Most are women under financial pressure, and some come from privileged backgrounds: Past relief recipients include wives of former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto and Levittown developer WilliamLevitt.
The cast, uniformly superb, includes Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, Hal Holbrook as Lincoln adviser Preston Blair, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, David Strathairn as William Seward and James Spader as political operative W.N.