Eén van mijn favoriete links is the National First Ladies Library.
Eerder schreef ik over de kandidaatsvrouwen van 2008. Ik ga wekelijks een kort biografisch overzicht posten van de First Ladies tot nu toe.
Vandaag start ik de reeks natuurlijk met:
MARTHA DANDRIDGE CUSTIS WASHINGTON
Born:
Chestnut Grove Plantation, New Kent County, Virginia 1731, June 2
Father:
John Dandridge (1701-1756), emigrated from England to Virginia in 1715 with older brother William. A planter, in 1730, he served as clerk of New Kent County.
Mother:
Frances Jones (1710-1785), born in York County, Virginia, married John Dandridge in 1730.
Ancestry:
English, Welsh, French; Martha Washington's father John Dandridge was an English immigrant. Her maternal great-grandfather Rowland Jones (died, 1688) immigrated from Oxfordshire, England to Virginia. Tradition identifies the Jones family as originating from Wales, with a Macon family that married into the Joneses being French Huguenots.
Birth Order and Siblings:
Eldest child;
three brothers and five sisters, John Dandridge (1733-1749), William Dandridge (1734-1776), Bartholomew Dandridge (born 1737), Anna Maria "Fanny" Dandridge Bassett (born 1739-1777), Frances Dandridge (1744-1757), Elizabeth Dandridge Aylett Henley (born 1749-1800), Mary Dandridge (1756-1763);
her younger illegitimate half-sister (date of birth unrecorded) was a slave, Ann Dandridge Costin, who was one-quarter African, one-quarter Cherokee Indian and half-white; there is further evidence of an illegitimate half-brother Ralph Dandridge (date of birth unrecorded), who was probably all white.
Physical Appearance:
No extant record but tradition identifies as being less than five feet tall; dark brown hair
Religious Affiliation:
Church of England
Education:
Informal education; trained at home in music, sewing, household management. Later knowledge of plantation management, crop sales, homeopathic medicine, animal husbandry suggests a wider education than previously thought. Probably taught by indentured Dandridge family servant Thomas Leonard, and regularly tutored for about five years until the age of 12 or 13 at Poplar Grove Plantation, the home of a friend of the Chamberlayne family.
Occupation before Marriage:
No documentation suggesting to the contrary, it has been assumed that Martha Washington's youth was spent much as others of her class and gender were, preparing for management of a plantation, learning various needlework arts, playing a musical instrument and perhaps singing and dancing.
Marriage:
First:
19 years old, married 1750 to Daniel Parke Custis (1711–1757), manager of New Kent County plantation of his father Councilor John Custis of Williamsburg. They lived at a mansion called "White House," on the Pumunkey River. Nineteen years old when she married a man who was twenty years her senior, and then 26 when she was widowed with two children, Martha Custis had considerable power through her wealth and privileged social status. Evidence of her business acumen in the lucrative tobacco trade is found in letters she wrote to the London merchants who handled the exporting of the large Custis crop output. It has been asserted by many of George Washington's biographers that these factors made her potential as a wife an attractive and important factor in his courting of her.
Second:
27 years old, married 1759, January 6 at "White House," to Colonel George Washington (1732–1799) commander of the First Virginia Regiment in the French and Indian War, former member, House of Burgess, Frederick County (1758). They lived at estate "Mount Vernon," initially leased from his half-brother Lawrence's widow, and inherited upon her 1761 death.
Children:
By first marriage:
Daniel Parke Custis (1751–1754), Frances Parke Custis (1753–1757), John Parke "Jacky" Custis (1754–1781), Martha Parke "Patsy" Custis (1756–1773)
By second marriage: None
Raised:
grandchildren George Washington "Wash" or "Tub" Parke Custis (1781-1857), Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis (1779-1852)
Occupation after Marriage:
With her extremely large inheritance of land from the Custis estate and the vast farming enterprise at Mount Vernon, Martha Washington spent considerable time directing the large staff of slaves and servants. While George Washington oversaw all financial transactions related to the plantation, Martha Washington was responsible for the not insubstantial process of harvesting, preparing, and preserving herbs, vegetables, fruits, meats, and dairy for medicines, household products and foods needed for those who lived at Mount Vernon, relatives, slaves and servants - as well as long-staying visitors.
During the American Revolution,
Martha Washington assumed a prominent role as caretaker for her husband, appointed the General of the American Army by the Continental Congress, and his troops (winter 1775, Cambridge, Massachusetts; spring 1776, New York; spring 1777, Morristown, New Jersey; winter 1778, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania). She lent her name to support a formal effort to enlist women of the colonies to volunteer on behalf of the Continental Army. In appreciation, American servicemen addressed her as "Lady Washington."
Only supposition can be made about the true nature of her relationship with George Washington since she burned all the correspondence she had between them just prior to her death. There is the suggestion of a cordial and affectionate marriage, but not one of great passion.
Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Since George Washington was unanimously named President, there was no election campaign. Unable to attend his April 30, 1789 inaugural ceremony in the first capital city of New York, Martha Washington followed the route traveled by him a month earlier. She was honored as "Lady Washington," a public figure in her own right in ceremony and procession by local citizen groups, all of which was reported in the national newspapers. She was present for his second inaugural on March 4, 1793 in Philadelphia but took no public role in the ceremonies.
First Lady:
1789, April 30 - 1797, March 4
57 years old
Martha Washington's eight years as the first First Lady were extremely unpleasant to her personally, but she viewed it as duty to her husband and her country. By the time she arrived at the capital, her husband's secretary, who had lived in Europe, created a series of rigid protocol rules that she found especially limiting of her, particularly the one which forbade her and the President from accepting invitations to dine in private homes. Despite the company of her two grandchildren, she expressed a sense of loneliness in New York, the first capital, where she had fewer personal friends than she would find in the next capital of Philadelphia (1790-1800). She also discovered that even her mundane activities like shopping or taking her grandchildren to the circus, were recorded by the press.
Establishing her public role as hostess in the series of presidential mansions in New York and Philadelphia Martha Washington held formal dinners on Thursdays and public receptions on Fridays. No evidence suggests what or if she sought to influence any of the President's decisions; later remarks attributed to her imply her to be a strong partisan of his Federalist Party. Newspapers of the Anti-Federalist Party criticized the formality of her receptions as evoking the royal court of the British monarchy, against the tyranny of which the American Revolution had been fought. She remained beloved by Revolutionary War veterans, and was publicly known to provide financial support or to intercede on behalf of those among them in need. Not only Americans, but Europeans responded to Martha Washington as something of an American heroine, sometimes sending her lavish gifts. One British engraver even sought to capture her image and sell it to the mass public, creating a picture that looked nothing like her but was labeled "Lady Washington."
There is evidence of great mutual care and affection between the first president and his wife. After he underwent the surgical removal of a possibly cancerous growth on his left in 1789, Martha Washington made arrangements to mitigate the pain of his painful post-surgical recovery, ensuring that the public streets near their home were cordoned off and straw laid nearby to muffle sounds.
Post-Presidential Life:
Martha Washington was relieved when her husband's Administration ended and they retired to Mount Vernon. Upon his death on December 14, 1799, the slaves owned by the Washingtons were promised their freedom upon Martha Washington's death. Making clear the tremendous personal sacrifice that the federal government asked of her in requesting that she permit the remains of the first president to be eventually interned at the U.S. Capitol Building, she wrote to President John Adams that she would acquiesce with her sense of public duty. Although she curtailed her life to Mount Vernon, once the new capital city was established in what was first called, "The Federal City," and then named for her late husband, Martha Washington welcomed political figures who came to pay their respects to her and visit what was then thought to be the temporary burial place of the late president. She expressed her loneliness for her late husband frequently and her desire to soon join him in death.
Death:
Her home, Mount Vernon, Virginia 1802, May 22
70 years old
Burial:
Burial vault, Mt. Vernon, Virginia
*Martha Washington was the first presidential widow to receive the free postage "franking" privilege from Congress when she was overwhelmed with the cost of responding to the large number of condolence letters she received upon the death of her husband.
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