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- Title
Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided (film).
- Authors
Holden, Charles J.
- Abstract
The article reviews the documentary motion picture, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided. Taking its place among the growing number of documentaries dealing with the late U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War, Abraham and Mary Lincoln, appears to have two related goals. First, the film wants to further the effort to humanize Abraham Lincoln, noting that the man Mary Lincoln knew and loved and mourned has faded into myth. The film's second goal is to then argue that while the Lincolns reached the White House as partners, personal tragedy and the onset of the Civil War divided the couple. The first goal works much better than the second. The documentary adds little new to the life of Abraham Lincoln, but it performs a much needed service by telling Mary Lincoln's story more completely. Too often Mary Lincoln gets caricatured in the Abraham Lincoln literature as being crazy, annoying, or some combination of the two. There is no question that Mary Lincoln, like her husband, suffered from depression. Her depression was exacerbated by their son's death in 1862 and of course by Abraham Lincoln's murder in 1865. After 1865, grief and delusion took over until she finally died a sad and lonely death in 1882. But by taking the viewer carefully through Mary Todd's early years as the daughter of a wealthy Kentucky slave-owner, and then as the young wife of Abraham Lincoln, she emerges as a much more sympathetic and engaging figure.
- Subjects
ABRAHAM &; Mary Lincoln (Film); DOCUMENTARY films; PRESIDENTS of the United States
- Publication
Film & History (03603695), 2004, Vol 34, Issue 1, p76
- ISSN
0360-3695
- Publication type
Film Review
- DOI
10.1353/flm.2004.0019