in Louisville, the faces and voices of Abigail Bailey Maupin and Gregory Maupin are probably known to you: they've performed in thirty-plus shows with Kentucky Shakespeare; they made up all kinds of nonsense for their own company, Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble, for ten years in the back rooms of the Rudyard Kipling and the Bard's Town; between the two of them they've narrated over 400 audiobooks; and among other appearances at Actors Theatre of Louisville over the years, Abigail was Renfield in the most recent production of Dracula and Greg was the whole live cast of a solo Christmas Carol. As Rannygazoo, they've also played their weird, delightful, forgotten century-old ragtag ukulele songs to weird, delightful people in bars, theaters, and house concerts in Louisville, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and so forth...not to mention at the Filson and at Oxmoor, where they're excited to play again, this time in fancy Victorian wear. 

Surrounded by retail development just off busy Shelbyville Road, stands a two-story log cabin that dates back to before Kentucky became a state.  William Christian moved his family and enslaved people to this land in 1785 and had constructed three log cabins, one of which still stands today.  Shirley Harmon, curator at Oxmoor Farm, will share the history of this cabin from the years when the Christian family inhabited it in the 1780s, to the Arterburn Family who occupied it throughout the 19th century, to the Bullitt family who has cared for it since the 1930s. Drew Layman and Stephen Moore from Old Wood Building will discuss their work on the Christian Cabin restoration.