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    Fashion and Frugality

    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

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    Getting It Right

    On March 4, 1809, at Washington’s first inaugural ball, one keen local observer recorded that the new first lady, Dolley Payne Todd Madison, who arrived draped in a low-cut, buff velvet gown with a long train, “answered all my ideas of royalty.”1 And in truth she did have a uniquely American interpretation of regality that would keep her center stage for the ei