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Mourning Abraham Lincoln

This exhibit explores the power of black cloth as part of public and private displays of bereavement at the White House. Between 1841 and 1963, eight American presidents died while in office. By examining the fabrics used to decorate the White House for their funerals, as well as the mourning fashions of their spouses, one can track displays of grief through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and observe the mourning traditions that were either preserved or discarded to meet the needs of a growing, modernizing nation.

Abraham Lincoln
Died on April 15, 1865

As the first United States president to be assassinated, Abraham Lincoln’s death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth shocked the country. His funeral was a highly solemn affair, yet the pomp and circumstance was unprecedented. The sheer amount of black fabric decorating the White House symbolized the great grief of Lincoln’s supporters—the East Room “was draped with crape and black cloth, relieved only here and there by white flowers and green leaves. The catafalque [the platform that supported the coffin]...was about fifteen feet high…and covered with a domed canopy of black cloth which was supported by four pillars, and was lined beneath with fluted white silk.” The columns of the North Portico were wrapped in black. Like his predecessors, Lincoln’s coffin was placed on a draped funeral car pulled by white horses, but his was the first to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The catafalque that supported Lincoln’s coffin in the Rotunda is still used for State Funerals today. His body was then taken to Illinois by a train covered in lengths of black cloth which stopped in ten cities along the way so that more Americans than ever could participate in mourning the president.

Six weeks after the assassination, Mary Lincoln emerged from seclusion, dressed in all black, a heavy veil covering her features, to depart the White House for good. It was not the first time Mrs. Lincoln had worn mourning at the White House; her young son Willie died there in 1862. She chose to stay in mourning clothing for the rest of her life. Doing so put the former first lady in deep financial straits—she was already $70,000 in debt to various stores when she left the White House. Buying a new mourning wardrobe with matching black accessories—including underwear—was expensive, but her position in society depended on her ability to adhere to correct mourning dress etiquette: proper mourning wear was such an important part of an upper-class woman's wardrobe that she risked social ostracism if she failed to conform to the rigid dress rituals surrounding bereavement.

Gallery

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    Mary Todd Lincoln in Mourning Attire

    Date: ca. 1865-1882
    Creator: J. Ward & Son
    Medium: Photograph

    This image shows Mary Lincoln in mourning, her veil lifted back to show her face, as was customary etiquette for widows when not outdoors or in public spaces. She does not appear to be in what was called “deep” or “first” mourning, the earliest phase of mourning that lasted one year and one day. Although rules dictating appropriate mourning attire were complex and confusing by the mid-nineteenth century, with different sources offering conflicting rules, this period generally required black accessories, plain, heavy veils, and dresses made with lusterless fabrics like crape or bombazine—a dense fabric made of silk and wool. Mrs. Lincoln’s white cuffs and collar, embellished bonnet, and the absence of swaths of crinkled crape on her black gown suggest she is in “second” or “third” mourning, both of which required significantly less quantities of the fabrics specifically used for mourning.
    Library of Congress

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    Mary Todd Lincoln's Mourning Fan

    Date: ca. 1865
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Wood, sequins, silk

    This mourning fan with moiré—a type of shimmering silk—trimmed with sequins in dot, star, flower, and leaf designs, and set on black carved wood sticks belonged to First Lady Mary Lincoln. The sparkle of the sequins and the lustrous silk leaves in light shades of gray or purple suggest this accessory was purchased after Mrs. Lincoln concluded her year-long period of first mourning.
    Chicago Historical Society

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    "Spirit Photograph" of Abraham and Mary Lincoln

    Date: 1872
    Creator: William H. Mumler
    Medium: Photograph

    The photographer W.H. Mumler, who claimed to be able to take photographs of deceased people’s ghosts, wrote of Mrs. Lincoln visiting his Boston studio in 1872. The former first lady gave a pseudonym and wore a crape veil “so thick it was impossible to distinguish a single feature of her face.” She refused to remove her veil until a moment before the photograph was taken. Mumler then imposed an image of Abraham Lincoln over the photograph of Mrs. Lincoln. Additionally, Mumler’s wife told the grieving former first lady that she had convened with the spirit of Mrs. Lincoln’s most recently deceased son, Tad. Mumler recounted that Mrs. Lincoln cried “tears of joy that she had again found her loved ones, and apparently anxious to learn, if possible, how long before she could join them in their spirit home.” The photo shows Mrs. Lincoln’s dress and bonnet decorated with tucks or ruffles of dark fabric, possibly mourning crape.
    Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library/Bequest of Evert Jansen Wendell

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    Cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana - Widow and Daughters, in Full Mourning, Carrying Flowers and Wreaths to Adorn the Graves of Their Relatives Killed in the War

    Date: April 1863
    Creator: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper
    Medium: Engraving

    This image shows how women and girls in first mourning would look in public; their veils would usually be lowered over their faces. In 1857, the fashion magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine hinted at the burden this placed on women with this wry advice for widows: “[Her] veil, then, is of double crape; and no matter what the state of the atmosphere may be, woe to her if [a stickler for etiquette] should see her raise it before the proscribed twelve months have passed. She may breathe comfortably after that, if she chooses, or go on blinding and stifling herself three or five years, if she chooses.” The artist may have drawn two of the women with their veils thrown back, against custom, to depict their facial expressions clearly.
    Mouseion Archives/Alamy Stock Photo

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    Lincoln's Funeral in the East Room, April 19, 1865

    Date: May 6, 1868
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Engraving

    President Abraham Lincoln's funeral in the East Room was depicted three years after the president’s death, and shows the catafalque and windows draped in black cloth. First Lady Mary Lincoln was added to the scene by the artist, although she did not attend the East Room funeral. The artist represented her in first mourning—she wears entirely black clothes and a long veil over her hair and face.
    Harper's Weekly

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    The Grand Review at Washington May 23, 1865: The Glorious Army of the Republic Passing the Head Stand

    Date: May 23, 1865
    Creator: Casimir Bohn
    Medium: Lithograph

    In the background of this lithograph, the columns of the North Portico are depicted, still wrapped in mourning crape over a month after President Lincoln’s death.
    Library of Congress

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    The White House Draped in Mourning

    Date: April 15 - May 22, 1865
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Stereograph

    In the corner of this image, the mourning fabric wrapped around the North Portico columns can be seen, as well as streamers of black cloth decorating the North Door entrance and flanking windows.
    White House Collection/White House Historical Association

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