A Tour of the Lincoln Home with Curator Susan Haake (Part 2)

well I think it's time now Susan for us to head upstairs alright let's go upstairs Susan were now on upstairs were in Lincoln's bedroom but I wanted to ask you a couple questions about our trip upstairs mm-hmm and I noticed the steps seemed to be a little bit higher than code today is that right they are there was no code back then of course so they they fit the space but they're kind of Lincoln sized agreed they are a little taller than what we're used to so maybe Abraham Lincoln sighs but not Mary Lincoln's definitely not Mary Lincoln sighs no she may have had some issues especially with her big skirts okay the other thing I wanted to ask about there is some space right at the top of the stairs there I guess we decided to call that the sitting area but it seems like there's a potential might be wasted space but I bet they didn't waste it they did not waste that space that is a good sitting area for Mary she did a lot of sewing there based on the pins and needles and thread we found in the floor it was also a chance for her to kind of keep an eye on the boys a lot of times they'd be playing out on the street in front of the house and this looks out onto that street so kind of child care and sewing and as we're in this room now I'm amazed by how high the ceilings are is this higher than the first floor this is this is about a foot taller these are closer to 12 feet the ones downstairs are 10 and a half or so partially for the architectural style to make it look right on the outside but also some practicality the heat you know heat rises so in summer it was a lot cooler if you had a tall ceiling the heat could go up to the top maybe keep it a little cooler down here where it her day was well speaking of the heat I noticed we've got some nice windows here but the venetian blinds was not what I was expecting to see when I came in here the venetian blinds show up in in 18 several 1860 photos these are the only windows they show up in so because this was a guest room maybe they were trying to provide a little something extra for their guests it gives you some ventilation but also some privacy helps a little bit keep the bugs out but there were no screens so probably not real effective on the bug situation but very stylish venetian blinds have been around since the 1600s there in the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed about the same color at one point is from what I know but yeah these were these were just a little bit of a little stylish extra this was the color at the time then I would think so it's hard to tell obviously the pictures don't show you the color but there was a mention of green blinds now we're not sure sometimes blinds could refer to the shutters outside as well so we're not sure but we decided we would hedge our bets and make both of them the same color green and I notice the wallpaper is at an original design it's a period design we're not exactly sure what would have been in this room this is something that would have been very popular at the time if there is a little bit of red in it most people can't see that because it is so small but it was yeah there's something that was very popular at the time yeah the red are very tiny dots it kind of blends it looks kind of brownish in terms it does it does where was the wallpaper manufactured at that time I believe the wallpaper at that time this might have been made up in New York it's a screen printing process certainly it was available really really nice wallpapers were made in France or China we know that some of the wallpaper like in Lincoln's bedroom was made in France this were not assure of once you turn around and tell us a little bit about the bed the bed is actually our only Lincoln bed in the house it did belong to the Lincoln's it's a an earlier style so this might have been something they purchased shortly after they moved in here it's a little short for mr. Lincoln he may have had to sleep a little crossways it's only about seven feet from end to end so that doesn't give you a lot of space but it's called the sleigh bed it has a really nice veneer of mahogany on it it's a really good piece it's a nice piece when you say it's going dad was that a bed that he had before he got married probably not he was living with friends or renting it renting out rooms and so he probably didn't need to have any kind of major furniture pieces so this was probably something that they bought once they moved into the house and peeking underneath the bed yes can you pull that out for us sure it's heavy yes that is a chamber pot that is something at every room bedroom at least had to have if you didn't want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night outside which is the regular bathroom location or if you were sick or for whatever reason we had a chamber pot tucked under the bed that would have been the job of the hired girl then the next morning to empty it probably not her favorite job okay it makes us appreciate indoor plumbing now doesn't it very much so and speaking of that what do we have over here on the stand as well okay this was basically your indoor restroom over here in the corner it has things like your pitcher and basin for water a mirror of course if you need to be shaving we do have some some razors over here toothbrush this is kind of your sink area I guess would have poured water from the pitcher into the basin would you use that to to wash up and you say I see the mirror there so the gentleman could shave every morning they could if they needed to and sometimes I didn't how often would mr. Lincoln and other people of the time gone to a barber shop perhaps and gotten a shave that's a good question as far as we know mr. Lincoln never did he would have shaved it himself but I suppose there were some gentlemen that would go once a day there might have been some that went just for special occasions okay and of course it was until about the time he was elected president and decided to get the beard right correct he had gotten a letter from a young lady she was 11 years old in upstate New York and she this is before the election and she said that that may be a beard would make him more handsome and then the ladies could tease their husbands and their friends to vote for him because of course lady still couldn't vote mr. Lincoln wrote back and he thanked her for the advice but he said maybe he would would wait he didn't necessarily want to trade a beard for a vote but obviously he then must have changed his mind and and grew the beard but only after the election okay well you standing next to the fireplace but it isn't a fireplace or is it yeah or was it well it's it's one of those things that the mid Victorians like to you know they always like to have a little bit of extra Flair let's say this was never a fireplace there was a chimney here but there was never a fireplace they did install a stove but it was so entrenched fashion that you had converted your fireplaces to stoves that even though this was never a fireplace they built a mantel around it just to give it that finished look tell me about the mantel then okay the mid Victorians were very much into kind of making things have a little bit more Flair than they would have normally so this was never actually a fireplace there was a chimney here to attach a stove to but there was never actually a big mantel around it but fashion was so entrenched that you had converted your fireplaces into stove that even though this didn't have one they put a fireplace around it to give it a kind of a finished look so and then speaking of finishes this is actually plain old pine wood but it had been foger until look like oh so they they kind of jazz it up a little bit too with the seashells on the top something that would have been there during the Lincoln period yes those do have an affiliation with the Lincoln family probably a gift from someone that we have a few more downstairs we don't have a lot of information but they do have some connection maybe well that makes me wonder did either the Lincoln's ever actually see the ocean before they went to Washington DC I would imagine Abraham did because he went to New York City he did and probably while he was in New Orleans he would have seen the Gulf of Mexico but Mary I don't know that she would have she was in New York for a while so she may have caught a glimpse of it yeah yeah and the picture picture is a another period piece it's kind of a sweet little picture the little boy sitting on the the sideboard there with a towel draped over apparently he has torn his only pair of pants and mother is fixing it the title of it is his only pair so it's he looks a little dejected okay now let's move to these two pieces of four anything it looks like it's horse hair again yes horse hair is very popular it's a good solid sturdy fabric as well gives a little bit of an elegant Sheen to it but the fainting couch here did belong to the Lincoln's whether or not Mary needed to use it if she felt a little faint I don't know but it was certainly a handy thing a lady could recline on it while still in her corset because she wasn't laying flat and she wasn't sitting upright so she could relax a little bit that leads to an obvious couple of questions here in terms of fainting obviously it sounds like they the ladies were fainting more then than they do now is there a reason for that the corsets if you had particularly tight lacing on your corset it could cut off a little bit of air flow to your lungs although tight tight lacing wasn't very popular anymore but it's still that's a lot of pressure what the ladies did for the man the ladies did for their fashions exactly it also they're helpful because you're hanging a lot of things off of you so you have kind of a steel cage around your middle and then you've got all this stuff hanging off of it like skirts and petticoats so it did actually help a little bit I can see Abraham sitting here laying here reading would this been a good place for him to read um possibly although because this was the guest room it would have been mostly cut off from you know everyday use they would have shut the door and kept it kind of cleaned dark I mean the boys wouldn't have been allowed in here much probably not much you know the boys wouldn't if they would have had their own places to go okay and let's get over here to the dresser because there's some very interesting items not just the dresser itself but some things on the on the top here as well sure the dresser did belong to the Lincoln's again it's a little bit of an older piece so this might have been something they bought about the same time as they bought the bed they have similar veneer on them and similar styles so something maybe a first early house purchase as far as the items on the top they represent kind of things that that either they would have provided for guests like a little water pitcher and water glass a small hand mirror pincushion and some of the things might have been more things guests would have brought like a watch fob or the the patriotic sash if they were coming to do some sort of political event tell me more about the watch father wasn't what I expected the watch fob is actually made out of human hair that's been braided this was a very popular hobby again for ladies they would as they would brush their hair out they would save it no nothing cannibalistic or morbid about it necessarily but they would just save their hair and then they would twist it into thread and weave it or braid it or crochet with it or whatever and make it as a memento maybe if for a dear departed family member whatever but it's yeah I can just imagine kids today saying it's kind of yeah it's not one of my favorite things either they do have a bad tendency to attract bugs so hair wreaths and hair jewelry let's move to the Lincoln Bedroom then Susan we are now in the Lincoln Bedroom and Lincoln is in Abraham Lincoln's room and as I understand we're looking out into the in the front of the house here and I know there's some unique pieces that you definitely want to talk about here mm-hmm yeah this is Lincoln's bedroom again the nice tall ceilings to go with the architecture outside also probably just to make him feel more comfortable I mean at 64 he needed a lot of space but he was also pretty modest about things so you'll notice that the pieces of furniture in here that did belong to mr. Lincoln are they're nice but they're not elaborate so we do have Lincoln's wardrobe it's a nice solid serviceable piece made out of walnut it does come apart and the top comes off the bottom comes off all four sides and the doors come off so it could be transported if it needed to be and then put together again with pegs we also have his chest of drawers and we're back again to the little bit older style this would have been made probably the late 1840s early 1850s but obviously still a really nice piece not any of his accessories though it's not a suspenders or his bow tie just something that looks a lot like what he would have worn and then in the corner we have his pigeon-holed desk and according to the affadavit this was Lincoln's first desk when he set up business for himself he said it's a little small he probably would have had to wrap his legs around the legs of the desk to sit there with any comfort whatsoever but apparently it was it was something he he used a lot he later brought at home he probably gotten a bigger desk at work he brought it home and as far as we know he worked on it here in the corner there neighbors remember seeing candle light burning in these windows up to midnight 1:00 a.m. a lot of nights so this probably was where it was I mean the windows you've got curtains and shades would they have had shades to be able to pull down like we have today they did they show up in photographs from the 1860s they wouldn't been Sara Lee spring-loaded like we're used to now they would have had a pulley system but they were made out of cotton cambric it's called which is a stiffened cotton but otherwise they work essentially like shades today and I'm intrigued by the hat on the floor there that is an antique hat that is not mr. Lincoln's hat we don't have any of his hats here and of course mr. Lincoln was notorious for putting his papers in his hat so we've distributed that there just to kind of show his habit would you like to make any comments about both the wallpaper and the carpeting my thought is boy do they like things busy they did the the fashion of the time was called harmony through contrast and they certainly achieved that here if you want to count the the Blues as the harmony they do mostly match the wallpaper in here is the original pattern and color now this was reproduced and put in here in 1988 but this is a French wallpaper that mary ordered we think from her brother-in-law stores from the Smiths store and this is what she picked out we have the original pieces tell me about the fireplace and especially the photos that are above the the fireplace this was once again one of those fake fireplace mantles around a stove and again this is the chimney was here it goes down to the front parlor kind of give you the perspective where we are in the house and again faux grain to look like oak just to give it a little bit more Flair the two pictures above the fireplace we're not sure what mr. Lincoln would have had so we've chosen some people that he greatly admired there Henry Clay on the left and Daniel Webster on the right two congressmen that mr. Lincoln greatly admired in fact Henry Clay mr. Lincoln eulogized him after his death never met the man but had studied his his speeches and his legislation and just greatly admired him was also kind of traction when he met Mary Todd and the Anna Todd sisters because they were personal friends of Henry Clay and his family in Lexington Kentucky so mr. Lincoln was kind of drawn to Mary initially because of her knowledge and familiarity with Henry Clay so he's kind of our matchmaker in some ways and they apparently talked about him at length and decided they enjoyed spending some time together so well that is interesting or I should know the answer to this are both these wigs I believe so that's something that I can never remember when exactly they switched politics but I believe yes both of those would have been considered wigs okay and the bed this one looks a little bit longer it is this is a nice seven foot long bed the posts are also another seven feet tall so it fills the space very nicely it's it's similar to what mr. Lincoln had we had photographs of mr. Lincoln's bed but it has not survived because it was purchased by the people that rented the home after the Lincoln's left for Washington and when they moved out in 1869 they took mr. Lincoln's bed along with some of the other furniture they had purchased from the Lincoln's and moved to Chicago unfortunately two years later in 1871 during the Chicago Fire their house burned so a lot of the Lincoln furniture burned in the Chicago Fire including mr. Lincoln's original bed I want to think about having that available today well it likes it we do have some photographs of what has been marked as Lincoln's bed it's a pretty massive bed with the four posts again yeah and the bedspread bedspread this is actually a reproduction of again something that would have been popular at the time it's a coverlet it's reversible you notice here at the top it does reverse it's actually made the same way the carpet is made on looms that they're called jacquard looms they were originally developed in France and they can make these wonderful patterns you can change colors on them and a lot of times you would have purchased your carpet and your coverlets at the same place what do you know about the the pillows that they used at the time most likely would have been goose down or chicken chicken feathers very rarely would they have been filled with any kind of cotton batting or anything like that most likely feathers well we're right here at the doorway to Mary's bedroom so let's head in there all right Susan here we are in Mary's bedroom and I wanted to start this time with the mirror and the dresser and the wash basin all right well again we have a little bathroom area for lack of a better description in Mary's room we have the wash stand with again the picture in the basin and then we have a little foot bath that would have been used for most bathing obviously they didn't have showers and we've never seen any evidence I'm a big tub or anything like that although they're worth of tubs available so this being Mary's personal space she could kind of close off the room and do her whatever she needed to do as far as as bathing hopefully without too many interruptions from boys and hired girls and everybody else we do have her commode here in the corner and I'm sure she's not happy that I always pointed out but this is a really nice piece it is mahogany it's so it's a little bit upscale and it would have you would have taken the lid off there would have been a chamber pot just like everybody else is inside but the fact that it has a little seat makes it a little bit nicer it's also on wheels but I'm not sure why I don't really want to think about that part but when you have to empty it in the morning do you mean you have to reach down and grab the pot and lift it straight up actually the seat also comes off so there is a little bit better access to the chamber pot and again something the hired girl would have done most mornings if she had to as I recall though you said that they didn't always have a hired girl correct I should yes when the hired girl was here that would have been her job if it there was no hired girl that would have been Mary's job even the lady of the house has to do the dirty work sometimes wouldn't trust the boys to do it I would I would not trust the boys to do it now and how about the picture that's above the the commode this is made out of human hair again hair that ladies would have combed out not or even cut off sometimes you would cut off a lock and give it to somebody if they were moving away or this was something that you did do when people had died as a commemoration and then woven them into little flowers and created kind of a almost of a corsage effect there it's a kind of stove we've had in the other rooms and then we've got it looks like a sewing table yes now you'll notice back here Mary did not get the mantel effect no real no one would have been in this room so she didn't need to kind of impress anybody or show off anything so it was just the very practical stove so as far as we know that's all she had there's no sign of a mantel anyplace in here but behind it we do have her sewing table this did belong to Mary again lots of pins and needles found in the floor some threads buttons beads things like that the Northern Light is is decent for sewing not as good as western or southern but if she was sitting in here and you know needed to do some quick fixes or something this would have been a good spot for it what is it that's clamped right on the edge of the of the table this is a sewing aid we call it the hemming bird I'm sure that's something similar they would have called a little pun but basically it is a clamp and you squeeze the tail feathers together the beak opens you can put your fabric in there and it just gives you an extra hand to kind of keep the fabric taut while you're sewing and would that be a chair that she would be sitting in is that really does have a connection to Mary Lincoln it's a small chair would have been very nice for especially a lady of her height a little bit shorter lady you'll notice it's very low and it does rock but rakh very far so she could have had some rocking motion she was maybe soothing a baby but not enough that she would have been improper and shown her ankles and then the dresser the dresser back here did belong to Mary Lincoln as far as we know this is something she would have brought back brought with her from Kentucky it is a Kentucky made item we've confirmed that with Kentucky Historical Society they have another one made by a carpenter from the Lexington area it's again a little bit older style so this has probably made about 1818 1820 Mary was born in 1818 so this was something that her mother may have actually even purchased for their home in Lexington so she may have kept it for sentimental reasons her mother died when she was very young and and so she may have wanted to keep that just to remind her of her mother it's interesting because those are curved shell or Curt drawers that you've got in there it gives you a sense that maybe they're woodworking skills were better than we would have anticipated even in those early years they were very talented people definitely craftsmen again this is a tiger maple or a burl maple veneer on it which would have been a little more expensive and yeah the curving would have caused it would have needed some skill to create what are the two crystal items on top of the dresser there those are bottles that would have contained perfumes or some sort of scented oils there is no deodorant there's no speed stick at the time and so people could get very aromatic shall we say so lady might have used something to kind of combat that as well well we saw her foot bath here and when you're talking about this how often would a family during that era have a avid bath let's put it that way that's Saturday night bath night that we've all heard of is very much the case hopefully the boys would have gotten as more often because they would have gotten dirtier more often but generally once a week maybe twice a week what did they use for the bathtub then if you didn't have a foot bath sometimes you had a little bit larger copper boiler that was similar to the shape and style of a foot bath just maybe a little taller and and bigger so you could have more water in it but yeah it was generally foot bath or hand washing you're not getting very well washed when you're using something like that if I guess not I'm assuming a lye soap is what they would have used sometimes lye soap we don't know that castile soap was available which would have been a little bit less harsh than lye and it's still affordable and then if you were really lucky you had either in English or a French milled soap which would have been very nice something mostly ladies would have used I would have had maybe a lavender scent to it well you're standing right next to Mary's bed tell us about her bed this is a bed these are called Jenny Lind style beds still very popular today we don't know exactly what Mary had so this is just a kind of a guess but obviously a smaller bed more fitting a lady and she would have used this maybe she had a headache she did suffer from migraines so this could have been a space she could have come and and rested if she needed to or if she and mr. Lincoln had very different schedules of mr. Lincoln wanted to stay up late and work on a speech or a legal case he could work in his room Mary could come in here and rest in here get up in the morning and make breakfast or whatever so no comments on their marriage this was just a more of a practicality that Mary might have needed her own space sometimes I'm looking at the one candlestick and the dresser yes and reminded that that was their only light source at night as far as we know there's no record of the Lincoln's buying kerosene gas lighting didn't come to this house until the 8th seventies 1880s electricity wasn't here until the early 1900s so yeah lots and lots of candles before we leave the bed we have to ask you about the dresses the dress is a period dress something that would have been worn by a younger lady it's very short actually it's only made for a woman who's about 410 411 so it's even too short for mrs. Lincoln but it's made out of an interesting dye this is silk taffeta and to get this beautiful green color that's still a beautiful green like this 150 or more years later they used copper arsenic so and that was an incredibly popular thing to do it's called Sheils green shields like the sporting goods store shields green and it's used in everything from wallpaper to carpet to clothing and it's still being used poison so they discovered that it is it is lethal so it's not used anymore for anything else but rat poison I imagine there's some horrific accidents that occurred because of the material that they were wearing yes if this was something if you were wearing this and you would have had lots of petticoats and chemises and under sleeves and all that underneath it but if you had a cut on your arm and you started sweating and you rested your arm on the skirt of the dress that arsenic would go right into that cut so well ladies suffered for their fashion anything interesting about these pictures that mary has on the wall here the pictures are actually again it's something that a lady would have done is a hobby they are pieces of wallpaper from you know maybe a wallpaper book that were cut out and then placed on black velvet backgrounds so we have some these two lovely demure young ladies we have a very amorous couple over here and back behind me we have a really cute little picture of a young lady passing a note to her bow while her rather portly chaperone looks the other way I confess that I like these much better than the ones that are made out of human hair yes I do too and the Wardrobe we've got in the corner here wardrobe is another antique this one does have a connection to the Lincoln's although it is somewhat tenuous but it is another massive piece it does come apart for transport if necessary okay useful go back to the dress here mm-hmm I'm curious did Mary and her sisters compete fashion wise as far as fashions oh all four of the Todd sisters who were living here at the time probably dressed similarly I don't know that there was a lot of competition maybe a little Elizabeth Edwards was probably the most financially advent it advantageous Lee arrayed I guess but I think all four sisters liked nice clothes but I don't know that they necessarily competed okay maybe she waited until she got to Washington DC when that side of her personality kicked out well yeah Mary did like nice clothing and nice things she just maybe didn't have the money at the time and I don't know that the sisters ever exchanged clothes I looking at their pictures they're similarly sized I think they're probably all about the same height so they may have okay anything over here and I'm looking at the the Hat especially and the book with the levered clasps the these are just items that would have been typical of a lady's twilit we've got a nice little period hat the made out of velvet and artificial flowers would have perched right on the top of her head all that massive hair most ladies never cut their hair so they always had a lot of hair by the time they were grown up the book is actually a photo album a time period photo album we know that that Abraham Lincoln gave Mary Lincoln a photo album at one point during their courtship so that's just kind of referencing that the ladies never cut their hair almost never unless you had some sort of illness and then they would cut it off to kind of keep the fever down they said so by the time you're in your 50s or 60s you could have very long hair I didn't know that however nutrition wasn't as good so you know it didn't grow that long it would break because of you didn't have as good a nutrition name it necessarily okay and one other question here and that's the transom yes transoms were here they were installed by the Lincoln's why they are side to side and not up and down we've never been able to figure out but they are very functional they would have you could shut your doors but still get some privacy and so get some privacy but still get some air then through the transoms get some light through the the back hallway here for Mary's room because it is kind of a dark room but there are only on the back hallway rooms yeah I've never seen a transom that opens that way that's what surprises know a builder's choice from what we can tell let's move to the boys bedroom all right Susan the boys bedroom for boys yes I know there was a tragedy during this timeframe but I'm wondering how even three boys fit into a bedroom like this well three boys didn't use this bedroom at one time so when they added on the second floor of the house this was Robert's room he got it all to himself he was the oldest and then his second brother Eddie the second the second boy had died when he was four downstairs and what had been their their bedroom downstairs Willie and tad were born after Eddie died so they're only ever three boys in the house at one time and when they added on the second floor like I said Robert got this room Willie and tad the two youngest slept in a trundle bed in Mary Lincoln's room that pulled out from under her bed but by 1860 which is all the way we had the house now Robert was away at school so Willie and tad shared this room they slept in the same bed together as far as we know yes you'll notice there is no source of heat up here not even a stove in this room partially because there's no chimney to attach to but also partially because Willie and tad being rambunctious boys of ten and seven years old I don't know that that would have been a good idea to have open flame in their room good point well let's start with the things that are over here in this dresser here the books especially I'm wondering what the boys would have been reading these were some books that were available at the time period an ABC book probably more for tad the passionate child is an interesting very moralistic tale about a little girl who who disobeyed her mother and her mother tied her feet and her hands together and set her on a stool as punishment something that probably wouldn't go so well these days but again designed to teach we've got books on some of the early math algebra geometry and biographies as well those probably would have been more for Willie what's especially interesting though is to see all the things that boys would have been playing with the time yes so we have marbles we have dominoes we've got chess and checkers toy soldiers some of the marbles were found in the backyard in the Lincoln home not all of these but something unfortunately the the dull ones the clay that would have been just extras at the end of the day for a Potter they just would make some little marbles they would play the marbles in the same way that when we were growing up we would have done exactly they just would have been clay instead of glass not sure kids play marbles I don't know that they do how about the checkerboard checkerboard checkers and chess very popular at the time we've talked about downstairs mr. Lincoln knew how to play chess was probably teaching his boys we've set up a kind of a different game a typical boys thing you've got Toy Soldiers battling each other across the checkerboard that's just you know being silly so those are not chess pieces and my guess was they were just toy soldiers they're just toy soldiers they would have been led at the time these are not but they're just their pop metal but they would have been led at the time looks like they even have some artillery their artillery and Calvary cavalry foot soldiers got the whole set and what's on this table then that's intriguing me we've got dominoes we've got some carved wooden animals that they could have played with the tale itself did belong to the Lincoln's the the legs unfortunately the supports broke frequently so they were often repaired in fact the last time mr. Lincoln gave it to the gentleman to repair it he just said to keep it they were getting ready to move to Washington so it's stayed here in Springfield and there's a poll on the corner yes a fishing pole in the corner the town branch wasn't too far away just a few blocks south of here apparently that was pretty good fishing at the time so I'm sure the boys did some fishing mr. Lincoln maybe even went along with them when he could get a chance get away now something we missed talking about when we were downstairs in the dining room was the game table but since we're talking about the boys and playing games I figure that's a good place to bring that back into the the sequence sure there is a table down in the dining room that the top of it turns and flips open to create a square so there's more space to play games and that space underneath the tabletop where you could store chess pieces checker pieces backgammon if you played backgammon probably not any dice games that would have been considered a form of gambling and we don't know that the Lincoln's ever did anything like that but certainly certain board games does that mean then the boys were playing some games down in the dining room as well they may have been dining room or in the sitting room they could have moved into the city where they have the kind of boys that had the run of the neighborhood they did apparently they were kind of the ringleaders of there there neighborhood gang so to speak there were lots of boys and girls to play with one of the games that they could play together with the girls would be hoop and stick where you take hoops and you try to run them down the side of the street as long as you could took a lot of skill I can't do it but that was something that both boys and girls could play together as well as chess and checkers to some extent and we do know also that the boys occasionally went over to their dad's law office and we're rambunctious there as well they were their stories of them throwing ink wells all over the room like baseballs baseball was was a fairly new game at the time but very popular it's balls and sticks I mean you know boys boys like anything with balls and sticks it works well truth to the rumor that one of the boys even relieved himself into his dad's stove in the law office I've heard that story I never I don't know the proof of that one or what the citation is but that's an interesting story and seems seems in character the kind of thing that parents would talk about with friends definitely in a few laughs exasperation I'm sure on Mary's part exactly and then we've got very different kind of pictures on the wall here we do again we don't know what the Lincoln's would have had in here so these are just popular prints from the time period of course George Washington always a popular subject for anything especially for for a young boy to look up to and then we do have a humorous little print over here called double fishing and it shows a gentleman who's asleep while he's fishing and some mischievous boys probably not much different from Willie and tad are fishing for his toupee and they have successfully pulled it off of his head well last item here boy we got to talk a little bit about the bed this is again a Jenny Lind style bed we don't know what the Lincoln boys would have used but this would have been pretty typical of something that especially for children a smaller bed again like Mary Lincoln's nice but not over-the-top fancy and then we also have a coverlet on it again reversible like the others this one actually that was made in 1853 and you can see in the corner blocks it has the actual date woven into it and is just a period bed this is a period bed as well yes okay and the other thing that I would ask about is the hanger that is in front here what would that be useful that would be for towels because you have kind of your little wash area you need towels and with there being two boys that probably we're hopefully some extra towels in here for them to use okay well let's move on move into the hired girls room Susan the major amour the hired hands room is how you refer to it when can you tell me about this room this room is kind of an interesting room and that it's over an open back porch and the unheated pantry so it's always cold in here in the winter even with central heating this would have been a storage room when they didn't have a hired girl it would have been something that the hired girl would have actually enjoyed though even though it's cold and it's small and it's cramped and probably full of a lot of extra things from the Lincoln family because she would have been in most cases she was a young immigrant 14 15 years old as the average from Ireland or Portugal are the two most prominent groups that were coming because she had it to herself so she didn't have to share this with three or four siblings she had a room to herself so that's not a bad deal for her 14 or 15 years old mm-hmm not living with her parents correct and is that typical that they would be leaving the home by that time very typical especially if the family needed the money the girls were expected to earn their keep as well as the boys and this was one of the best ways to do it because not only was she earning money she's also learning how to run a household for herself so a lot of the girls would leave here and either go to a bigger house for more money or would go get married 16:17 was a pretty average age to get married back then how much were they getting paid we estimate about a dollar fifty a week plus room and board so that would have bought you a nice pair of boots nice pair of boots was about a dollar fifty or but most of the time if you were 14 or 15 it was going back to your family because you in theory you didn't have any needs you had your room you had your board if you were lucky they may have even provided you with clothing at the house you were working is the wooden floor original wooden floor is original it's the only one in the house probably because this was a storeroom for most of its life so that it didn't didn't get banged up it didn't really need to be replaced when the rest of the house was needing replacement flooring so this this is the original flooring and it's the original color to some paint was found under the floorboards so it's kept out of this barn red affect anything specific about the furnishings that you'd like to talk about the rocker does have a marry connection it's a little there's a couple of spots that we can't quite entirely prove that's where it was but there is a connection to Mary Lincoln she may have used this one often to rock her babies to sleep we also have the base of this trunk set up the story is that it was made by Thomas Lincoln unfortunately mr. Lincoln's Abraham Lincoln's father Thomas didn't sign any of his work so we don't have absolute proof it's similar to other things that have been documented as being made by him so maybe here's maybe the toughest question for you mm-hmm did Mary run an efficient house as far as we can tell yes she didn't have a lot of extra money but it seems like everything that she was purchasing was well used they used a lot of furniture as you can see for many many years kind of past its prime in some cases even the Wardrobe is also a link in piece you can tell it's a very very plain wardrobe but if you need something to store your Linens in that's it works just fine and then the picture that's in the back wall the picture in the back wall again a period piece as part of her training the young hired girl probably would have been expected to attend church and read the Bible if she could read and so part of her training would also have been her moralistic training so the lady of the house would have been expected to to teach her good morals and this is something that would help with that it's called the morning prayer we're not going to go into this room but I know there is a small space for stories you know today we have so much of our room is committed to stories because we have so much stuff was that not necessarily a problem at that time they didn't have as much stuff this is true maybe out of season clothes could have been put there we're assuming like the cradle that the boys used when they were young would have been stored there afterwards because it didn't get taken to a store and given away until 1860 when they were leaving so we're assuming that tad had been out of the cradle for a while so they could have stored that in the little storeroom it's not a very big space so it would have had wouldn't have had a lot of things in it did they have a basement in this house they had a root cellar would have been maybe four feet deep or so for literally storing vegetables any kind of canned items that needed to be cool but not necessarily refrigerated again a storage area but it would have been a dirt floor so you wouldn't have stored furniture or clothing or things like that it would always been kind of damp well that leads me to believe that maybe there was problems with mice there were always problems with mice yes in fact we have a mouse hole on the floor underneath this window and it it goes it's the original floorboards it's the original baseboard so that's an original mouse hole as well okay well let's move downstairs speaking of food let's go to the kitchen bet when we were upstairs I asked you Mary was an efficient housekeeper was she a good cook she became one when she first was married she was used to a considerably easier life she had grown up with slaves who had done all the work and the cooking and moving into her sister Elizabeth's house her sister Elizabeth also had servants so Mary didn't have to really learn how to cook apparently though she was determined to to do that she got herself a cookbook that's still up in the Presidential Museum and Library Eliza lesbian Eliza Leslie's cookbook and she taught herself how to cook mr. Lincoln was not a particular he was not a foodie he was not particularly so he was also very bad about getting home on time for supper so sometimes the ruined meals were not Mary's fault they were more mr. Lincoln's fault but she became pretty good at basic what would consider Midwestern cooking corned beef and cabbage venison stew was apparently a favorite based on the bones we found in the previous takes t-bone steaks chicken pork so basic Midwestern cooking how about the stove what can you tell us about the stove stove belonged to Mary Lincoln she purchased it in June of 1862 Lincoln had been nominated for the presidency probably anticipating that she was going to be doing a lot of entertaining so this was a very fence well very fancy stove I should say a decent stove for 1860 it costs probably about $20 by the time it was shipped from Buffalo New York efficient efficient for the time there's a an oven and back the wood would have gone in here in the front actually obviously a cooktop and some areas in front for heating and warming things like the irons when you needed them for ironing was it good for baking breads I guess it was okay certainly better than an open fireplace so like I said the the door back here with the the oak leaves on it would open up on both sighs there's room for a couple of trays or sub loaf pans this would have been a huge improvement wouldn't it from what they had just a generation before yes the original open fireplace was on this back wall Mary when she had the wall put in between the dining room in the kitchen went right through the fireplace her sister said she ruined a very good cooking fireplace in the process but Mary got a stove out of the deal and I think she preferred the stove it was a much more technologically more reliable source of heat there are some other things I wanted to ask you about the broom and this contraption broom still you know your basic broom works the same way as it does now the item next to it though is a rug a beater when you have rugs like this you would hollowed pull all the nails out this is a laborious task pull all the nails out every spring basically take it out to the clothesline hang the strips of carp because they're only about 36 inches wide and then you'd beat the dust out of them with these rug feeders and there are different styles this is a very basic type and then when it was done you would roll up all of the carpets and put them away for the summer because they attracted bugs moths and things like that so you would maybe put down a straw mat or just leave it the wood floor underneath the table that's behind you here mm-hmm I see there is a cutting board right it's not a bit it's rather limited in the science for with you got a lot of things on table as they do now for preparing food right tell me about some of the items we've got there well we have a couple of different things that you know would have been typical for an Midwestern housewife we've got eggs we've got some root vegetables she could have picked up in that root cellar we talked about the door is just outside the being outside door we've got some fish maybe that the boys would have caught or mr. Lincoln would have caught spring peas from either the garden or the market the market was just a block away from Mary so she could have easily walked up there and gotten the peas that morning she wasn't much of a gardener so that's probably more likely than having them in garden of course bread you would bake every day or two to have that in the house you can't just run to the store obviously and then different items that would have been useful spices maybe it's some sort of items stored in here a mortar and pestle and then you've got the china cabinet and wondering if there was everyday China and China that you used when you have guests in there were there are different types that we found in the Privy what we're showing here is kind of an everyday China very basic again another older style this would have been popular in the 1840s and 50s a little bit more elegant pieces the the plain white actually would be considered more elegant the pieces that we show the terrines down on the bottom shelf and behind you there is that a dry sink and there's a dry sink it is lined with a galvanized tin there is a hole at the bottom where a plug a cork would have gone so that when you've got done washing your dishes you would have had a bucket underneath could pull the plug and on the water could run into the bucket underneath and go out the door and throw it in the backyard was there any ice that they would have had they could have had ice there would have been an ice box in the pantry away from the heat of the stove so you would have had to step across the back porch to the pantry there were several ice houses in Springfield with as far as we know Sangamon River ice so they could have gotten some yes what are the items in here have we not discussed if you wanted to mention I will mention under this we don't know if this is what Mary would have had but this is a very practical piece this this table not only is a work surface but this this drawer underneath tilts out it's lined with tin and it would have been used for storing flour supposedly it holds a 25 pound bag of flour I've never tested it because I don't want to pull all the flour out but again just something very practical if you are making bread almost every day okay let's go and check the pantry and then the backyard well it can do that we are obviously outside now Susan yes and I was just talking about going to the pantry where is the pantry pantry is this little room off the back porch the open back porch it has shelving in it maybe a small ice box that would have had things that were kept cold but they didn't need to store a lot of food because the market was just a block away on what was capital was called Market Streets hose it was right there and the box that's on the porch itself that is a wood box based on a photograph taken of the back porch in 1865 so it may have actually been the Tilton's wood box but it's a basic style for a wood box what I'm curious about here is it looks like it's wasted space why would they have this open area in this porch right here this could have been a very easy workspace for them they could have maybe set a table up out here if they were doing something particularly messy as far as preparing food the boys the younger boys may have taken their baths out here mr. Lincoln in fact there's a story that mr. Lincoln was giving tad a bath and tad got away from him he was on the back porch and tag got away from him and took off down the street just naked as a jaybird and mr. Lincoln was just laughing and he chased after him and and the neighbors all saw it and they were laughing as well Mary of course was mortified but mr. Lincoln thought it was all good fun one thing we didn't mention on the inside was any source of water well obviously we're looking at the water source now yes we've got two different sources we've got a well over here that would have been fresh water for drinking and cooking and then we have a cistern over here and you can see how it ties into the guttering system on the house and that would have been used for cleaning okay so when they were filling up their wash basins which one would they prefer so for washing clothes they would have used the sister in water Susan you mentioned when you were inside that Mary was not much of a gardener was there any garden at all if there was a garden may have been over here in this area we don't know this is one area that hasn't been extensively excavated by archaeologists so she may have had a smell they originally did have a wash house here that was about twelve by twelve that they would have used to keep the mess and the heat out of the kitchen in the summer especially may have used it on occasion if they were making a lot of food it didn't have a fireplace in it so they could have heated up water and other items but mostly this would have been just a backyard when I'm especially curious about is if they had any kind of livestock or any kind of animals at all would they have had chickens in the back they probably would have had a few chickens almost everybody did you would have had a small chicken coop maybe inside the barn back here and they would have just been allowed to roam the yard essentially and that's why you have the fences around the yards they may have had a pig once in a while they definitely had a cow and then they had horses the horses were did they have a buggy they had a they had a buggy and a carriage at one point mr. Lincoln would have used it's probably the buggy to go on when he was doing the the 8th Judicial Circuit so the other one would have been used for the whole family would go places so we've got chickens possibly a pig a cow and a horse that's a lot of livestock for a small lot like this it is but it was very typical the time period pretty much everybody had that kind of livestock in their house like so the chickens would have been allowed to roam free in the backyard with a coop maybe in the barn the pig and the cow the pigs mostly roamed the streets you knew which one was your pig based on the notches of the ears everybody had their own individual one the cow and the horses if the horses weren't being used that day the cow and the horses would have been taken over but over the 10th Street tracks which were there then and are still there now to kind of the community pasture land that was beyond that to the east take him out there in the morning let them graze all day and then go back and get him at night and bring him into the barn would that be something the boys would be expected to do possibly the boys might have done that mr. Lincoln did that frequently the higher girl would maybe have to do it or if they had a neighbor boy maybe was going over to get he could bring theirs back as well was it a milk cow it was a milk cow yes Susan with pig roam in the street with the cows down the block but they all come back here eventually with chickens roaming around the yard it must have been a pretty aromatic place to be living at that time it was but that's what everyone was used to you had an urban farm stead basically everywhere everyone had the chickens the cows the horses and it was all in the streets and you had outhouses and it was just yeah it was just a smelly time was there somebody's job to go and police up the droppings in the street not in the street there were night soil men that was our official title that would clean out your privy for a fairly astronomical fee obviously but that was about the only thing you would worry about you used the manure for Gardens for your plants and bushes and things like that so no it was it was just messy we're using wood sidewalks but that would have been what they used at the time yes most likely oak that's what these are and the set up back here is set up based on this 1865 photograph that we have not sure if they were gonna use this little area the triangle area and the center for anything it has been an herb garden in the past but that doesn't mean that's what the Lincoln's would have had was it also wood sidewalk in the front earth because now it's brick it was each homeowner was required to have some sort of front sidewalk some sort of front access it was up to you to do whatever you wanted most people would do board walks those are cheaper the Lincoln's chose to have a brick kind of Plaza put in maybe just a little bit fancier or I don't know if mr. Lincoln was anticipating a lot of gatherings on his front porch for political means but it worked out well that way and then I'm wondering about the streets and I assumed they didn't have a gutter system at that time not really I mean the streets were they were mud or dirt maybe a little bit of gravel but and they were domed so the rain would run off to the sides and they had wooden not really gutters but wouldn't retaining curbs so there would have been kind of a guttering system naturally was there a place then and when most people have when you come in the house you can wipe the mud off your boots very much so when you if you remember back when we first came in the house there was a chair next to the whole tree and that would have been so you could sit down take off your muddy boots hopefully you who brought some house slippers with you put the slippers on and if there was a servant the servants job would have been to take those muddy boots and clean them up before you left so you could leave with nice clean boots okay well now we saved the best toe last the outhouse the outhouse that's in its original location that is not the original outhouse unfortunately there were three different locations in the backyard where we have found privy pits as they're called that is it's the last one that had anything from the 1860s in it so that's the last place that the Lincoln's used it this particular outhouse belonged to some farmers in Oakland Illinois and they were friends of the Lincoln's mr. Lincoln frequently stopped by that house when he was riding the circuit so he may have used it in at some point it is a super deluxe model as I call it though it does have three seats small medium and large I don't know that you necessarily wanted company when you were in there but if you did you could I guess do you ever get this question well what did they use for toilet paper we do all the time there was no Sears catalog at the time so you use leaves rags and corn cobs again thank God for indoor plumbing yes indeed Susan you've done a wonderful job of giving us insights into the Lincoln home what it was like when they actually lived here what I wanted to finish today is with what happened to the house afterwards and let me ask you this when the Lincoln's moved to Washington DC you know that even if you're re-elected you're going to be eventually leaving the White House where they planning to come back here they were planning to come back to Springfield they rented the house out to the Tilton family Ellucian Tilton was the head of the Great Western Railroad which was the Depot that mr. Lincoln left from in 1861 over on 10th Street so it's convenient his house and his workspace are nice and close and they lived here until 1869 obviously they would have moved out if the Lincoln's hadn't been reelected and obviously things changed but Marian Robert decided to keep renting the house out Mary eventually went to Europe Robert got married and started a family and he was living in Chicago so there were no Lincoln's coming back here at the time Mary's three sisters still lived here so she still had a connection to Springfield but she had too many memories and she wasn't willing to come back to Springfield so they rented the house out in 1869 the Tilton's moved to Chicago and they continued to rent it out the most notorious renter being a civil war veteran big Lincoln fan Lincoln collector of different items mostly Civil War based but he got the job here lived upstairs and moved a collection of things into the parlors and then he would have you know people coming in and and looking at his stuff and he would charge them a quarter but he felt he was doing a service for the family so he didn't feel he needed to pay rent Robert Lincoln was in his 30s by then he was he was a grown man and a lawyer and he disagreed and had the law on his side so he kicked out that renter named Osborn Oldroyd and that's when he decided to deed it over to the state of Illinois he was the last Lincoln at that point Mary and her the other boys had already died so Robert being the sole heir he made the decision to transfer it to the state of Illinois for $1 one of the best deals estate ever got and the state took over ownership and set up the first floor as basically a living history museum like we have now with that same renter then living upstairs rent-free so Robert didn't quite succeed in his is a idea to kick that renter out he moved back in and what happened he attended on this already but what happened to the furnishings a lot of the furnishings the Lincoln sold they had a sale right before they left for Washington just practical they figured they would probably be buying new furniture when they came back as befits a former president in first lady so they put a lot of things up for sale they put some things in storage with neighbors or gave them to family and friends so a lot of the furniture that was here in Springfield did come back but most of the furniture was sold and they said a good chunk of it was burned in the Chicago Fire we're getting in the time of the year when there's lots of tour groups and how many how many people generally visit the home each year we have about 300,000 275 to 300 thousand people go through the home each year more people that just go through the neighborhood maybe go into the visitor center see the films walk around the neighborhood so about 275 to 300 thousand through the house every year well it speaks to the eternal interest that the American public in fact the world has an Abraham Lincoln allow you to finish with this how important do you think this home is to America's legacy Oh golly um well I think it's Lincoln as' is such an integral and such an important part of American and world history his whole focus once he got to the presidency was holding the Union together which he did succeed in doing and this house is where he started formulating those ideas for how he was going to succeed as a president but this is also a good play you can take him down off the pedestal and make him more real to you this is the this is the familiar part this is this is Lincoln with his shirt sleeves rolled up rustling on the floor and playing with a cat you know in his lap or you know helping Mary put the dishes away after supper and Mary's taking care of the boys when they're sick this is this is the part that everyone can relate to this is the family man this isn't Lincoln Memorial Lincoln okay again you've done a great job telling us this story and giving us insights and Abraham Lincoln thank you very much thank you

Channel: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Views: 8,316

Rating: 4.8076925 out of 5

Keywords: Abraham Lincoln home, Mary Lincoln, the Todd sisters, sisters; Robert Lincoln, Tadd Lincoln, life during the mid-19th century in America, National Park Service, decorative arts during mid-19th century America, sanitation during 19th century, Lincoln home life, French influences

Id: 708lYD1lZ_Q

Length: 69min 9sec (4149 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 11 2019