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Dolley Madison died at her house on Lafayette Square on July 12, 1849. She was eighty-one. By that age she was one of the few women of note who remembered the founding fathers personally. There were others, most of them women like Mrs. Madison who had outlived their husbands. Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, widow of Alexander Hamilton was older and lived just up
James Knox Polk was at home in Columbia, Tennessee, when he judged that it was about time to find out the results of the election. A dispatch from Washington was waiting for him at the post office. And the news of his presidential victory marked not only a change in his life, but marked, in retrospect, the start of the
Sarah Childress Polk (1803–1891) was first lady from 1845 to 1849, during the administration of her husband, James Knox Polk. A fashion trendsetter, she used her keen intelligence, abiding religious faith, pleasant manner, and superb organizational skills to artfully regulate the White House, serve as her husband’s main political partner, and orchestrate an exhausting social schedule of receptions and dinners that helped Polk
