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December 1860, and much a to-do was made over Mary Todd Lincoln's shopping trip in New York City.

It didn't hurt that her husband had just been elected president of the United States.

Mary did not hang back from picking out whatever she wanted,

according to one of her biographers.

Merchants were quite happy to extend credit to the future Mrs. President, and it was an

undeniably thrilling experience for her, the thawning welcome of the city's leading citizens,

powerful, wealthy, sophisticated New Yorkers. Since that time,

if people talk about Mary Todd Lincoln at all, they talk about the shopping. In her first

years, his first lady, Mary Todd Lincoln set out redecorating the White House.

And she had $20,000 in those days that Congress had allocated for the task.

And she purchased an extensive array of furniture, velvet hasics, ornate washstands,

patent spring mattresses, and intricate French satin-de-lane fabrics,

sulfurino and gold dinner service, adorned with the United States emblem, and a 700-piece

set of Bohemian cut glass. The report simply filled the newspapers. A Washington merchant sent in a bill for 300 pairs of gloves ordered in four months.

A New York department store noted that she bought furs, silks, laces, jewelry, and $300, and spent $3,000 for earrings in a pin, $5,000 for a shawl.

Except it probably didn't happen. Newspapers started reporting more shopping

than Mrs. Lincoln was even doing. A.T. Stewart's New York department store would have been one of

the top destination. Alexander Turney Stewart's retail empire begins with a modest dry goods store in New York in 1823.

You're going to hear the term in the Ark of Commerce series a lot, dry goods.

And what does it mean?

And I mean, the easiest way to say it is they're not wet goods, right?

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