Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much as always
for tuning in. That's the first gentleman of our podcast.
Our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I've actually always dreamed of being a house Husband's a
posh gag right there.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
In late stage capitalism. Are you kidding? What are we
doing here, you guys? I am Ben Bullet. That's mister
Noel Brown. Hello, Hello, sir. We are talking about something
that was in the news again quite recently, the historical
concept here in the United States of something called the
(01:08):
first lady.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
So every floats, yes, Fay.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yes, Flotus and Potus what a power couple. So historically speaking,
every single US president so far has had a person
close to them assuming the role of first lady. Generally
most of the time, especially in recent years, the first
(01:35):
Lady of the United States, or Flotus, as you pointed out,
has been the spouse of the current president, but that
was not always the case.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
That's right, and just really quickly that I just thought
it might be worth mentioning for anyone overseas or anyone
here in the United States and maybe isn't up on
this kind of stuff. What does the first lady do exactly?
It can mean lots of things. They are often charity
events and things and causes that you know, various first
ladies throughout history have sort of taken on. There is
(02:06):
the role of essentially being a presidential liaison of sorts.
Oftentimes they interface and interact with kids and education a lot.
But it is kind of an amorphous role and depending
on the first lady can be a lot of different things, right.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely, because first ladies don't always have to be spousands.
There could be daughters, sisters, nieces, and as we'll see
in later explorations, it goes pretty wide. It goes wider
(02:44):
than that, because there is no thing, no language in
the Constitution requiring the existence or the role of a
flutus of a first lady. It's one of those rule
of thumb things, always been a tradition, and I love
that you're pointing out the relatively a morphous nature of this.
(03:05):
First ladies are a golden goose for media, for documentaries, podcasts, books,
scholarly papers, but there's no legal definition. It's kind of
a thing of it's kept of a matter of what you,
as flutis want to do. Some are definitely more active
than others.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
I will read a quick excerpt from who is a
First Lady from the Nationalparkservice dot gov website INPs dot gov.
A director of social affairs, presidential aison, symbol of strength,
policy advocate, political reformer, keeper of the people's house. Yes,
that's interesting, partner and confidant. The first ladies of the
(03:47):
United States have taken on numerous roles throughout American history.
As the cultural milieu shifted, so did the expectations and
responsibilities of a first lady.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yes, they shift back and forth. With that I'll see
you there on National Park Service and also go to
the White House Historical Association, a great summation written by
Rosie Kine. And this is with big thanks to our
research associate, Jeff white House History dot org. They say, commentators, scholars,
(04:18):
and American society have typically defined the role of first
lady by marriage, elevating the status of the presidential spouse,
rather than focusing on the duties performed by these individuals,
hosting events, personal political confidante to the president, supporting political
and social causes, which we'll get to, and then historically
(04:41):
serving as a symbolic model. Dare I say propaganda of
what American womanhood means at the time of that administration
or to that administration.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I guess the reason I cringed a little bit at
that because it sort of comes off somewhat as sort
of America's housekeeper, which feels.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
A little dated.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I don't know about you.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, these individuals are often called white House hostesses because
a lot of what they're doing is what we would
deem soft diplomacy, you know what I mean, figuring out
how to run the party. Let's get to Let's get
to one of our first or two of our first examples.
(05:22):
Old Thomas Jefferson, a uniquely humble guy, the kind of
dude who had the modesty to look at the Christian
Bible and say, I have some notes.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
So Thomas Jefferson, call him TJ for ridiculous history purposes.
He actually had two unconventional first ladies, one being his
daughter Martha and the other being his buddy James Madison's
wife Dolly. This is a sad story, however, because it
is due to the fact that his wife passed away
twenty years before his inauguration and I.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Would say even the propaganda of this was even more
important in the early days of the United States. Yes,
Thomas Jefferson's wife, Martha sadly passed away long before he
ascended to the position of potus. So as a result
of this unfortunate passing, when Thomas Jefferson ascends to the
(06:18):
office of potus, they need someone to fill that first
lady role. His eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, steps in
and she becomes the first lady, the lead host for
everyone visiting the presidency when it is the Jefferson administration.
(06:40):
She goes on and we're leaning again on White Househistory
dot org. Here a great bio of Martha Jefferson Randolph.
She goes on to get a private education, and let's
be honest, not all women can get this. In the
seventeen hundreds, she travels with her father T. Jeffy across
(07:01):
the world. She marries a guy named Thomas Mann Randolph
on February twenty third, seventeen ninety. Shout out to our
earlier honorific episode, this is her relative, but it's a
distant relative, you know what I mean, Like it's okay,
it's a ish Okay, yeah, they take it, allow it.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's certainly better than you know, other examples of cousin Mary.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah. They have twelve children together, Thomas Mann Randolph and Martha,
eleven of.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Whom Man Randolph. That's great. I don't know, I like
the sound of that.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Eleven of these children, these issue they survived to adulthood.
The couples live in at Jefferson's plantation Monticello. We could
do multiple episodes about.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
That, right, I mean, we do know, of course that
Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yes, not great.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Martha was the head of that households and kind of
handled all of the affairs and managed the staff, and.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
That included the enslaved workers, which right rough.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And she was doing this not just at her dad's
spot Monticello, but also at her husband's plantation Edge Hill.
So Thomas Jefferson fast forward, he's elected to the presidency,
and when he is, his eldest daughter travels up to
DC and she serves as what they call the White
House hostess during the winter social seasons to eighteen oh three,
(08:35):
at eighteen oh five to eighteen oh six, I look
the idea of social seasons like the galas, the balls,
the fundraising meetings. It still happens in certain upper echelons
of US society, and it always seems so silly to me.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
And there's a winter social season. Surely there's a summer
social season as well. They require wearing.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Of different hats and garments, you know, more flowy white
garments in the summer, and perhaps you know a little
more bundled up in the win Why are you wearing
a tuxedo? Jack? It's after seven? Lemon? What am I
a farmer?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
One? Am I a farmer? Very good? Very good? Thirty rock?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
That relationship that will they won't they? Of Liz Lemon
and Jack Donaghan never ceases to entertain me. Yeah, excellent
rewatchability factor.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Absolutely, the density of jokes. My favorite is the one
throwaway line my new single, My new single is Dropping,
is Dropping. That's Tracy Jordan's wife when she becomes part
of a reality show.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
You just scrambled my brains. And as for the will
they won't they? Of Liz and Jack, they won't they?
It's not meant to be sexual attention. It's more of
a mentor mentee relationship.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Very lost in translation. I guess there is a little
of that.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
I just who was I listening to?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
It was the blank Check podcast with Griffin and David,
who I love dearly. They were talking about how every
time someone points out this idea of simmering sexual attention
on the show, both Jack and Liz get intensely annoyed.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah right, I mean, picture your dad naked or don't
you know what I mean? That's what it's going towards south. So,
speaking of close relationships with one's pattern familius master of
the segue, Thank you, sir. Martha is doing really well
at first because during these social seasons, in her role
(10:28):
functionally as the first Lady, she is a huge advocate
for Tommy Jeff's career, and she gets a reputation in
the salons, in the philosophical discourse of the day. People
are looking around and saying, hey, you know, I know
she's the president's kid. But even with all that aside,
she's really smart. She's a cracker.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Jack attending salons, you know, intellectual discussions and all of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
But behind the headlines, behind those happy conversations, there are
financial difficulties. Both her husband Man Randolph and her father
Tommy Jay are continually worried about the coin, so her
father dies in eighteen twenty six spoiler, and the family
(11:17):
is forced to sell Monticello. Martha moves to Tufton to
live with her eldest son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. And at
this point, I want to take a moment and say
there's a diminishing return with remixing family names. At some point,
give someone a cool family name, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. You
(11:40):
could have just added the middle name with something cool,
like Dash or Fox or ziggy.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I do like man Randolph, though I've got to say
I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Did jump in here?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
This reminds me of John Adams second, who is the
son of John Quincy Adams right, who was obviously the
son of John Adams. And also John Adams married his
first cousin.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It's rough, man, It's just like a friendy magical realism.
Nerds in the crowd. It's just like One hundred Years
of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The most difficult thing
about reading that book is everybody has some combination of
the same, like three to four names. Anyway, always give
(12:20):
your kids a back pocket middle name to differentiate themselves
if you take nothing else from this. Ultimately we know
that Martha also, despite having so many kids with man Randolph,
she ultimately went on the rocks. Their marriage was not
its best, they were estranged for a long time, and
(12:44):
right before he dies in eighteen twenty eight, she reconciles
with him and then she spends the rest of her
life sort of moving around the United States, living with
her children on their property, sometimes in Boston, sometimes DC
or Virginia. And then upon her death, she is buried
(13:05):
alongside her husband and her father at Monticello. And then
along comes Dollie.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Entered Dolly Madison, who was doing some pretty clever political maneuverings,
you know, within her role as First Lady, she was
essentially trying to ensure that her husband, James Madison would
become the next president.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah. Yeah, And going back to White househistory dot org,
we see that there's a vinn diagram of first Lady
or floatis hood a dumb word we just made up.
Dolly Madison is unofficially doing some whispering to the kingmakers, right,
(13:54):
and during the Jefferson administration, her husband James is Secretary
of State and the entire time she's stepping in. You know, hey,
if Martha can't make it, I'm happy to host this gala,
you know what I mean, I'll receive the ambassador from wherever.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
So they were essentially doing this kind of in tandem,
Martha and Dolly splitting up the duties.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Kind of alternating, sort of a double dragon situation. For
anybody who played an increasingly obscure video game, love a
good beat them up? Yeah, yeah, I love a good scroller.
And every time, this is a true story, folks, every
time my pal Nola and I are on the road,
we do look for an arcade if it's available, right,
(14:42):
love a good arcade.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
If anybody ever finds themselves in the Atlanta area, I
highly recommend. I believe it's called Round One at the
Cumberland Mall, which is a cornucopia of incredible claw machines
and obscure Japanese fighting cabinet games that characters you've never
heard of, not to mention, like every rhythm game you
could possibly want to try your hand at. And I
think there are some elsewhere in the country too, So
(15:05):
look into Round One if you're seeking a rat arcade.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, they're a chain. And speaking of shades of power. Right,
come on, So eighteen oh one, let's learn a little
bit of background. Dolly and her husband, James, who gets
famous for other things later. They moved to d C
because James is Secretary of State and he's it's a
(15:29):
friendship hire Tommy j hires him, And because Jefferson is
a widower, Dolly is periodically assisting Jefferson, primarily when other
women are visiting the White House or visiting the President.
So it's not just Tommy Jay hanging out in a room.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
No, she's hosting these social gatherings or you know, like
hosting the wives of powerful men, and by you know,
getting in their good graces. Less had a pretty close
walk to influencing some of these powerful men as well.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
And she also, to your excellent point about political machination,
she also created an alternative hub of power over at
the Madison House, which was on f Street. What one
Washingtonian observed during this time was the following quote. After
(16:27):
the presidents, the House of the Secretary of State was
the resort of most company. Politicians and diplomats could not
resist Dolly's conciliatory disposition, her frank, gracious manners. They frequented
her evening circle and sat at her husband's table, so
she was the after party as well.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Oh yeah, the afters indeed.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
And Dolly does get a lot of attention in the
conversation surrounding first ladies, I think because she was so
charming and she was also so politically adapt But I
don't think she came off as being duplicitous necessarily either.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
She navigated it all, you know, with grace. I would say, I.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Think history remembers her pretty fondly for all of this stuff.
Oh yeah, one hundred percent, dude, because she understands the
we keep using the words symbolic. White House sources also
will use the word symbolic. But let's be honest, we're
talking propaganda, you know what I mean, Like how autorifics
are just fancy nicknames. Symbolic importance is just propaganda importance
(17:32):
at this point, That's right.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
So Dolly basically becomes the quintessential first Lady and that
kind of prototype for the model of American womanhood that
we mentioned at the top of the show because of
all of these you know, social graces and ability to
kind of.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Play a man's game, you know, with a woman's Wiles
or whatever there. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
I'm speaking in the parlance of the time, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, yeah. And Jefferson, for his part, Look, I think
a lot of people forget this about the.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Guy he is.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
He's got big startup CEO energy, right, he's very much
the guy who says, look, let's be informal, you know,
the United States, it's an experiment. We're throwing out all
that stuffy old world, the trappings, the morays, the trappings,
the values. So we're not gonna sit people in this
(18:28):
rigid diplomatic hierarchy. You come to hang out with me,
your boy President Tommy, jeff just figure out where you
want to sit for dinner, you know, and then we'll
just hang out. And Dolly becomes the social glue or
the bridge between these two very different worlds. Sometimes it
(18:50):
triggers international incidents.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
That's right, I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
But you know, she did become an international figure because
of some of these examples, one of which involved Jefferson
creating a serious international kerfuffle in eighteen oh three by
escorting Dolly to the dinner table instead of the wife
of a British ambassador by the name of Anthony Mary,
(19:13):
who I'm sure we all know and remember.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yet one hundred percent some of those stuffy kind of
mores and hierarchies that we had mentioned, or that you
had mentioned, Ben would have dictated that that be the move.
But instead they were kind of righting their own rules.
And maybe that flies, you know, in their own country,
but with when folks are coming in from outside of
the United States, kind of important to play by their
(19:39):
rules at least to some degree, wouldn't you say? And
doctor plomacy is right sort of writing that fine.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Line meeting in the middle, before you push the envelope
or before you take somewhere. It's someone somewhere, you have
to find them where they're at. This sounds weird, but
it was a very big deal. It's eighteen oh three
picture The Night of Dolly is trying to get Tommy
Jeff to do the right thing, and she's say, no, no,
don't take me, you gotta this is very important to
(20:09):
these weird British people.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
She's demonstrating some more diplomatic chops than the press.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Cultural knowledge like in certain areas of the Middle East,
shouldn't eat with your left hand nor shake with it.
She knew all of these tips and tricks. Jefferson either
didn't know or because of his big startup energy, he
didn't care. Anthony Mary and the Mary missus were not
fans of this. They felt snubbed, and it became something
(20:39):
called the Mary affair. Just so, petty, who walks to
dinner in what order? That's wild.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
It's just it's another example that we see all the
time in history, how one seemingly insignificant events or a
you know, like a butterfly effect type situation can lead
to toppling dominoes, you know, further down the line, and can.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Actually cause hot wars.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
I mean, like you know, I mean the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand for example.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
You know, a big deal.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
A person was killed, of course, but it would not
have at the time, seemed to be enough to set
off this powder keg that would lead to a world war.
We're not dealing with those kind of stakes here, but
it did increase some already pretty you know, rough political
tensions between the United States and the United Kingdom, you know,
(21:30):
for reasons I can't imagine all other things were at play. Yeah,
the powder keg situation almost always occurs because there were
rising tensions that were sort of waiting for an ignition point,
and that's what happened with Franz Ferdinand. This is also
what could have happened with the Merry incident, because from
(21:51):
the perspective of the ambassador from Great Britain, it's a
matter of not something pet it's a matter of do
you respect the king, do you respect the empire?
Speaker 4 (22:05):
And as like we don't though right isn't necessari we
don't like kings here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So you know, it hasn't been that far removed from
the old American revolutions. The tensions are incredibly high still,
wouldn't you say, Yeah, people are still alive remembering this.
You know, it's not like hanging out in Manchester and
taking the piss out with some of your friends about
the revolution. This is very close to everybody's heart and
(22:31):
experience at this point. So to Anthony Mary, he is
the avatar of the King, of the state, of the
power of Great Britain. So if you do something wrong
or out of diplomatic protocol, even if he personally doesn't care,
you have now besmirched the dignity.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Of the state.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
You have insulted the King himself. You may as well
have spat in his face, you know exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And Dolly again, we can't shout her out enough. Dolly
works within these nuances of culture. She is plugged into
all of the feminine power makers in these diplomatic circles.
So she says, look, we don't want to have this
blow up any more than it already has. So she
(23:21):
reaches out not directly to Elizabeth Mary Anthony, Mary's wife
who apparently got dissed. She goes through a common friend
of a friend, the wife of the Spanish ambassador. They
make friends. There's a lot of you know, house of
cards kind of maneuvering here, and eventually they bury the hatchet.
(23:43):
They succeed in inviting the Mary's over to dinner at
her home, at Madison's f Street home. So she may
have saved the day in a way that history ignores.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Well, she tried to prevent the whole affair in the
first place, and just you know, Jefferson didn't listen to her,
and then she ended up having to clean up his mess.
I wonder why he didn't listen.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
To her, Probably because she was a woman, Yeah, but
I just you know, he's doing it sort of in
it's in her favor, right, like to escort her, and
she's saying, you know, no, it's it's the better move
to escort the wife of the diplomat, and he is
he just doesn't like to be told what to do
or is he actively pushing back against the idea of
(24:28):
following the British.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Kind of code.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I would go with the ladder there too. It seems
very not very smart. No, but you know, not a
hill dying on. Yeah. No, not everybody's smart all the time.
This leads us to another example again this will probably
be a continuing series, but Andrew Jackson, worst dude. You
(24:53):
have famously not a great president. He and not a
good person right neither. He also had to first ladies,
there was some weird, as Jeff points out, some weird
legality of marriage stuff going on with his first wife.
Excellent diplomacy there, Jeff.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
It would seem that some of those negative qualities that
we hinted at led to quite the scandal with his
first wife. She did not even make it to his
inauguration because she's sadly due to something an amorphous sickness
that seemed to be brought on by just like anxiety
around the way she was treated by Andrew Jackson. Do
(25:41):
you have any more details around that, guys.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, Rachel Jackson was the if. She died on December
twenty second, eighteen twenty eight. She had lived with Jackson
at the Hermitage, but she died just days after his
election and before auguration, which was in eighteen twenty nine,
so she never served as first Lady. But you gotta
(26:07):
have a first lady at this point in time, you
got to have somebody being the White House host individual.
So according to our pal Jeff, there's another story with
Rachel Jackson in particular that doesn't even touch on his
official to first ladies. The duties of the first Lady
(26:28):
after Rachel Jackson dies go to her niece, Emily Donaldson.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
And you know, I do have to ask.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
It seems like it's up to the discretion of the
president and his advisors as to who the right person
is to kind of step into that role, because there
is no line of succession per se.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Right, No, there are no what is this Europe? Yes,
there are no rigid, rigid instructions Nora Rubric on what
to do. We know that Rachel Jackson was viciously attacked
in the press, so much so that it probably traumatized her.
(27:07):
When she is buried in an area near Nashville, Tennessee,
her epitaph bears the following a being so gentle and
so virtuous, slander might wound but could not Dishonor so
it seems that Andrew Jackson was so angry about the
campaign slurs hurled against his wife that he needed that
(27:32):
carved in stone on her grave.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Am I miss speaking?
Speaker 4 (27:36):
I mean, you know, it does seem like his first wife.
Her condition worsened as a result of stress.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Absolutely, that's yeah traumatic, you know. And she she was
born in Virginia. She traveled through the wilderness of Tennessee
with her parents when she was frontier baby, Yeah, frontier baby.
She also was previously married before she married Jackson, which
was a big, big deal in a big bad way
(28:05):
at that point likely.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Would have been used as ammunition in that slander campaign.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah. So she marries this guy, Lewis Roberts when she
is seventeen. He is the child of a very big
deal family in Mercer County, and apparently he was quite
the jealous husband, so much so that it made her
a living situation impossible. They separate in seventeen ninety and
(28:33):
then she gets word not from him, that he's filing
for divorce. Divorce can always be a traumatic, messy thing.
But folks, we're a little bit better off in twenty
twenty five than we are in seventeen ninety. Eventually the
divorce goes through, Andrew Jackson marries her the next year,
(28:54):
or they think the divorce goes through. Record scratch Max.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Turns out turns out that the the later president and
his new wife learned that this first husband, Lewis Roberts,
didn't get a divorce, actually he just got permission to
file one. And so when they get married, this guy
(29:19):
comes back out from the blue and sues them on
the grounds of adulterery.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Not a good pr moment for the for the would
be president. After the divorce was finally granted, the Jackson's
remarried in seventeen ninety four, and they, you know that
this was no particular fault of their own.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
You know, this was something that just was not clear.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And you know, we know also that the communication lines
of communication were slow. If things like the court systems
grind slowly today, back in those days due to the
fact that you couldn't even get word to somebody about
something that would have been exponentially lower those whispers, however,
because of that a word, that scarlet letter, adultery and bigamy,
(30:07):
even the rumors just kind of wouldn't stop, and they
followed Rachel around as Jackson started to make his rise in.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Politics and as a general, Yeah, he was quick to
be super hot headed about any of these rumors. If
he heard someone saying them in person, it was smash
on site. He was ready to fight with you.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
I think where I did misspeak slightly is you know,
we know Andrew Jackson had some serious moral issues, you know,
and was very aggressive dude. It would seem, though, however,
that the stress that led to Rachel's untimely passing was
less caused by him than it was caused by just
what he was and represented and the need to kind
(30:53):
of tear him down a peg. And she was essentially
a target for that. He was going to every effort
that he could manage to defend her on her.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, he was fighting the tabloids of the time. We
could say, and look, everybody who actually knew Rachel Jackson
again not officially a first lady. Everybody who knew her
loved her because she was down home. You know, she
was not pretentious, she was very kind. A lot of
people might not even be fans of Andrew Jackson himself,
(31:25):
but when they go to the herbitage, they're welcomed as family.
The Jacksons never have any children of their own, but
they take in a lot of Rachel's relatives, and she
had a ton of relatives. They adopted a nephew. They
named him, in a burst of creativity, Andrew Jackson Junior.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
They also raised other nephews as their own Andrew Jackson
Donaldson now who eventually married a cousin as well. First
cousin that would see Emily, one of Rachel's favorite nieces.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So match made in heaven. There.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
When Jackson was finally elected president, he planned to have
Donaldson serve as private secretary, with Emily hanging around to
keep Rachel company.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah yeah, and then, of course, as we mentioned, Rachel
Jackson passes away, and with this Emily gets an unforeseen promotion.
Jackson says, why don't you serve as the hostess? You
do the and again this is very dated. You do
the woman, folks, stuff that's what they're thinking. And she
(32:36):
is twenty one at this point. She enters the White House.
She takes care of everything, her her uncle, you know,
the President, her own husband. She has four children, three
are born at the White House, and she takes care
of visiting relatives and then official guest. It's a big
(32:56):
family in the White House at this time. And everybody
who'd be her again, they lover her. They say, look,
I might not agree with old Anty, but his sidekick
is awesome. And also she will stick up to the
President of the United States on issues of principle. If
(33:16):
she has a problem with something, if she thinks he's
you know, rolling off the road in one way or another,
then she is speaking truth to power, which is a
very difficult thing to do. But she also dies of
tuberculosis in eighteen thirty six, and so it came to
pass that during the last months of the Jackson administration.
(33:39):
Here we go more confusing names. Sarah York Jackson, who
is the wife of Andrew Jackson Junior, the adopted nephew,
functionally becomes the first lady.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
And you know, it's interesting how all of these first
ladies were so popular and so beloved despite Andrew Jackson
again being a bit of a pill and we yeah,
was he popular at the time though, I mean, I know,
history remembers him for things like the Indian Removal Act
of eighteen thirty and you know, pushing for states rights
(34:15):
and ethnic cleansing, you know, of Native Americans from state lands,
and also being very aggressive towards the civil rights of
free people of color, you know, and having also been
a pretty brutal slave owner himself. But I'm just wondering,
what was the feeling. A lot of people seemed like
they might have been cool with a lot of the
(34:35):
stuff in the day of his presidency.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Contemporarily, he did have a lot of opposition, but he
also had a lot of support. There's a reason he
became president. No, if you go back through one of
the favorite games of we historical president buffs, you'll see
that he is not ranked as low as a lot
of presidents. I'm best the worst, but he is not
(34:59):
ranked very high either. He was always polemical. He was
always a kind of demagogue. You know, crowds loved him,
they loved his speeches. He was very much against certain
aspects of banking. That part we could agree with. He
was opposed to the Second Bank of the United States because.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
It wasn't there a scandal to where he removed deposits
of some kind and was censured by the legislature.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Well, the Second Bank was an absolute existential threat to
the idea of democracy. It was a private company, but
of it functioned as a government sponsored monopoly. And I
do appreciate that you're doing the needful thing here as well,
(35:46):
which is he definitely participated in widespread genocidal attempts and
against Native American populations. You could put thousands of deaths
at his feet. And again, the terrifying thing is that
gained him a lot of support. So people might be
(36:09):
opposed to his ideas, but then when they meet when
they meet his niece, they think, here's someone I can
talk stuff out with. Or when they meet Sarah Yorke Jackson,
who is his adoptive daughter in law, they think, okay,
well I could talk to her.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Yeah, And she continued to kind of carry the torch
of that role by hosting functions at the White House
along with Emily Donaldson, and when Donaldson departed two years later,
she took over fully.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, so let's learn a little bit about Sarah. Sarah
Yorke is born somewhere in the early eighteen hundreds, right
at the turn of the nineteenth century, eighteen oh three
to eighteen oh five. She's in Philly. She is orphaned
as a child. She is raised by relatives. She Andrew
Jackson Junior that adopted son in eighteen thirty one, She
(37:06):
like so many others, lives at the Hermitage, and she,
like other people, oversees the operation of the household, including
enslaved people on the property. And a fire damages the
Hermitage in eighteen thirty four. So Sarah York Jackson now
(37:26):
and her family moved to the White House, and she,
as you said, is assisting Emily Donaldson in these hosting
positions Jackson, and she sees out the administration. She does
this after Emily Donaldson passes. When Jackson leaves the presidency,
Sarah York Jackson and her family go back to Tennessee,
(37:49):
and she takes care of her father in law, the
former president, until he passes away in eighteen forty five,
at which point the ownership of the hermitage goes to
the adopted son, Andrew Jackson Junior, and get this nol.
He sells it.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
To pay off some bretty crippling debt in eighteen fifty six.
So after Sarah's husband passed, she continued on at the
Hermitage until she passed away on August twenty third of
eighteen eighty seven. And she is buried there in a
cemetery on the grounds.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
And with that, I propose that we haul it a
day here, because the next few first Lady Fluidis situations
we're examining get a little bit deeper for the scope
of today's episode. Today, we'll talk about Van Buren in
our next exploration, and we will also light spoiler talk
(38:47):
about some floatist roles that were not occupied by women
at all.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
Oh man, I can't wait. If you want to find
us on the internet, you can do so. I am
at how now Noel Brown on Instagram, Ben, Where can
the fine ridiculous historians out in podcast land find you?
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yes? Should you care to sip the social meet to,
you can find me calling myself in a burst of
creativity at Ben Bullen on Instagram, at Ben Bullen hsw
on x, or the website Benbollan dot com. Big Big
thanks to mister Max Williams. Our research associate, Jeff. We
need a good nickname for Jeff. We'll get there one day.
(39:25):
What do you got Do you got one?
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Jeff mac Tonight, bartlet we go? I guys love that episode. Man,
what a fun discussing that was.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
H Yeah, big, big thanks of course to aj Bahama's Jacobs,
to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, and Alex Tijuana Williams.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Indeed, Chris Frasciota Sieves, Jeffcoats here in spirit, Max Williams,
the man behind the Curtain.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Add big thanks to the curtain. We paid a pretty
hefty price for it, but I think it's good. I
think it's cool for us to have a curtain we.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Got at the same time we got the giant Grandfather
clock that we occasionally referenced.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yes, yes, yes we did. And if you want to
learn more about the mythos, please check out our past, present,
and future episodes. As always, thank you for tuning in, folks.
There's so much more to explore and we're glad you're
doing it with us. And Noel, thank you to.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
You, Ah and you as well. Ben. We'll see you
next time, folks.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
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