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Hard To Be Won: A Theatrical Interpretation Of Elizabeth Keckly’S “Behind The Scenes, Or Thirty Years A Slave And Four Years In The White House”, Selah Degering
Hard To Be Won: A Theatrical Interpretation Of Elizabeth Keckly’S “Behind The Scenes, Or Thirty Years A Slave And Four Years In The White House”, Selah Degering
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Hard to Be Won is a musical adaptation of a memoir by Elizabeth Keckly, a black woman of considerable success who earned the confidence of Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, in war-torn 1860s America. My adaptation of this story showcases a new perspective: that of Elizabeth herself. Despite her memoir narrating these events in her own voice, Elizabeth as an individual has been largely ignored or misrepresented in modern, idealistic, and racially ignorant retellings and criticism. Elizabeth as a token black person in the narrative of the Lincoln household cannot stand as representation of this woman’s legacy when she …