79. Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New York, 1973), pp. 204–205.
80. Barbara Berg, The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism (New York, 1978), p. 112.
81. Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America From the Revolution to the Present (New York, 1980), pp. 180ff.
82. Sklar, Catharine Beecher, p. 204, concludes that Beecher’s “basic assumption was that female debility was a sign of some fundamental opposition between the needs of women and many of the conditions of American society.” See also Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Disorderly Conduct, edited bwy Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (New York, 1985), pp. 197–216.
83. Sklar, Catharine Beecher, p. 205.
84. Sklar, Catharine Beecher, p. 205.
85. Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York, 1972), pp. 28ff.
86. Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America (1856; repr. Madison, 1966), p. 362.
87. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor p. 28.
88. Roy F. Nichols, Franklin Pierce (Philadelphia, 1931), p. 78.
89. Nichols, Franklin Pierce, p. 81.
90. Nichols, Franklin Pierce, p. 93.
91. Nichols, Franklin Pierce, p. 94.
92. Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr., “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,” New England Quarterly, vol. 28 (September 1955), p. 342.
93. Taylor, “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,” p. 343.
94. Anne M. Means, Amherst and Our Family Tree (Boston, 1921), p. 258.
95. Taylor, “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,” p. 259.
96. Pryor, Reminiscences, pp. 16f.
97. Journal of Elihu Burritt, March 1854. New Britain Public Library, New Britain, Connecticut.
98. Means, Amherst and Our Family, p. 255.
99. Elihu Burritt’s Journal, March 1854.
100. Margaret Gray Blanton, Unpublished Manuscript, “Tennessee Johnson’s Eliza,” University of Tennessee Library, Knoxville, Tennessee, p. 8.
101. Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant (Lexington, 1966), p. 493.
102. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, vol. 2, p. 277.
103. Blanton, “Tennessee Johnson’s Eliza,” p. 11.
104. Blanton, “Tennessee Johnson’s Eliza,” pp. 14–15.
105. Robert L. Winston, Andrew Johnson: Plebeian and Patriot (New York, 1928), p. 293.
106. Margaret Gray Blanton found a double meaning in what others have concluded was a humble apology.
107. Singleton, Story of the White House, vol. 2, p. 108.
108. Blanton, “Tennessee Johnson’s Eliza,” pp. 12–14.
109. Blanton, “Tennessee Johnson’s Eliza,” p. 18.
110. Margaret Gray Blanton, Letter to Milton Lomask, June 14, 1961, University of Tennessee Library.
111. Margaret Gray Blanton, Letter to Milton Lomask, June 14, 1961, University of Tennessee Library.
Chapter 3
1. Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary of John Quincy Adams (New York, 1951), p. 574.
2. Charles Sellers, James K. Polk, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1957), vol. 1, p. 93.
3. Adelaide L. Fries, Historical Sketch of Salem Female Academy (Salem, 1902), pp. 3–11.
4. Anson and Fanny Nelson, Memorials of Sarah Childress Polk (New York, 1892), p. 68.
5. Barbara Welter, Hunter College Conference, City University of New York, December 4, 1982.
6. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, March 29, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
7. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, April 17, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
8. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, May 3, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
9. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, April 17, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
10. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, April 17, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
11. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, March 29, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
12. Letter from Sarah Polk to James Polk, March 29, 1843, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
13. Sarah Agnes Wallace, ed., “Letters of Mrs. James K. Polk,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 11 (June 1952), p. 181.
14. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 1, p. 340.
15. A. V. Brown to Sarah Polk, January 14, 1844, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
16. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 79.
17. This particular comment by Ferraro aroused considerable comment. See, for example, the review of her book in the New York Times, October 30, 1985.
18. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 78.
19. Henry Dilwood Gilpin to Martin Van Buren, February 24, 1845, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress.
20. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 2, p. 193.
21. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 1, p. 143.
22. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 68.
23. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 39.
24. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 79.
25. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 1, p. 250.
26. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 110.
27. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 2, p. 192.
28. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 2, p. 307.
29. Allan Nevins, ed., Diary of a President (New York, 1952), p. 358.
30. Jessie Benton Frémont, Souvenirs of My Time (New York, 1887), p. 103.
31. Sellers, James K. Polk, vol. 2, p. 308.
32. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 113.
33. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 112.
34. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 118.
35. For representative treatments, see Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant, 4th ed. (Lexington, 1971), pp. 306–308; John A. Garraty, The American Nation, 2d ed. (New York, 1971), p. 373.
36. Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971), vol. 3, p. 82.
37. Katharine Shelburne Trickey, “Young Hickory and Sarah,” Daughters of American Revolution Magazine, vol. 108 (1974), p. 433.
38. New York Herald, cited in Aileen S. Kraditor, Up From the Pedestal (Chicago, 1968), p. 189.
39. Alfred Balch to Martin Van Buren, November 22, 1842, Polk Papers, Library of Congress.
40. Nevins, ed., Diary of a President, p. 352.
41. John Spencer Bassett, The Southern Plantation Overseer (New York, 1925), p. 268.
42. Peterson’s Magazine, March 1849, p. 91.
43. New York Times, August 15, 1891, p. 5.
44. Clipping from Mt. Vernon Banner, undated, Polk Papers, Library of Congress, reel 63.
45. Nelson and Nelson, Memorials, p. 282.
46. The main catalogue at the New York Public Library lists thirty-two works on the subject of “Mary Todd Lincoln.” In addition to biographical treatments, the entries include fiction, such as “The Trial of Mary Todd Lincoln” by James A. Rhodes and Dean Jauchius (1952), and dramas, such as “The Woman in Lincoln’s Life” by Louis A. Warren (1946). Most of the works were published after her death.
47. Alfred Joseph Dumais, in “An Analysis of the Dramaturgical Use of History in the Writing of Two Full Length Plays about Mary Todd Lincoln” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1978), explores this problem.
48. Ruth Painter Randall, Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (Boston, 1953), p. 215.
49. Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes (New York, 1868), p. 96. Although there is considerable controversy about this book, it indicates the kind of material being published about Mary Lincoln in the 1860s. For one account of its being written, see Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York, 1982), p. 172.
50. Katharine Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln (New York, 1928), p. 17.
51. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, pp. 28–32.
52. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, p. 52.
53. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln p. 32.
54. W. A. Evans, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1932), p. 35.
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55. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, p. 44.
56. Ruth Painter Randall and Ishbel Ross have both written that Stephen Douglas courted Mary Lincoln, but Mark E. Neely, Jr., Director of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana, considers this “hearsay which … merits little serious consideration.” Letter to author, October 2, 1985.
57. Alexander McClure, ed., Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories (Chicago, n.d.), pp. 301–302.
58. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, emphasizes the intellectual side, while W. A. Evans, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, shows Mary as manipulative, weak, and ill during the 1850s.
59. Julia Taft Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father (Boston, 1931), p. 36.
60. For an account of the accusation supposedly made by Weed, see Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 328.
61. Emanuel Hertz, Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait, 2 vols. (New York, 1931), vol. 1, pp. 238–239, gave one account of Lincoln’s appearance. Paul F. Boller, Jr., in Presidential Anecdotes (New York, 1981), p. 137, repeated the story although Mark E. Neely, Jr., had demonstrated that it could not have been true. See Lincoln Lore (January 1975).
62. Keckley, Behind the Scenes, p. 149.
63. Bess Furman, White House Profile (Indianapolis, 1951), pp. 173ff.
64. Leslie’s Weekly, February 15, 1862, quotes a Washington newspaper.
65. Leslie’s Weekly, February 22, 1862, p. 1.
66. Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, p. 49.
67. Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, p. 49.
68. Keckley, Behind the Scenes, p. 87.
69. John M. Simon, ed., The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (New York, 1975), p. 146.
70. Keckley, Behind the Scenes, p. 149.
71. Furman, White House Profile, pp. 189–190. See also Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 172.
72. Elizabeth Todd Grimsley, “Six Months at the White House,” Journal of Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 10 (October–January, 1926–1927), p. 69.
73. William H. Crook, Memories of the White House: The Home Life of Our Presidents from Lincoln to Roosevelt (Boston, 1911), p. 17.
74. Grimsley, “Six Months,” p. 55.
75. Grimsley, “Six Months,” p. 48.
76. Randall, Mary Lincoln, p. 219.
77. Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, p. 7.
78. Bayne, Tad Lincoln’s Father, p. 107.
79. Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p. 184.
80. Handwritten memorandum to Judge David Davis, May 24, 1875, Chicago Historical Society. A witness described Mary Lincoln as behaving “like a lady” throughout the ordeal.
81. Rodney Ross, “Mary Todd Lincoln: Patient at Bellevue Place, Batavia,” Journal of Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 63 (1970), pp. 8–9.
82. Ross, “Mary Todd Lincoln,” p. 33.
83. Ross, “Mary Todd Lincoln,” p. 14. Ross notes that Bradwell voiced contradictory assessments of Mary Lincoln’s mental state.
84. Ross, “Mary Todd Lincoln,” p. 14.
85. Sarah Bernhardt, Memoirs of My Life (New York, 1907), p. 370.
86. Henry Steele Commager, New York Times, February 12, 1985, p. A14. For a later and considerably more favorable view of Mary Todd Lincoln, see Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 2005).
87. New York Times, March 5, 1869, p. 3.
88. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 128.
89. Jesse R. Grant, In the Days of My Father (New York, 1925), p. 97.
90. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 183.
91. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 173.
92. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 186.
93. Louis T. Palmer, General U. S. Grant’s Tour Around the World (Hartford, 1879), gives a full account of the journey.
94. Joseph Nathan Kane, Facts About the Presidents, 4th ed. (New York, 1981), p. 128.
95. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 182.
96. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 186.
97. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 199.
98. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 199.
99. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 184.
100. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs, p. 174.
101. Emily Edson Briggs, The Olivia Letters (New York, 1906), p. 173, reprints an 1870 column by Briggs.
102. See chapter 11, “Presidential Wives and the Press,” from earlier editions of this book.
Chapter 4
1. Emily Apt Geer, First Lady: The Life of Lucy Webb Hayes (Kent State University, 1984), p. 137.
2. Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York, 1980), p. 152. Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters (Boston, 1980), p. 241, notes that the trend had begun earlier.
3. Barbara Harris, Beyond Her Sphere: Women and the Professions in American History (Westport, 1978), p. 112.
4. Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1971), vol. 3, pp. 450–451.
5. James B. Pond, Eccentricities of Genius (New York, 1900), p. 155.
6. Mary A. Livermore, The Story of My Life (Hartford, 1897), pp. 483–484.
7. Mary I. Wood, The History of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (Norwood, Massachusetts, 1912), p. 27.
8. Frances Willard, Home Protection Manual (New York, 1879), p. 6.
9. William Rhinelander Steward, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell (New York, 1911), p. 52.
10. Mary Clemmer Ames, “A Woman’s Letter from Washington,” The Independent, March 15, 1877, p. 2.
11. Geer, First Lady, p. 4.
12. Geer, First Lady, p. 98.
13. Emily Apt Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Influence Upon Her Era,” Hayes Historical Journal, vol. 1 (1976), p. 25.
14. Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Influence,” p. 25.
15. Geer, First Lady, p. 168.
16. On Lucy’s uncle, see Richard A. Manuel, “Matthew Scott Cook: A Register of the Papers,” Western Reserve Historical Society, Ms. no. 2129. Rutherford’s sister Fanny, who had been a strong feminist influence on Lucy, died in 1856 about the time Rutherford ran for his first elective office.
17. Geer, First Lady, pp. 35–36.
18. Harry Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes and His America (Indianapolis, 1954), p. 214.
19. Geer, First Lady, p. 64.
20. Charles Richard Williams, The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 2 vols. (Boston, 1914), vol. 1, p. 208.
21. Margarita Spalding Gerry, “Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House,” Century, vol. 77 (March 1909), p. 648.
22. Geer, First Lady, pp. 57–59.
23. Geer, First Lady, p. 86.
24. Rutherford B. Hayes, Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes, ed. Charles Richard Williams, 5, vols. (Columbus, Ohio, 1922–1926), entry for February 4, 1866.
25. Geer, First Lady, pp. 95–97.
26. Emily Apt Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Family,” Ohio History, vol. 77 (1968), p. 49.
27. Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Family,” p. 47.
28. Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Influence,” p. 27.
29. Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Influence,” p. 27.
30. Since March 4 fell on Sunday, a private inauguration had taken place at the White House on Saturday evening, March 3. For details, see Webb Hayes and Watt P. Marchman, “First Days of the Hayes Administration,” Hayes Historical Journal, vol. 1 (1977), pp. 231–262.
31. Williams, Life of Rutherford B. Hayes, vol. 2, p. 299.
32. Williams, Life of Rutherford B. Hayes, vol. 2, p. 307.
33. Geer, “Lucy Webb Hayes and Her Family,” p. 56.
34. William Henry Crook, Memories of the White House (Boston, 1911), p. 112.
35. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives (New York, 1980), p. 3.
36. Williams, Life of Rutherford B. Hayes, vol. 2, p. 300.
37. Marcus Cunliffe, American Presidents and the Presidency (New York, 1968), p. 201.
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8. Williams, Life of Rutherford B. Hayes, vol. 2, p. 316.
39. Hayes, Diary and Letters, May 28, 1879.
40. Henry James, The Henry James Reader, ed. Leon Edel (New York, 1965), p. 484.
41. Henry Adams, Democracy (1880; repr. Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1965), p. 107. Henry Adams’s authorship was not acknowledged until the 1920s although he wrote Democracy in 1878.
42. Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes, p. 171.
43. Barnard, Rutherford B. Hayes, p. 170.
44. Hayes, Diary and Letters, February 28, 1879.
45. Hayes, Diary and Letters, January 16, 1881.
46. Geer, First Lady, p. 184.
47. Emily Apt Geer to author, December 1, 1985. Geer kindly shared her conclusions with the author and quoted Rutherford B. Hayes’s letter of December 13, 1883. This occurred after the Hayes administration ended, but Lucy’s endorsement would have been valuable to Willard.
48. Ben Perley Poore, Perly’s Reminiscences, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1886), vol. 2, p. 350.
49. H. J. Eckenrode, Rutherford B. Hayes: Statesman of Reunion (New York, 1930), p. 46, concluded that Lucy took the rap for her husband.
50. Mrs. John Davis, Lucy Webb Hayes, A Memorial Sketch (Cincinnati, 1890), p. 37. Emphasis added.
51. “Nellie Bly Visits Spiegel Grove,” Hayes Historical Journal, vol. 1 (1976), p. 144.
52. Bess Furman, Wliite House Profile (Indianapolis, 1951), p. 224.
53. Beverly Beeton, “The Hayes Administration and The Woman Question,” Hayes Historical Journal, vol. 2 (1978), p. 52.
54. Elizabeth Davis to Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, December 9, 1878. Letter in Elizabeth Davis Collection, Latter Day Saints Church Archives, Salt Lake City. The salutation on the letter was “Dear Lady,” and Elizabeth Davis wrote: “Having been informed through friends of the goodness of your heart and your sympathetic nature toward those of your sex, who appeal to you for aid, I determined to approach you by letter in behalf of myself and sisters, who like yourself have availed themselves of the privileges, granted us by the glorious Constitution of our country, viz. the ‘right to worship God, according to the dictates of our own conscience.’ “ The writer then asked Lucy to help protect “plural or Celestial order of Marriage.” Quoted by permission of the Latter Day Saints Church Archives.
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