Behind the Scenes

Keckley, Elizabeth, 1818-1907Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 322K words
Chapters: 33

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth KeckleyAuthor: Keckley, Elizabeth, 1818-1907,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Mar 31, 2008

Editor's review

Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley is a memoir classified on Project Gutenberg under United States Civil War period history. Its value lies not in a macro narrative of battles, but in presenting, from a participant's perspective, the interweaving of daily life, personal relationships, and individual fate. Having served in a role of service and companionship, the author writes with the texture of close observation: details are concrete, the tone restrained, and the text recounts personal experience while reflecting the inequalities and complex emotions embedded in the social structure of the era. As a public-domain ebook, it is well suited as a primary source for understanding nineteenth-century American society, and also for reading alongside more formal historical accounts. Its strength is an intimate narrative with a strong sense of scene, drawing readers easily into the living spaces of the time; readers should note that its viewpoints and language bear the marks of their era, and should read it with historical awareness today, not taking individual judgments as conclusive. Reading contexts include thematic reading for history enthusiasts, writers studying memoir technique, or book-club discussions on the credibility and limits of eyewitness narrative.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History readers interested in daily social life during the United States Civil War
Readers who enjoy memoirs, eyewitness narratives, and nonfiction writing
Students who need primary-source material to support understanding of nineteenth-century American society
Book-club members willing to read historical texts with a critical eye

Not a good fit for

War-history readers who want only battle narratives and analysis of military strategy
Rigorous researchers expecting systematic scholarly annotation and contemporary critical introductions
Casual readers impatient with the memoir genre and period-specific language

Reading tips

First learn the basic timeline of the United States Civil War, then read the memoir to avoid confusing the relationships among figures.
While reading, mark details of daily life, dress, and etiquette—these are the book's most textured passages.
Compare the author's personal narrative with the historical background of the same period, distinguishing eyewitness feeling from later conclusions.
After finishing, write a short review focused on how the memoir shapes its characters, as practice in critical reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Does this book mainly cover historical events or personal experience?

It is classified as United States Civil War period history, but the work itself is a memoir narrative whose focus is the author's personal experience and observations, not a chronicle of battles. Readers can treat it as a text offering close observation of life in that era, while using background material to understand the historical context it involves.

What background knowledge is needed before reading?

It helps to know the rough start and end dates of the United States Civil War, the basic relationship between North and South, and the general conditions of social class and service work at the time. With this framework, the relationships among figures and the everyday scenes will be easier to place. Deep scholarly works are not necessary; a concise historical overview is enough to establish bearings.

The book's views carry the limitations of their era; how should readers treat them?

Understand the text in the context of the era in which it was written, and distinguish between what the author said then and what is historically understood today. You can note passages that make you uncomfortable or raise questions as you read, then check background material on the social conditions of the time. This avoids judging the past by present standards without treating the book's judgments as fact.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Keckley, Elizabeth, 1818-1907 Author · American · 1818–1907

Elizabeth Keckley (Keckley, Elizabeth, 1818–1907) was an African American seamstress and writer. Born into slavery, she later supported herself by her craft and is remembered today chiefly for a single memoir. Her best-known work, Behind the Scenes, draws on her own experience to describe her career as a dressmaker in Washington and her time making clothes for, and moving among, Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. The book offers a close-up view of daily life in the White House and touches on the social restrictions placed on Black people and women of the period; controversial on publication and long neglected, it has come to be valued as a significant text for the study of nineteenth-century African American women's life writing and the social landscape around the Civil War. Public sources are limited, and details of her life survive mainly through the memoir itself and scattered records. Scholars tend to focus on how she wrote plainly and directly about her circumstances, and on the place and reappraisal of the work within American autobiographical literature.