Old Darby with Joan by his side
You’ve often regarded wi’ wonder
He’s dropsical, she is sore-ey’ d
Yet they’re ever uneasy asunder
Together they totter about
Or sit in the sun at the door
And at night when old Darby’s pot’s out
His Joan will not smoak a whiff more….
32. Smith, John Adams, vol. 2, p. 939.
33. Charles W. Akers, Abigail Adams: An American Woman (Boston, 1980), p. 145.
34. Mitchell, New Letters, p. 91.
35. Mitchell, New Letters, p. 257.
36. Abigail Adams, Letters of Mrs. Adams (Cambridge, 1840), p. 434.
37. Smith, John Adams, vol. 2, p. 1052.
38. Bess Furman, White House Profile (New York, 1951), p. 36.
39. Katharine Anthony, Dolly Madison: Her Life and Times (Garden City, 1949), p. 82.
40. Irving Brant, James Madison, 6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1941–1961), vol. 3, p. 406.
41. Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York, 1906), p. 58.
42. Gaillard Hunt, “The First Inaugural Ball,” Century, vol. 64 (March 1905), p. 754.
43. Hunt, “First Inaugural Ball,” p. 757.
44. Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams (New York, 1951), p. 58.
45. Nobel E. Cunningham, “The Diary of Frances Few, 1805–09,” Journal of Southern History, vol. 29, no. 3 (1969), p. 349.
46. Gaillard Hunt, “Mrs. Madison’s First Drawing Room,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, vol. 121 (June 1910), p. 143.
47. Hunt, “Mrs. Madison’s First Drawing Room,” p. 143.
48. Allen C. Clark, Life and Letters of Dolly Madison (Washington, D.C., 1914), p. 114.
49. Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of the National Intelligencer (Boston, 1871), p. 84.
50. Clark, Life and Letters, p. 143, quotes Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Court Circles of the Republic (Hartford, 1869).
51. Patricia Bell, “Dolly Madison: A Personality Profile,” American History Illustrated, vol. 4 (1969), p. 17.
52. Cunningham, “Diary of Frances Few,” pp. 351–352.
53. Cunningham, “Diary of Frances Few,” p. 352.
54. Maud Wilder Goodwin, Dolly Madison (New York, 1896), p. 120.
55. Irving Brant, James Madison, vol. 5, p. 288.
56. Clark, Life and Letters, p. 124.
57. Dolly Madison, Memoirs and Letters (Boston, 1886), pp. 76ff.
58. Clark, Life and Letters, p. 147.
59. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 84.
60. Elijah Mills, “Letters of Elijah Hunt Mills,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1st series, vol. 19 (1881–1882), p. 18.
61. Maud Wilder Goodwin, Dolly Madison (New York, 1896), p. 101.
62. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 113.
63. James Herring and J. P. Longacre, eds., National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1852–1867), vol. 3, p. 4.
64. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 91.
65. Clark, Life and Letters, p. 123.
66. Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Destiny (New York, 1971), p. 401.
67. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 89.
68. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, pp. 89ff.
69. Smith, First Forty Years, p. 141.
70. Elijah Mills, Letter of January 6, 1821.
71. George Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor, 3 vols. (Boston, 1876), vol. 1, p. 349.
72. Lucius Wilmerding, Jr., “James Monroe and the Furniture Fund,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2 (April 1960), pp. 133–150.
73. Nevins, ed., Diary of John Quincy Adams, p. 320.
74. Nevins, ed., Diary of John Quincy Adams, pp. 191–192.
75. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 144.
76. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 144.
77. Nevins, ed., Diary of John Quincy Adams, pp. 222–223.
78. Seaton, William Winston Seaton, p. 137.
79. Louisa Catherine Adams, “Diary,” Adams Family Papers, microfilm reel 265, December 6, 1819 to January 8, 1824. The exact date of each entry in Louisa Adams’s diary is not always clearly given.
80. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” reel 265.
81. Nevins, ed., Diary of John Quincy Adams, p. 319 entry for March 31, 1824.
82. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” reel 265.
83. Dolley Madison, Memoirs and Letters, p. 169. Elijah Mills wrote in one of his letters: “It is universal opinion that nothing has ever equalled [Louisa Adams’s] party here, either in brilliancy of preparation or elegance of company.”
84. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” January 8, 1824, reel 265.
85. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” December 13, 1820, reel 265.
86. Decatur, Private Affairs of George Washington, p. 46.
87. Griswold, Republican Court, p. 201: Decatur, Private Affairs, p. 66.
88. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” November 24, 1820, reel 265.
89. George Morgan, The Life of James Monroe (New York, 1921), p. 421.
90. Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journals, vol. 1, p. 349.
91. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” January 1, 1820, reel 265.
92. L. H. Butterfield, “Tending a Dragon-Killer,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 118, no. 2 (1974), p. 173.
93. Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971), vol. 1, p. 13.
94. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” November 6, 1812, reel 264.
95. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” February 7, 1814, reel 264.
96. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” November 27, 1812, reel 264.
97. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” August 14, 1812, reel 264.
98. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” reel 265.
99. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” reel 265.
100. Louisa Adams, “Diary,” reel 265.
101. Wendy Martin, “Editorial on Abigail Adams,” Women’s Studies, vol. 3, no. 1 (1975), pp. 1–3.
102. Linda Kerber, “The Republican Mother: Women in the Enlightenment—An American Perspective,” American Quarterly, vol. 28 (Summer 1976), p. 201. For a discussion of the Philadelphia organization, see Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters (Boston, 1980), p. 179.
103. L. H. Butterfield, ed., Book of Abigail and John (Cambridge, 1975), p. 127.
104. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, p. xv.
105. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, p. 242.
106. Judith Sargent Murray, “Constantia,” The Gleaner, 3 vols. (Boston, 1798), vol. 3, p. 224.
107. American Museum, January 1787, p. 77.
108. Kerber, “Republican Mother,” p. 199.
109. Judges 4:4–24.
110. Charles Parmer, “Close-up of the First Lady,” New York Times Magazine, February 17, 1957, p. 32.
111. Parmer, “Close-up,” p. 32.
112. Parmer, “Close-up,” p. 12.
113. Mss. 1C9698a172 in Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia. Quoted by permission.
114. Parmer, “Close-up,” p. 32.
115. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, p. 146.
116. Akers, Abigail Adams, p. 49. Norton makes the same point about women referring to crops as “mine.” See Liberty’s Daughters, p. 146.
117. Butterfield, Book of Abigail and John, p. 128. In addition to ordinary household problems, Abigail had to handle family emergencies during John’s long absences. When dysentery hit Massachusetts in September 1775, most of her family fell ill, and before the epidemic ended, her brother-in-law, nephew, and mother had all succumbed to it. Raising five children meant that Abigail had to make many decisions on her own, and in the summer of 1776, while John was charting independence for the colonies in Philadelphia, she took her entire family to Boston to be inoculated against smallpox.
The process still carried considerable risk, and the size of her brood meant the ordeal last
ed all summer as one after the other was infected and then healed. Abigail’s youngest son, Charles, had to go through the vaccination process three times before it was successful. For a discussion of her family difficulties, 1775–1776, see Butterfield, Book of Abigail and John, p. 106, and Akers, An American Woman, p. 49.
118. Butterfield, Book of Abigail and John, p. 8.
119. Charles Frances Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail Adams (1875; repr. Freeport, New York, 1970), p. xxiii.
120. Norton, Liberty’s Daughters, p. 184, discusses Martha Jefferson’s letter, which is located at the New-York Historical Society.
121. Esther Singleton, The Story of the White House, 2 vols. (New York, 1907; repr. New York, 1969), pp. 72–73.
122. Charles Flowers McCombs, “Imprisonment of Mme. Lafayette During the Terror,” New York Library Bookmen’s Holiday: Notes and Studies in Tribute to Harry Miller Lydenberg (New York, 1943), pp. 362–394.
123. McCombs, “Imprisonment of Mme. Lafayette,” p. 371.
124. Stuart Gerry Brown, ed., Autobiography of James Monroe (Syracuse, 1959), p. 70.
125. Brown, ed., Autobiography of James Monroe, p. 70.
126. Louisa Adams’s account of her journey from St. Petersburg to Paris was published in Scribner’s, vol. 34, July–December, 1903, pp. 449–464. This appears to be a verbatim transcription of Louisa’s account found on reel 268 of the Adams Family Papers.
127. Scribner’s, p. 463.
128. Washington C. Ford, ed., Writings of John Quincy Adams, 7 vols. (New York, 1915), vol. 5, p. 299.
129. Abigail Adams, Letters of Mrs. Adams, p. 199.
130. Abigail Adams, Letters of Mrs. Adams, pp. 305–306.
131. Charles Frances Adams, Familiar Letters, p. xxiv.
132. Julian Boyd, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols. (Princeton, 1950–1955), vol. 12, p. 624.
133. Freeman, George Washington, vol. 7, p. 173.
134. Benjamin Rush, “Thoughts Upon Female Education,” in Frederick Rudolph, ed., Essays on Education in the Early Republic (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 25–40.
Chapter 2
1. Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society (New York, 1905), p. 296.
2. The extent to which “Jacksonian democracy” was really democratic remains much debated. For some arguments, see Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston, 1945), and Edward Pessen, The Log Cabin Myth (New Haven, 1984).
3. Robert J. Hubbard, “Political and Social Life in Washington during the Administration of President Monroe,” Transaction, vol. 9 (1903), p. 60.
4. Sarah Agnes Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War (New York, 1904), p. 9.
5. Pryor, Reminiscences, p. 9.
6. Katharine Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln (New York, 1928), p. 172. Helm was Mary Lincoln’s niece and she noted that southern women, especially those from Virginia and Maryland, had for many years “held sway [in the capital and] represented a clique of wealth and social position.” Although the author has attempted to examine as many primary materials and as many women’s accounts as possible, most of the information on the years 1829–1869 comes from accounts of presidents, written by men, long after the subjects were dead. The magazine accounts may tell more about the writers than about the subjects.
7. Mary French Caldwell, General Jackson’s Lady (Nashville, 1937), p. 423.
8. James Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (New York, 1860), vol. 3, p. 153.
9. Marquis James, Andrew Jackson: Portrait of a President (New York, 1937), p. 168.
10. Marquis James, Andrew Jackson: Border Captain (New York, 1933), p. 55.
11. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 1, p. 133.
12. James, Andrew Jackson, Border Captain, p. 30.
13. James, Andrew Jackson, Portrait of a President, p. 291.
14. Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of the National Intelligencer (Boston, 1871), p. 132.
15. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 2, p. 650.
16. James, Andrew Jackson, Border Captain, p. 279.
17. James, Andrew Jackson, Border Captain, p. 280.
18. Moore Family Papers, Accession #303, p. 7, of a typescript copy of an undated manuscript, author and location unknown, as noted in letter of Kathleen Jacklin to author, June 3, 1986. The Moore Family Papers include 459 items and are located at the Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca, New York.
19. Caldwell, General Jackson’s Lady, p. 397.
20. James, Andrew Jackson, Portrait of a President, p. 93.
21. Margaret Bassett, Profiles and Portraits of American Presidents and Their Wives (Freeport, 1969), p. 81.
22. David Hackett Fischer, Growing Old in America (New York, 1978), p. 8.
23. Fischer, Growing Old, p. 84.
24. Fischer, Growing Old, pp. 86–87.
25. Alison Lurie, The Language of Clothes (New York, 1981), pp. 62–65.
26. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Boston, 1854), chapter 1, “Economy.”
27. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (London, 1838), vol. 2, pp. 233–240.
28. Richard Rapson, ed., Cult of Youth in Middle Class America (Lexington, 1971), includes an article which reports on 260 books written by foreigners who visited the United States between 1845 and 1920.
29. For a fuller discussion, see Richard L. Rapson, ed., Cult of Youth in Middle Class America.
30. James, Andrew Jackson, Portrait of a President, p. 206.
31. James, Andrew Jackson, Portrait of a President, p. 316. The equally innocuous Sarah Yorke Jackson, who took Emily’s place just months before Andrew’s second term ended, had won the president’s favor with her “sweet” disposition. See James, p. 292.
32. Esther Singleton, The Story of the White House, 2 vols. (New York, 1920; repr. New York, 1969), vol. 1, p. 265.
33. The Inman portrait, part of the White House Collection, is usually exhibited in the Red Room.
34. Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr., “Harriet Lane: Mirror of an Age,” Pennsylvania History, vol. 30 (1963), pp. 213ff. Taylor gives no source on the dedication by the composer, Septimus Winner, and Winner’s biographer, Charles Eugene Claghorn, does not mention the dedication to Harriet Lane.
35. Pryor, Reminiscences, p. 55.
36. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 215.
37. Pryor, Reminiscences, p. 53.
38. Virginia Clay-Clopton, A Belle of the Fifties (New York, 1904), p. 114.
39. Pryor, Reminiscences, p. 39.
40. Pryor, Reminiscences, p. 53.
41. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 219.
42. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 218.
43. Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971), vol. 2, p. 281.
44. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 215.
45. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 219.
46. Taylor, “Harriet Lane,” p. 213.
47. James Thomas Flexner, George Washington and the New Nation (Boston, 1969), p. 100.
48. Peter Shaw, The Character of John Adams (Chapel Hill, 1976), p. 258.
49. Maude Wilder Goodwin, Dolly Madison (New York, 1896), p. 109.
50. Freeman Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe (New York, 1939), p. 324.
51. Bess Furman, White House Profile (New York, 1951), p. 123.
52. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, 2 vols. (Richmond, 1884–1885), vol. 2, p. 361.
53. Helen Stone Peterson, “First Lady at 22,” Virginia Cavalcade (1961–1962), p. 14.
54. Elizabeth Tyler Coleman, Priscilla Cooper Tyler and the American Scene (University of Alabama, 1955), p. 102.
55. Peterson, “First Lady at 22,” p. 15.
56. Coleman, Priscilla Cooper Tyler, p. 89.
57. Peterson, “First Lady at 22,” p. 18.
58. Coleman, Priscilla Cooper Tyler, p. 104.
59. Jessie Benton Frémont, Souvenirs of My Time (Boston, 1887), pp. 99–100.
60. Frémont, Souvenirs
of My Time, p. 99.
61. Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, 1941–1961), vol. 2, p. 24.
62. Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, vol. 2, pp. 171–172.
63. Benjamin Perley Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1886), vol. 1, p. 357.
64. “A ‘Pipe-Dream’ Pipe Story,” Literary Digest, vol. 86 (August 1, 1925), p. 40.
65. “A ‘Pipe-Dream’ Pipe Story,” p. 40.
66. “A ‘Pipe-Dream’ Pipe Story,” p. 42.
67. Laura Langford Holloway, The Ladies of the White House (Philadelphia, 1881), p. 208.
68. Mary Ormsbee Whitton, First First Ladies (1948, New York; repr. Freeport, 1969), p. 242.
69. Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences, vol. 2, p. 385.
70. Whitton, First First Ladies, p. 242, reports that in 1840 when Millard was a U.S. Congressman from New York, his constituents invited Abigail to address them. The author has been unable to verify this and Whitton gives no source.
71. Whitton, First First Ladies, p. 243.
72. F. H. Severance, ed., Millard Fillmore Papers, 2 vols. (Buffalo, 1907), vol. 2, p. 493.
73. Letter to author from Elizabeth F. Abel, Stillwater Town Historian, Stillwater, New York, quotes letter from Millard Fillmore to Abigail Fillmore, April 1, 1850. Letter is in Library at State University of New York at Oswego.
74. Elizabeth Fries Ellett, Court Circles of the Republic (Hartford, 1869), p. 437.
75. Ellett, Court Circles, p. 242.
76. Severance, ed., Fillmore Papers, vol. 2, p. 491.
77. Severance, ed., Fillmore Papers, vol. 2, p. 492.
78. The recent interest in women’s history has resulted in new debate over the impact of industrialization on women’s lives. For one introduction to the issues, see chapter 1 of Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1816–1860 (New York, 1979). See also chapter 3, “Industrial Wage Earners and the Domestic Ideology,” in Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York, 1982). Articles which remain important in understanding the impact of industrialization on women’s lives include: Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly (Summer 1966), pp. 151–174; Mary Beth Norton, “The Paradox of Women’s Sphere,’ “ in Carol Ruth Berkin and Mary Beth Norton, eds., Women of America: A History (Boston, 1979), pp. 139–149; and Gerda Lerner, “The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson, 1800–1840,” Midcontinent American Studies Journal, vol. 10 (Spring 1969), pp. 5–14.
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