Welcome to the History Tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello and welcome to the show, This is Beckett. Today we are going to go into the wayback

machine, all the way back to 2016 and our coverage of Elizabeth Keckley. Because something

very exciting is happening this month long, long ago. When it was still warm outside, we

sent to our nation's capital to record some segments for the history channels new three

episode documentary about Abraham Lincoln. Since we had covered Mary Todd Lincoln and we

thought that since Elizabeth Keckley might not have the name recognition that Mary Todd

Lincoln does that we would bring her story back to you today. In addition, don't forget

that we did cover Mary Todd Lincoln in two episodes and links to her shows will be found

at thehistorychicks.com. We will send you notices on our assorted social media platforms. The

second we see ourselves on the screen. Very exciting.

A quick warning before we begin. If you're listening with children, you might want to listen

to this episode by yourself first. While we're not explicit, exactly we do feature some

mature subjects. We will leave you to decide for yourself. Just wanted to give you a heads

up and now on with the show.

Elizabeth Hobbes was born in the month of February 1818. The daughter of an enslaved woman

named Aggie Hobbes and her owner, Armistead Burl in Denwitty County, Virginia. Yes, already

in that first sentence we encounter some uncomfortable truths. Here's another. Mama herself was

a mixed race and had likely been the product of another such union. Now, willing or not

consent or not with such power in one of the hands, there could never really be consent.

That is another dark layer of the peculiar institution of slavery that we're going to

unfortunately have to get into a little bit later also.

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