The truth of Mary Lincoln, wife of 16th president of the United States Abraham Lincoln, is revealed in a new book that will be discussed Friday.

Stacy McDermott, the assistant director and associate editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, will be speaking about her latest book “Mary Lincoln: Southern Girl, Northern Woman” at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the 1895 Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

McDermott said the book has 200 pages, and the target audiences are undergraduate students and the general public.

She said she covers how women of that time period lived and debunks the myths of the wife of Abraham Lincoln.

“I have been studying the life of Mary Lincoln for over 20 years, and what people know about her is much aligned,” McDermott said. “The book is focused on her point of view; I try to capture who she was and her human experience.”

She said a lot of myths exist about Mary Lincoln, one example being her name.

“There are 10 common myths about her, one being that she went by the name ‘Mary Todd Lincoln.’  She was born with the last name Todd, but once she got married she just referred to herself as Mary Lincoln,” McDermott said.

Another popular myth she has debunked is that the marriage between Mary Lincoln and her husband was bad.

“Mary and Abraham Lincoln had a human marriage. Yes, they had their ups and downs, but so do most marriages,” she said. “In fact, they bonded over politics; they were both obsessed over politics.”

She said Mary Lincoln keep up to date with politics like most women in that time did, attending speeches and reading literature.

McDermott said the purpose of her book is to give readers a working knowledge about the myths that surround the name of Mary Lincoln, how she lived during that time period and how women just like her lived and learned.

Dan Hagen, a journalism professor who organized this lecture, said a question-and-answer session and book signing would follow the lecture.

The book is currently available for sale at the University Bookstore and will be available for purchase at the lecture.

Stephanie White can be reached at 581-2812 or at sewhite2@eiu.edu.