Move To The Capital
In mid-1860, Keckley intended to work as a seamstress in Washington, but lacked the money to pay for the required license as a free black to remain in the city for more than 30 days. Keckley appealed to her patrons, and a Ms. Ringold used her connection to Mayor James G. Berret to petition for a license for Keckley. Berret granted it to her free of charge.
Keckly worked to establish clients and gain enough work to support herself. Commissions for dresses were steadily coming in, but a dress that she completed for Mrs. Robert E. Lee sparked her business's rapid growth. Keckley found most of her work with society women by word-of-mouth recommendations.
Margaret McLean of Maryland, introduced by Varina Davis, requested a dress from Keckley and said she needed it urgently. Keckley declined, as she had heavy order commitments. Mrs. McLean offered to introduce Keckley to "the people in the White House", the newly elected president Abraham Lincoln and his wife. Keckley finished the dress for McLean, who arranged a meeting the following week for her with Mrs. Lincoln.
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth Keckley
Famous quotes containing the words move and/or capital:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern.... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)