Presiding Ladies of the White House: containing biographical appreciations together with a short history of the Executive mansion and a treatise on its etiquette and customs — John Shaqi
Presiding Ladies of the White House: containing biographical appreciations together with a short history of the Executive mansion and a treatise on its etiquette and customsWoolfall, Lila G. A.
History
Presiding Ladies of the White House: containing biographical appreciations together with a short history of the Executive mansion and a treatise on its etiquette and customs
Woolfall, Lila G. A.
United States -- Biography; White House (Washington, D.C.); Women -- Biography
Martha Jefferson Randolph, the elder of the President’s two daughters,
presided at the White House whenever possible during her father’s
administrations, his wife having died nineteen years before his election.
The White House, however, during his terms, was practically without a
mistress, although at times Mrs. Madison also acted in that capacity.
Mrs. Randolph was eminently fitted for such a sphere, but was able to
assume its duties only twice. Having received the advantages of foreign
education and travel, and the continual association with men of letters,
she was a most brilliant woman, and had her tastes been less domestic
she would have shone in society. She gave her father unremitting care
when, after his retirement from public life, he settled at his estate
Monticello, where two years after his death her husband also passed away.
Monticello was then sold and the remaining eight years of her life were
spent among her children.
[Illustration: _MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH_
_Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._]
Dorothy Paine Madison
FOURTH PRESIDING LADY
1809-1817
Dorothy Paine, a Quaker, first married at nineteen, John Todd, a young
lawyer of Philadelphia. One year after his death, when twenty-two, she
married James Madison. Her kind heart, frank, cordial manners, and
personal beauty made her very popular. When she presided at the White
House her tact, ready recognition of every one, and her remembrance
of events concerning them increased this feeling. Although her
entertainments lacked the ceremony of past administrations, “Dolly”
Madison was considered a charming hostess. While she was extremely
charitable, she always dispensed her husband’s wealth with prudence and
judgment. The war of 1812 showed her true nobility in many ways, and it
was she who saved the Stuart portrait of Washington when the British
were about to pillage and burn the White House. The Government bought
from her Madison’s Record of the Debates in Congress from 1782-1787, for
$30,000.
[Illustration: _DOROTHY PAINE MADISON_
_Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._]
Elizabeth Kortright Monroe
FIFTH PRESIDING LADY
1817-1825
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