Read Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Online
Authors: Rae Katherine Eighmey
Two web sources yielded key information about William Johnson. Ronald Reitveld's article can be found on Abraham Lincoln Online and Michael Burlingame's article on
President Lincoln's Cottage Blog
, October 31, 2007.
As to oysters, Mark Kurlansky (2006) and Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell (1823) expressed the same strategy for keeping oysters alive. Wayne Temple (1997) related the stories of Lincoln preferring his oysters cooked and serving fried oysters.
I found the details of Lincoln's New York experiences in Harold Holzer's reporting of
Lincoln at Cooper Union
(2004).
Julia Taft Bayne's charming history of the time she and her brothers spent in the White House playing with Willie and Tad Lincoln gave me the descriptions I needed to develop a child's view of life in the White House.
For the inaugural journey, Victor Searcher (1960) detailed the trip and the only meals that were documented. Two
New York Times
articles offered views of the Astor Hotel: Christopher Gray's “Where Lincoln Tossed and Turned,” September 24, 2009, and the anonymous “How We Dine,” January 1, 1859. I read both articles online at the
Times
article archive.
Mary Lincoln's cousin Elizabeth Todd Grimsley relayed not only some of the events, but Mary's care and concern for her husband during her “Six Months in the White House” in the
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
(October 1926âJanuary 1927).
British journalist Sir William Russell described a White House reception on page 64 of the first volume of his published diary.
Lydia Barker Tederick's “A Look at the White House Kitchens” from
White House History
, Collection 4, no. 20 (2010), offered valuable information on the below-stairs kitchens. The website Mr. Lincoln's White House detailed the employees. Mrs. Frances Seward's letter is quoted from Goodwin (2005) on page 405.
I discovered
Bohn's Hand-Book of Washington
by Charles Lanman (1861) listed in an online auction of Lincoln and Civil War ephemera. When my not-so-high bid won, I was delighted to discover that this prewar tourist guide described not only the streets and sights, but also the cultural practices of the White House. It was just the thing I needed to guide me through Lincoln's Washington. I found the mounds of food description in David Herbert Donald (1995), page 336.
I could not have written about Lincoln's years in the White House without visiting the Lincoln Cottage and I am indebted to director Erin Carlson Mast for her generous support. She and her staff provided copies from their document collection, answered questions, and read the manuscript in progress. Matthew Pinsker (2003) and Elizabeth Smith Brownstein (2005) provided additional information about the Lincoln's time in this treasured retreat.
I relied on four writers' personal reminisces of Lincoln as they saw him in a relaxed setting: William Crook's descriptions were edited by Margarita Spalding Gerry in
Through Five Administrations
(1910); Mrs. Anna Byers-Jennings, in Victoria Radford's
Meeting Mr. Lincoln
(1998); Allan Thorndike Rice (1886), pages 418â19; and reporter Noah Brooks in P. J. Staudenraus's
Mr. Lincoln's Washington
(1967), pages 186â87. I found the description of the army bakery on pages 139â41 of Staudenraus.
Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Phillip Kundhart, Jr., wrote of Abraham Lincoln's final journey home in
Twenty Days
(1965). The pictures and descriptions of the communities' actions helped me bring this work to its poignant ending. Mary Lincoln's final days are conveyed in Ruth Painter Randall (1953).
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