Ruth Randall Explained

Ruth Painter Randall (1892-1971) was an American biographer who specialized in the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln and their immediate family. She also wrote young adult books about early American women.

Early life and education

Ruth Painter was born in 1892 in Salem, Virginia. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1913 from Roanoke College and a master's degree from Indiana University in English in 1914. Painter married James G. Randall on August 21, 1917.^[1]

Career as a historian

In the 1940s, Randall started assisting her husband with research for his biography about Abraham Lincoln, titled Lincoln the President: From Springfield to Gettysburg. In the end, she wrote two chapters for the book, which was published in 1945. Shortly thereafter, she started working on her own book about Mary Todd Lincoln titled Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage. James died in 1953.^[1]

Throughout the 1950s, Randall researched and wrote about the Lincoln family, specifically about the marriage between Lincoln and Mary Todd (The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln, 1957) and the Lincoln's children (Lincoln's Sons, 1955). Eventually, she began writing about other historical subjects, including a biography about Elmer Ellsworth and a 1960s series of children's books about historical women, specifically Mary Todd Lincoln, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, and Jessie Benton Frémont.^[1]

Later life and legacy

Randall died on January 22, 1971, at Burnham City Hospital in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.^[2]

Randall's papers and correspondence are held in the collection of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.^[1] Additional papers are held in the Library of Congress.^[3]

Selected works

• Mary Lincoln : Biography of a Marriage. Boston: Little, Brown & Company (1953).
• Lincoln's Sons. Boston: Little, Brown & Company (1955).
• I, Mary: A Biography of the Girl Who Married Abraham Lincoln. Boston: Little Brown (1959).
• Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: a biography of Lincoln's friend and first hero of the Civil War. Boston: Little Brown (1960).
• I, Varina: a Biography of the Girl Who Married Jefferson Davis and Became the First Lady of the South. Boston: Little Brown (1962)
• I, Jessie. Boston: Little Brown (1963).
• I, Elizabeth: A Biography of the Girl Who Married General George Armstrong Custer of "Custer's Last Stand". Boston: Little Brown (1966)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Randall, Ruth Painter. Papers, 1954-1965 Illinois History and Lincoln Collections . Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, Manuscript Collections . University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . 3 October 2018 . en.
2. "Ruth Randall, Authority on Lincoln, Dies." Chicago Tribune 23 Jan 1971: Page 126. Print.
3. Web site: J.G. Randall and Ruth Painter Randall papers, 1779-1970 . The Library of Congress . 3 October 2018 . en.