Piper G. Huguley

Elizabeth Keckly touched the lives of many famous figures of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnet, Francis Grimke, Dred Scott, Varina Davis, W.E.B. DuBois, among others. However, her work as the modiste, or dressmaker, to Mary Todd Lincoln is the primary way history knows her, but she was remarkably more than just a modiste. An entrepreneur, activist, educator, author, and philanthropist, Keckly stands astride the nineteenth century like the Colossus of Rhodes in America. “The Modest Modiste” is a biographical historical fiction novel that properly recognizes the unsung Black woman of history that is Elizabeth Keckly.