Welcome to Significant Others, a podcast that takes a look at the less familiar side of history.

I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and in this episode we look a little more closely at the first lady

everyone loves to hate. She makes it easy, but there's more to her story than morning clothes

and overspending. In fact, it could be argued that without her, America as we know it would not exist.

This time, on Significant Others, meet Mary Lincoln.

It's easy to list the ways in which Mary Lincoln was not an asset to her husband.

She flagrantly racked up debt while the country was in the throes of civil war.

She engaged in bribery and influence peddling. She once demanded that a friend give her the ribbon

off her own hat at a party on the White House lawn, and she disinvited a relative from her son's

birthday party because she said the child was not good looking enough. She was emotionally

needy and unstable, petty and jealous, volatile and violent. But she is a more complex character

than a list like this can reveal. Would Abraham Lincoln still have become president if he had married

someone other than Mary Todd? Possibly. But could he have done worse? When it comes to his career,

yes, because in the scheme of Lincoln's political life, the only person more ambitious for him than

himself was his wife. Mary Todd got the taste for politics or politicians at home in Kentucky.

Her father was a prominent member of the Wig party, the short-lived liberal group that

sprang up in opposition to Andrew Jackson and the fiscally conservative Democrats,

and out of whose ashes the Republican party would soon rise. Mary's childhood home was often

the sight of parties for congressmen, governors, and foreign dignitaries. To Mary, it was all very

glamorous and exciting, and she was captivated by the talk around the table. She became in the words

of her sisters of violent little wig. In addition, she swore she would only marry a man she could

fall in love with, and she could only fall in love with a man who would be president. She turned

...