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[00:00:00] As we celebrate America's 250th birthday [00:00:03] this year, the organization known as [00:00:05] More Perfect has commissioned a series [00:00:07] of essays about American presidents and [00:00:09] first ladies written and read by public [00:00:12] officials, journalists, and historians. [00:00:14] The project is called In Pursuit. Its [00:00:17] goal is to bring American history to [00:00:18] life through compelling stories. Here's [00:00:21] one of those essays. [00:00:24] >> Martha Washington by Karen Wolf, read by [00:00:27] Karen Wolf. Before women could hold [00:00:30] office, she created one. Martha [00:00:33] Washington had not intended to be the [00:00:35] first of anything, but rather to follow [00:00:37] in the pattern of the women she knew as [00:00:39] wives, mothers, and Virginia plantation [00:00:41] mistresses. Instead, she was the first [00:00:44] of a long line of women who never sought [00:00:46] the role that she inaugurated. While the [00:00:48] term first lady was not regularly used [00:00:51] for a century after her service, she [00:00:53] felt the weight of its responsibility [00:00:55] and the eyes of the new nation upon her. [00:00:58] Historians despair of Martha's decision [00:01:01] to burn her correspondence with her [00:01:02] famous husband just before she died. [00:01:05] Yet, this first lady is not unknowable. [00:01:08] Like her husband, she has become [00:01:10] somewhat calcified in American memory. [00:01:12] But the historical record, including her [00:01:14] correspondence with friends, family, and [00:01:17] associates from her life in Virginia and [00:01:18] then as first lady and her later years, [00:01:21] reveals a firm, lively person. She could [00:01:24] be direct, astute about politics, and [00:01:26] attuned to fashionable clothes and [00:01:28] household furnishing, sometimes all in [00:01:30] one letter. Portraits made during her [00:01:33] life capture only a glimpse of the [00:01:34] latter. She ordered sparkling purple [00:01:37] silk, silver embroidered, and sequined [00:01:40] high heeled shoes for her wedding, and [00:01:41] she never stopped being fond of shoes. [00:01:44] As first lady, she dressed somewhat more [00:01:46] plainly, but her clothing was always of [00:01:48] the finest quality. Martha Dandridge [00:01:51] Custous and George Washington were born [00:01:53] less than a year apart in 1731 and 1732. [00:01:57] Theirs would be her second marriage, his [00:01:59] first. It was by the accounts of those [00:02:02] who knew them best a loving partnership. [00:02:05] In a few surviving letters, George [00:02:07] refers to her as his dear Paty, and they [00:02:10] addressed each other as my dearest. [00:02:13] George signed one urgent letter in the [00:02:15] summer of 1775 as your entire. [00:02:19] They were happiest together at Mount [00:02:20] Vernon, ever mindful of what was [00:02:22] happening back at home during the long [00:02:24] years of the war in the presidency and [00:02:26] of being apart. Devoted to her husband, [00:02:29] Martha spent every winter of the war [00:02:31] with him wherever he had made camp for [00:02:33] the season, including at Valley Forge. [00:02:36] George and Martha Washington were elite, [00:02:38] wealthy Virginiaians through and [00:02:40] through. From her first marriage to the [00:02:42] much older Daniel Park Custous, Martha [00:02:45] carried into their union with George two [00:02:47] children and an extensive estate that [00:02:49] included more than 80 enslaved people. [00:02:52] They would not have children together, [00:02:53] but they would raise hers. At Mount [00:02:56] Vernon, they oversaw a plantation [00:02:57] complex worked by hundreds of enslaved [00:03:00] people. Through a combination of [00:03:01] inheritance and acquisition, by the time [00:03:04] of George's death, his real estate [00:03:05] stretched across tens of thousands of [00:03:07] acres and included some small industrial [00:03:09] concerns. But of course, their lives [00:03:12] would not be confined to Virginia. [00:03:15] When she married him, Martha would have [00:03:17] known that George was set up for public [00:03:19] life, which in colonial Virginia was [00:03:21] both an opportunity and a responsibility [00:03:23] for elites. The first hint of that came [00:03:26] before they married when he served as an [00:03:28] officer in the Virginia militia during [00:03:29] the Seven Years War. Then shortly after [00:03:32] they married, George was elected to [00:03:34] Virginia's colonial assembly, the House [00:03:36] of Burgesses, where he would serve until [00:03:38] the eve of the American Revolution, [00:03:40] including working closely with the royal [00:03:42] governor, Lord Dunore. Up to that point, [00:03:45] Martha's life as his wife would have [00:03:47] seemed a familiar echo of the women [00:03:49] among her family and friends. But when [00:03:51] her husband's military leadership of the [00:03:53] Revolutionary War and then political [00:03:55] leadership of the new United States was [00:03:57] required, Martha's life changed along [00:04:00] with those of everyone around her. In [00:04:02] the transition from colonies to nation, [00:04:05] their friend, the historian and writer [00:04:07] Merciotis Warren said, "Events have [00:04:09] outrun our imagination." [00:04:12] The Washingtons lived in three different [00:04:15] presidential mansions as the capital [00:04:17] city moved. the first two in New York [00:04:19] and then the third in Philadelphia [00:04:21] through the end of the president's [00:04:22] second term in early 1797. [00:04:25] These pre-W Washington DC and pre-White [00:04:28] House residences have all since been [00:04:30] demolished. Glimpses of the Washington's [00:04:33] efforts to create a new standard for a [00:04:35] presidential life and for the first [00:04:37] lady's role come through though. George [00:04:40] Washington held a regular formal [00:04:42] reception on Tuesday afternoons for men [00:04:44] and Martha held a less formal one [00:04:47] ostensibly for ladies but in fact men [00:04:49] and women both attended on Friday [00:04:50] evenings. They called these gatherings [00:04:53] leveies the name for formal public [00:04:56] access to the French monarch. Features [00:04:58] of the Washington's levies included [00:05:00] Martha greeting people from a raised [00:05:02] dis. To be fair, she was petite at only [00:05:05] 5t tall, which raised eyebrows and some [00:05:08] critical commentary. How was this [00:05:10] democratic? [00:05:12] For that matter, how was one to be a [00:05:14] first lady or a president when there had [00:05:16] never been such a thing? Borrowing some [00:05:18] ceremonial features from the system they [00:05:20] knew best, tempered by the sentiments of [00:05:22] the revolution, seemed sensible. Martha [00:05:26] would hold the first rank in the United [00:05:28] States, and what she did or said, where [00:05:31] she went, and what she wore, all made [00:05:33] for political fodder. The Washingtons [00:05:36] would step carefully but decisively [00:05:37] together into this phase of their public [00:05:40] life. It was not without cost. Using the [00:05:43] same metaphor that her husband often [00:05:45] invoked, Martha wrote of longing to be [00:05:48] in the shades of Mount Vernon under our [00:05:50] own vines and fig tree. And yet I cannot [00:05:52] blame him, she wrote, for having acted [00:05:54] according to his ideas of duty in [00:05:56] obeying the voice of his country. [00:05:59] For Martha, having been raised to [00:06:01] hostess duties, managing the accutrial [00:06:04] of hospitality for diplomats, [00:06:06] politicians, office seekers, and the [00:06:08] general curious public was second [00:06:10] nature. She stocked the official [00:06:12] residences with such supplies as China [00:06:15] decorated with all of the states around [00:06:17] the rim of the plates and her own [00:06:19] initials in the middle. cutlery, wine, [00:06:22] and more prosaic items like mops and [00:06:24] clamps for scouring brushes. They [00:06:26] acquired printed invitations to dine, [00:06:29] the president of the United States and [00:06:30] Mrs. Washington request the pleasure, [00:06:33] which could be filled in with the names [00:06:34] of the lucky invitees. Martha described [00:06:37] both formal and less formal visits. The [00:06:40] practice with me has been always to [00:06:42] receive the first visits and then to [00:06:44] return them. These included the ladies [00:06:47] of the diplomatic corps introduced in [00:06:49] their first visits by the secretary of [00:06:51] state. In this innovation borrowing from [00:06:54] traditions, Martha Washington did [00:06:56] something no American woman had ever [00:06:58] done. She occupied an entirely new [00:07:01] national role and she taught the country [00:07:03] how to see a woman in it. Did she [00:07:06] encourage her husband's better angels? [00:07:09] In one respect, we know she emphatically [00:07:11] did not. She was casually cruel about [00:07:14] slavery and her expectation of enslaved [00:07:17] people. Confounded when 17 fled with the [00:07:20] British, who were promising freedom [00:07:22] during the revolution, she was [00:07:24] infuriated when one of her maids fled [00:07:26] from Philadelphia decades later and [00:07:28] wanted her tracked down and then brought [00:07:30] back. She never was. But did he [00:07:32] encourage hers? Perhaps. When he died, [00:07:36] George Washington provided that at [00:07:37] Martha's death the enslaved people he [00:07:39] owned would be emancipated. But for [00:07:41] whatever reasons, possibly out of fear, [00:07:44] she acted on that provision just a year [00:07:45] after he died and a year before she [00:07:47] followed him to the grave. [00:07:49] Martha Washington would prove a hard act [00:07:51] to follow. Before women could hold [00:07:54] office, she had to create one by [00:07:56] stepping onto the center stage of [00:07:57] American public life without a script [00:07:59] and making her role real through [00:08:01] practice. At the end of Washington's [00:08:03] presidential administration, Abigail [00:08:05] Adams wrote to the only woman to serve [00:08:07] in the position she was about to hold [00:08:09] that she would endeavor to follow your [00:08:12] steps and by that means hope I shall not [00:08:14] essentially fall short. This essay is [00:08:17] part of a series commissioned by the [00:08:19] organization known as More Perfect. As [00:08:22] America celebrates its 250th birthday [00:08:25] this year, public officials, [00:08:27] journalists, and historians are writing [00:08:29] about presidents and first ladies with [00:08:31] the goal of bringing American history to [00:08:34] life through compelling stories. We'll [00:08:36] hear more of these essays through the [00:08:38] year on C-SPAN. And to learn more about [00:08:40] the project, go to inpursuit.org.