Patricia Brady. : An American Life. New York: Viking, 2005. iii + 272 pp. $24.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-670-03430-7.

Reviewed by Martha King

Published on H-SAWH (April, 2008)

The cover illustration and subsequent pages one at the Historical Society that the au‐ of the latest biography of Martha Washington thor identifed, Brady and other biographers must challenge our stereotyped image, frozen in time, grapple with the lacunae of source material. of America's frst "frst lady" as an elderly, timid Martha Washington supposedly burned her corre‐ matron. Historian Patricia Brady invites us to take spondence with her famous second husband be‐ a closer look at a signifcant, though sparsely doc‐ fore her death, to keep their relationship private. umented, fgure in American history. Brady's ap‐ The lack of documentary evidence makes it dif‐ proach to the biography is not unlike the tech‐ cult to interpret their almost forty-one-year part‐ nique the book's cover artist, Michael Deas, uses nership. Yet, Brady makes extensive use of George to portray a very feminine and graceful Martha Washington's correspondence and letters written Custis based on a forensic imaging and age regres‐ by others that mention his wife. sion of a Charles Wilson Peale miniature. Brady's "Based almost entirely on published own fresh portrait of the Virginia gentlewoman manuscripts," Brady's book is indebted to the uses the limited direct documentary source mate‐ modern documentary editions of The Papers of rial that exists to situate her in a contextualized , edited by W. W. Abbott and historical narrative that challenges some of our others, and published in multiple series at the static preconceptions. Brady feshes out the facts University of Virginia since 1976, and the single- recorded in the brief sketch of Washington's life volume collection "Worthy Partner": The Papers written by Ellen McCallister Clark (Martha Wash‐ of Martha Washington (1994), compiled and pub‐ ington: A Brief Biography [2002]) and provides lished by Joseph E. Fields (p. 255). Following the some details of the times and relationships in lead of such historians as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which the frst lady was immersed, especially her who have teased out life details from women who marriage to George Washington. With a paucity of left more of a trace in pins and needles than pens only fve known extant documents exchanged be‐ and papers, Brady also makes good use of materi‐ tween George and Martha Washington, including H-Net Reviews al culture to interpret the life of Martha Washing‐ is rooted in role analysis, and her family charts ton.[1] An author who has previously written on are helpful in untangling some of the "genealogi‐ southern women and domestic life, Brady de‐ cal snarls" that plague Virginia families (p. 20). scribes the modest bathing attire her subject Brady assigns more determination to Martha wore, the blue cloth-lined chair in which she rode, Dandridge than heretofore appreciated, especially the stockings she knit for her husband, and the in standing up to, and winning the approval of, handkerchiefs she stitched for grandchildren, as her future father-in-law John Custis. She also re‐ well as the domestic purchases made and record‐ examines the initial meeting of George Washing‐ ed in her account books as a new wife and planta‐ ton and the young widow Martha Custis, dismiss‐ tion mistress. Brady masterfully draws a great ing the notion that the young colonel married her deal from her limited sources, but, just as a only for her money and diminishing the love-at- painter often takes artistic license to interpret a frst-sight romantic myth made popular by nine‐ subject, she sometimes tries to read Martha Wash‐ teenth-century family descendants. While her ington's intent and feelings without more than a frst marriage to Daniel Parke Custis had made hunch or a modern sensibility to inform her con‐ her wealthy and George Washington stood to gain jectures. social and fnancial prominence as a result of Martha Washington emerges as a woman of marrying her, she also considered other suitors. her time and place, the eldest daughter of eight Brady makes the case that the older widower- children in a long-rooted Virginia lineage. Brady with-children Charles Carter was a serious mar‐ rightly acknowledges that to understand her we riage prospect, as was the eight-month younger need to understand the customs of eighteenth- and unencumbered bachelor who ultimately won century Virginia and of southern women in par‐ her hand. ticular. As women's historians have long realized, Brady credits Martha Washington with much the nodal points in women's lives are often difer‐ agency in deciding to please herself in her second ent from those of the men whose lives they marriage. Likewise, she contends that George shared. This account of Martha Washington bears Washington was an attractive man who sufered witness to that insight. The fateful battle of York‐ from an unrequited love with Sally Fairfax yet ul‐ town with its heralding of the British surrender timately realized that his friend's wife was of lim‐ and end of the pale in signif‐ its to him. The Washingtons, Brady argues, were icance for the commanding general's wife with able to enjoy a deeply companionate marriage as another key event of 1781, the death of her well as an unstrained mutual friendship with the beloved son John Parke (Jacky) Custis. The famous Fairfax couple for the remainder of their lives. farewell address of her husband in 1796 merits Brady credits Washington with being secure in only a passing paragraph and is noted not for its her own worth by rising above any petty jeal‐ form and content but to indicate her delight that ousies of her husband's female friends. She down‐ her husband would soon return to private life. plays and does not directly mention a letter from Family was of primary concern to Martha George Washington to Fairfax written later in life. Washington, and her understanding of family was [2] both expansive and changing across her lifespan. Martha Washington was a woman of her As a woman who experienced great and frequent time, albeit a very wealthy woman. Whereas her loss, she outlived her parents, siblings, frst hus‐ husband's passion was building, her passion was band, children, some of her great grandchildren, how many relatives she could welcome to fll and her famous second spouse. Brady's biography their home. Brady describes a woman who always

2 H-Net Reviews enjoyed the company of young people and even that she much preferred and kept her in the pub‐ adopted grandchildren and took numerous nieces lic eye (p. 145). and nephews under her wing. The rhythm of Her husband's presidency was perhaps even Washington's days included managing a growing more of a sacrifce for her and was akin to state domestic household and seeing to the education imprisonment for the very same reasons, yet of children and grandchildren, as well as sewing, Brady places Martha Washington on a pedestal in reading, dancing, theater-going, and other socially flling the role of the nation's frst lady with wit, proscribed behavior for a woman of her station. charm, and gracious conversation, endearing her‐ She had an almost obsessive worry about family, self to many at her popular Friday evening recep‐ travel by water, and smallpox inoculation, but tions. If George Washington was conscious of the overcame her fears for the sake of her family. precedent he set in the execution of his roles as Brady reminds us that Martha Washington's commander-in-chief and frst president, one won‐ marriage to George Washington quite literally ex‐ ders if his wife was equally aware of her own panded her horizons, taking her much farther precedent and the efect of her actions. Brady's north than she had ever been before; indeed, at chronological life account is slim on George Wash‐ the time of her marriage, she had never been ington's second term, perhaps because the mod‐ more than twenty miles from the house where ern documentary edition of his papers has not yet she was born. Brady also attempts to explore completed these years. But Brady interprets the Martha Washington's spiritual and intellectual time in the federal city of Philadelphia as hell for horizons. Yet, without refections on her reading Martha Washington, who sufered twice as much or concrete evidence to prove or disprove inner as her husband did from the slings and arrows of devotion and beliefs, Brady recounts the titles of the brutal partisan attacks against him in the her library and also surmises that she likely read 1790s. her Bible and prayer book as well as popular in‐ While her depiction of Lady Washington is spirational books by Anglican clerics. more nuanced than those of earlier biographies, Lady Washington achieved public fame from Brady perpetuates some stereotypes of other con‐ her loyal, annual visits to her husband's winter temporaries, notably her subject's mother-in-law, encampments during the American Revolution. Mary Washington, whom Brady derides as stern, These visits required extensive preparation and acquisitive, and self-centered, and Thomas Jefer‐ caused anguished separation from family at son, whom Brady portrays as a boorish and insen‐ , but they allowed her to be sup‐ sitive colleague who had wounded George Wash‐ portive of the partner in whose company she ington "so cruelly for political ends" (p. 227). A longed to dwell. Her brave, hospitable presence widower who empathetically reached out to oth‐ with her husband for nearly fve of the eight and ers in their grief over the loss of children or a half years he commanded the army was essen‐ spouse, Jeferson paid a visit to Mount Vernon in tial, even indispensable, to George Washington's January 1801 to call on the widow Washington. emotional well being, Brady argues, enabling him Yet, this gesture, even if politically motivated, goes to accomplish much and giving him a haven unmentioned by Brady. Slavery is the ever- where he could let down his guard. Martha Wash‐ present canvas on which the picture of any Vir‐ ington's devotion to her husband during wartime ginia plantation family is painted, but especially made her "the secret weapon of the American one as prominent as the occupants of Mount Ver‐ Revolution," but that weapon was a double-edged non with its large number of household and plan‐ sword for her because it tore her from the home tation slaves. Several of these slaves traveled with

3 H-Net Reviews the Washingtons to their places of residence in Wiencek has suggested, in An Imperfect God: New York City and Philadelphia. Brady notes that George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation Martha Washington had great afection for some of America (2003), that Martha Washington was particular servants and treated them well, but she indiferent to slaves' feelings and intransigent did not share her husband's enlightened views about slavery. But Brady, in her note on the and repugnance of the fundamental immorality sources, dismisses the debate as lacking documen‐ of slavery. She never could grasp why her maid tary evidence and patently deems the controversy Ona Judge would run to freedom, and Brady gives false, claiming that it "simply isn't true" (p. 256). short shrift to her story as well as to that of As a popular biography, Martha Washington Martha Washington's runaway cook Hercules. is an accessible, informative read that could work Because so much of Martha Washington's well as an introduction to themes in American dower estate contained slaves (at least 153 of the women's history. The frustratingly brief citation 317 slaves at Mount Vernon upon George Wash‐ style and the sometimes jarring transitions to new ington's retirement were "dower" slaves who had topics should not keep a reader from picking up interbred with Washington's own slaves), it was this nuanced work by a historian well versed in difcult for her husband to manumit them, and the period and cleverly skilled at drawing loose he only pledged them their freedom upon the threads and diverse family histories into a richer death of his wife. Brady claims that Martha Wash‐ tapestry. Although the "search for the real Martha ington could not sell or liberate these slaves dur‐ Washington" may always prove futile because of ing her lifetime even if she wanted to do so, be‐ the dearth of documentation, Brady ofers plausi‐ cause they were legally entangled in part of the ble insights into a woman's life that will always family estate that would pass on to her grandchil‐ remain somewhat shrouded (p. 230). dren. Ironically, her Custis dower, the land and Notes slaves that brought her wealth, were not hers to [1]. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Of Pens and Nee‐ dispose of had she been so inclined. Martha Wash‐ dles: Sources in Early American Women's Histo‐ ington did free all 123 of Washington's slaves on ry," Journal of American History 77 (1990): New Year's Day 1801, on the advice of Bushrod 200-207. Washington and not from a conviction of the evils of slavery. [2]. George Washington to Sarah Cary Fairfax, May 16, 1798, in The Papers of George Washing‐ Only in a bibliographical note does Brady ton, Retirement Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, et al. mention recent modern interpretations of Martha (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Washington's views on slavery and the interracial 1998), 2:272-275. Other historians have made world in which she lived, although she did not much of this letter to the widow Fairfax that leave written documentation about these views. Washington wrote late in life, fondly recalling Unlike Helen Bryan, who has made much of that he had enjoyed the happiest moments of his Martha Washington's mulatto half-brother-in-law life in her company. Yet, both George and Martha Jack Custis in the dispersal of the Custis estate in Washington made copies of the letter, and Martha her Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty added local as well as family news to her hus‐ (2002), Brady merely refers to the mixed-race Jack band's draft of it. Custis as his father's "favourite boy" (pp. 31, 43). In his interpretation of incest and miscegenation in the case of Martha Washington's alleged half- sister of mixed race, Ann Dandridge, Henry

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Citation: Martha King. Review of Brady, Patricia. Martha Washington: An American Life. H-SAWH, H-Net Reviews. April, 2008.

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