Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

An autobiographical narrative, Behind the Scenes traces Elizabeth Keckley's life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln's administration. It was quite controversial at the time of its release—an uncompromising work that transgressed Victorian boundaries between public and private life, and lines of race, gender, and society.