Raised on a plantation, Mary was intimately familiar with slavery. She disliked it, but she did not think much about its end until after becoming First Lady. Sumner often discussed emancipation with her. She also learned more about the horrors of slavery from her Black dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley recalled that Sumner was a “a gentleman that Mrs. Lincoln very much admired.” Probably with his encouragement, Mary befriended the abolitionist Jane Grey Swisshelm, who further influenced her. By 1864, Mary considered herself to be a fierce abolitionist and often pushed her husband to do
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