Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth

Download or read book Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth written by and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1998-09-01 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Georger Armstrong Custer’s death in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Big Horn left Elizabeth Bacon Custer a thirty-four-year-old widow who was deeply in debt. By the time she died fifty-seven years later she had achieved economic security, recognition as an author and lecturer, and the respect of numerous public figures. She had built the Custer legend, an idealized image of her husband as a brilliant military commander and a family man without personal failings. In Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth, Shirley A. Leckie explores the life of "Libbie," a frontier army wife who willingly adhered to the social and religious restrictions of her day, yet used her authority as model wife and widow to influence events and ideology far beyond the private sphere.