Scarf Purchased by Mary Todd Lincoln

Scarf Purchased by Mary Todd Lincoln - Inventory Number: POL 365

"This lace scarf was bought by Mrs. Lincoln at A.T. Stewart's in New York City and the Pres.

Abraham Lincoln found it too expensive for she had to return it."

"My Grandmother bought it. She was Anna Von Velder and her maiden name was Mrs.

Christian Yutte."

Mrs. Frank Cheever Nichols

68 Beacon St.

Boston Mass.

There is reference to Mary's extravagant spending habits at places such as A.T. Stewart's department store in New York on Page 310 in Margaret Leech's book "Reveille in Washington 1860 - 1865"

Additionally, Mary Todd's extravagant spending, especially at the beginning of the war, was the subject of much newspaper comment at the time. Here is a summary from Epstein, the Lincolns: Portrait of a marriage. Note the reference to A.T. Stewart and the black shawls.

"The first week Mrs. Lincoln was in New York she spent $7,991 that can be accounted for. (Multiply that figure by fifteen to approximate today's dollar value.) On Monday she bought a carriage for $900. On Thursday she went to Haughwout's Importers and Decorators at Broadway and Broome Street, where she ordered "one fine porcelain

herself with the initial M.L. in place of the seal. Each set cost $1,195, but the government paid for both. The salesman Ste tach it: the lied the sier piece de control purple and doubte tried one it porchain

encouraged her to spend - extending infinite credit, flattering the lady on her good taste - and the more Mrs. Lincoln acquired, the more she was wanted. In the same store, she purchased a dessert service for $837 and a breakfast and tea service for another $759. Eventually she would have the old gold flatware of the White House replated at a cost of $1,783. But not this week, when she would also be buying some personal items including two black point lace shawls for $650 apiece, and a camel's hair cashmere shawl for $1,000.00 both from A.T. Stewart's fabulous "Marble Palace" on Broadway, Mrs, Lincoln's favorite retailer."

Here is a transcript of a newspaper column from May 1861. This was published in a Philadelphia paper, but seems to pick up a story from an NYC paper that mentions Stewart and the shawls.

"Mrs. President Lincoln, as the ladies call her, was shopping to a considerable extent in this city in the early part of the week. She has evidently no comprehension that Jeff Davis will make good his threat to occupy the White House in July for she is expending thousands and thousands of dollars for articles of luxurious taste in the household that it would be very preposterous for her to use out in her rural home in Illinois. The silver plate from Houghwout, and the china services from the same... will admirably suit the mulberry-colored livery of her footmen... and possibly may help very nicely to get rid of the apparently exhaustless $25,000 a year salary of Mr. Lincoln. So may the elegant black point lace shawls she bought at Stewart's for $650 each, and the real camel's hair cashmere at $1,000... Let me do Mrs. Lincoln the justice to say that she was dreadfully importuned to enter in to the extravagances of various kinds; but I heard her, myself, observe at Stewart's that she could not afford it, and was "determined to be very economical." One thousand dollars for a shawl was quite high as her sense of economy would permit her to go in these excessive hard times!"

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