“Few Ladies Ever Sit”: Examining Women’s Presence in the Madison White House Parlors
Abby Schulte
Citation: Schulte, Abby. “Few Ladies Ever Sit”: Examining Women’s Presence in the Madison White House Parlors. The Coalition of Masters Scholars on Material Culture. October 21, 2022
Abstract: In 1809, Dolley Madison and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe embarked on extensive efforts to transform the White House interiors into spaces ladened with significance. Throughout the first term of the Madison administration, thousands of Americans witnessed their work while attending weekly parlor gatherings. However, nearly all the materials they saw were burned by the British in 1814. Using correspondence, business ledgers, and the few surviving furnishings, historians have since sought to reconceptualize the Madison White House parlors and the messages that they conveyed. This study builds on such work by exploring the uniqueness of white women’s interactions with these interiors. A closer look reveals that at the parlor gatherings, white women took in material-based messages that played a significant role in their ability to negotiate their political and social standing in the new American republic.
Keywords: White House, First Lady, women, gender roles, nineteenth-century interiors, decorative arts, material culture
In 1814, prominent writer Margaret Bayard Smith described the unique social conditions of early Washington women, stating, “The women here are taking a station in society which is not known elsewhere….they are treated with mark’d distinction.”[1] At the time of her writing, which coincided with the James Madison presidential administration, women in the nation’s capital had unprecedented access to political spaces. The Madison White House, designed by First Lady Dolley Madison and architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, stood at the center of this development.
The construction of the executive mansion began in 1792 under the leadership of architect James Hoban. While Hoban’s name is most prominently associated with the project, enslaved black men carried out the majority of the labor.[2] They completed the construction in 1800. However, much like the rest of Washington, D.C., at the time, the place that the Madisons began inhabiting in 1809 was incomplete. James tasked Dolley and Latrobe with the responsibility of what he termed the “domestic arrangements” of his new home, then called the “President’s Palace.”[3] Dolley and Latrobe’s wife, Mary, were long-time friends, so the two were well acquainted. However, their project proved significant. They found themselves navigating the diverse worldviews of the thousands of people that the executive mansion’s public interiors would soon welcome.
Dolley and Latrobe attended to various rooms throughout the president’s home, but they most significantly changed the furniture and architectural elements of the parlors. Upon completion, these spaces welcomed up to 200 visitors weekly for a social gathering called “Mrs. Madison’s Wednesday Drawing Room.”[4] At the same time, the young nation was grappling with how to define and put into practice a political system where people had the power to choose their representatives. Past scholars of the Madison administration have concluded that Dolley and Latrobe’s development of the parlor spaces marked a successful turn in amplifying and solidifying how Americans understood their relationship with the government. As historian Catherine Allgor has pointed out, the less formal title “White House” emerged in the public vernacular two years into the Madison administration, reflecting the American people’s increased ability to identify with the building. [5] However, Americans’ experience and access to the evolving meaning of this space differed depending on their identity.
Women specifically grappled with how to define their role as citizens. With no right to participate in political matters, such as voting, it was initially unclear how the republic served them and, in turn, how they served the republic. As Linda Kerber explained, Americans made sense of this quandary with the concept of “Republican Motherhood.” Proponents of Republican Motherhood defined women’s role in the republic as the upbringing of educated and patriotic citizens.[6] Thus, rather than women involving themselves in the public aspects of republican citizenry, such as officeholding, they were expected to take on the private duties, or those within the home. These separate spheres for men and women were so rigid that they were thought to be responsible for the success of the American government system.[7]
Race played a significant role in the perceived fulfillment of Republican Motherhood because women of color were stripped of their legibility as wives and mothers by white Americans who abetted and engaged in chattel slavery.[8] Therefore, in the early nineteenth century, white women had access to exclusive proponents of Republican Motherhood. While still confined to strict gender norms, this privilege of their whiteness allowed them to find ways to push back on the boundaries of men’s and women’s expected behavior.
As the nineteenth century progressed, Americans would continue to redefine the bounds of Republican Motherhood. Eventually, it would serve as the basis for argumentation behind women’s partisan and nonpartisan activism, as well as women’s suffrage.[9] These movements justified themselves with the notion that women’s roles in the home equipped them with knowledge and morality that would be beneficial to contribute to the public realm. However, building acceptance of such an understanding of Republican Motherhood took substantial time and effort. Dolley Madison’s Wednesday Drawing Rooms provided an influential space for women to begin negotiating this avenue for participation in the republic.
Being both a home and site of governmental power, the Madison White House parlors were, at once, both public and private spaces. They also possessed material-based messages about the republic that white women, who typically attended the parlor events with their husbands, had the opportunity to interpret for themselves.[10] A closer look at white women’s experiences reveals that the spaces afforded them the ability to interact with overt political matters while still maintaining gender norms. Thus, Dolley Madison’s Wednesday Drawing Rooms represent how white women developed a level of agency in a system designed to oppress them.
Figure 1 : First Ladies Hall Diorama, Dolley Madison, 1961. Margaret Klapthor, et. al, 1961. Materials and dimensions not available. Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution Archives. Image # 71-2062.
The Setting of the Wednesday Drawing Room Events
The two White House parlors served as the setting for the Wednesday Drawing Room events. Because the British destroyed nearly all of the building’s interior during their 1814 burning of Washington, visualizing these spaces has been challenging. In 1965, curator Margaret Klapthor used correspondence and business ledgers to meet this task and established a solid foundation from which subsequent interpretations have followed (Figure 1). The parlors were located in the spaces contemporarily known as the “Red Room” and “Blue Room.” Dolley and Latrobe completed the more informal parlor first, assigning it with the appellations “Ladies Drawing Room” and “Mrs. Madison’s Parlor.” They welcomed their first visitors on May 31, 1809.[11] The grander parlor, which Latrobe saw as his masterpiece, was called “The Oval Room” and opened seven months later on New Year’s Day of 1810.[12] The Oval Room was directly east of Mrs. Madison’s parlor. It derived its eponymous shape by centering on the White House’s south portico (Figure 02). The Madisons used Mrs. Madison’s parlor for “intimate events,” such as “receiving calls from locals and officials, ladies of the town, and legislators.”[13] The Oval Room then became the focal point for the Wednesday Drawing Rooms, though guests could view both parlor spaces on these occasions.[14]
Figure 2: The White House (“President’s House”) Washington, D.C. Site Plan and Principal Story Plan. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1807. Drawing: watercolor and ink on paper. Dimensions not available. Courtesy, Benjamin Henry Latrobe Archive. As published by the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The Oval Drawing Room is the central room in the top half of this plan. The Ladies Drawing Room/Mrs. Madison’s Parlor is directly to its right. Today these spaces are known as the “Blue Room” and “Red Room,” respectively. The exterior stone walls are original, but the interior wooden walls burned in the fire. However, the floorplan of this portion of the White House was rebuilt with a similar structure.
Historians like Klapthor have learned that Dolley and Latrobe designed Mrs. Madison’s parlor in the Sheraton style. The fabrics used for the draperies and valances, upholstery, and fireboard were of bright yellow hues. Chairs and sofas furnished the spaces, along with accouterments for entertainment, such as card tables, a piano forte, and a guitar.[15] In contrast, the Oval Room was more spacious and formal (Figure 3). Its color scheme was a crimson red presented through extravagant velvet fabric.[16] The layout of the room was mostly open, with some chairs and settees available throughout.[17] It also included technological advancements, such as argand lamps and a large mirror above the mantel.[18] These more advanced features provided a rare spectacle for many visitors.
Nonetheless, the parlors also employed stylistic themes typical to American homes. In particular, most early nineteenth-century homes had a similar layout of two parlors with varying formality levels.[19] They also possessed similar furnishings.[20] However, many of the decorative arts Dolley and Latrobe chose for the parlor were of finer quality and their details, as later sections of this paper will explore, conveyed intentional messages about the Madison administration’s political ideologies. This combination of features characterized the spaces as both public and private. As such, white women’s movement throughout them provided a unique opportunity for them to conceptualize their identity across these gendered spheres.
White Women’s Movement Throughout the Parlors
Visiting the Madison White House parlors for the Wednesday Drawing Room events remained relatively fluid, reflecting broader social etiquette developments at this time. In general, Washington society expected an invitation to one’s home to be preceded by “calling,” a process of exchanging contact cards.[21] The Madisons’ early Wednesday Drawing Rooms employed written invitations published in newspapers, and attendees who had previously presented a calling card to the Madisons would respond. However, this process relaxed over time. The events became more notable, and guests, ranging from political families to out-of-town visitors of all social classes, attended without an official invitation.[22] The Madisons did, however, restrict the events to white people. People of color accessed the parlors, but it was almost exclusively as enslaved people or servants who labored in the spaces. [23] Klapthor explained that with such attendance, the Wednesday Drawing Rooms became “a focal point around which all of [Washington’s] official society revolved.”[24] They provided an experience unmatched in Washington society.
As white women moved throughout these events, they found an atmosphere that at once reinforced and contradicted early nineteenth-century gender norms. Both affordances presented themselves in the behavior expected of attendees. First, patriarchal provisions that restricted women’s actions persisted in the requirement of strict adherence to refinement and manners. For example, except for brief introductions, women were expected to refrain from speaking with the president. In describing her experience at a Wednesday Drawing Room in 1812, Sara Gales Seaton, the daughter of a North Carolina newspaper publisher, remarked that “every moment of [James Madison’s] time [was] engrossed by the crowd of male visitors who court his notice.”[25] Extensive interactions with the nation’s president were too overtly political to be deemed acceptable for women.
At the same time, the Wednesday Drawing Rooms were at the forefront of facilitating progressive perceptions towards women’s liberties. Many early nineteenth-century parlors embodied a gendered separation that required women’s submission. Hosts positioned chairs and benches near walls, providing a disconnected location for women to “sit stiffly,” while men occupied and moved freely throughout these rooms’ entirety.[26] Departing from this tradition, Washington social events during the Madison administration provided men and women more integration. In describing this shift, Margaret Bayard Smith wrote:
At the drawing room, at our parties, few ladies ever sit….the ladies and gentlemen stand and walk about the rooms in mingled groups, which certainly produces more ease, freedom, and equality than in those rooms where the ladies sit and wait for the gentlemen to approach and converse.[27]
Smith knew the Madisons personally and frequently attended the Wednesday Drawing Rooms.[28] Though she speaks of Washington drawing rooms in a general sense here, she included the White House parlors specifically earlier in the letter. The executive mansion was central to Washington society, and thus, its setting was at the forefront of the conduct Smith describes. The Wednesday Drawing Rooms were designed so that people could move freely, meaning women interacted with men and their political roles in a way that would have been almost impossible to access elsewhere.
The layout of the Oval Drawing Room facilitated mingling at these events. Dolley and Latrobe had chairs positioned throughout to provide seats for women (Figure 4).[29] However, accounts from Wednesday Drawing Room attendees suggest that the Madisons did not require the chairs’ use nor expect women to act stereotypically refined. For guests, regardless of gender, the White House parlors became liminal and allowed them to meet and converse with people of diverse backgrounds.
While social interactions are not overtly political, Allgor’s work has shown the potential political impact of those that took place at the Wednesday Drawing Rooms. As people conversed, they shared ideas and worldviews. In other words, they learned about the issues impacting everyday life from those around them. Because the guests were not segregated by gender, these exchanges happened between men and women. As such, interacting with others at the Wednesday Drawing Rooms meant women could influence the perspectives of men who held political power.[30]
Figure 3: The Splendid Mrs. Madison. Peter Waddell for the White House Historical Association. 2012. Oil on canvas. 48 x 60cm.
In this painting, Waddell relied on scholarship about the Madison interiors to reproduce a scene of the Oval Drawing Room on a Wednesday night.
Democratic Ideals and the Oval Drawing Room’s Decorative Art
Figure 4: Design for a chair for the White House. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, circa 1809. Watercolor, pen, pencil, and ink on paper. 41.95 x 19.69cm. Courtesy, Maryland Center for History and Culture.
In addition to interacting with people at the Wednesday Drawing Rooms, women attendees took in the subtleties of Dolley and Latrobe’s design efforts. Because of the uniquely public and private character of the parlor spaces, the experience of visiting them provided a distinctive experience for women to conceptualize how they may exist beyond this divide. The juxtaposition of decorative arts choices within the parlors and women’s behavior in Washington society at the time demonstrates how women found new opportunities to express themselves in political spaces.
The decorative arts of the White House parlors provided visitors the opportunity to interpret how they connected to the role of the presidency. Dolley and Latrobe designed the public spaces to convey the role’s character. As scholar Katherine Conover Hunt has demonstrated by comparing the Madison White House to Montpelier, the couple’s private residence, the executive mansion did not represent its inhabitants’ personal interests.[31] This contrast would have presented a unique message to early nineteenth-century visitors, who typically operated with the assumption that they could recognize elements of a person’s individuality through their possessions.[32]
Figure 5: Plan for Mantel with Embellished French Plate Mirror. Benjamin Henry Latrobe and Dolley Madison, 1809. Watercolor, ink, and wash. 35 x 46cm. Courtesy, Benjamin Henry Latrobe Archive. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
In designing to portray the presidency, Dolley and Latrobe faced possible contention. In a nation that declared independence from a monarchy just decades prior, they had to be careful in displaying extravagance.[33] Some of the more luxurious features they held to were technological advancements that enhanced lighting. The argand lamps affixed to the Oval Drawing Room walls were more expensive and gave off significantly more light than the standard choice of candles. The reflection created by a mirror above the fireplace mantle further amplified this effect (Figure 5). Allgor concluded that this object impressed visitors and was likely the biggest mirror that they had ever seen.[34] Early nineteenth-century Americans understood lighting to be commensurate with hospitality, meaning such advanced lighting technology would have signaled a more exclusive visitor experience.[35] The damask and velvet fabrics featured in the parlors also would have been more costly compared to what early nineteenth-century Americans could afford for their homes. In the Oval Room, the warm velvet tone would have communicated a liveliness and importance in the space. [36]
Dolley and Latrobe ameliorated possible concerns about the lavish parlors in two ways. First, they decorated the space to be familiar to typical nineteenth-century American homes. The use of both a formal and informal parlor conveyed this feeling. Using a single fabric throughout each space also followed the standard disbursement of color in many parlors at the time.[37] In addition, Dolley and Latrobe carefully presented the more expensive features of the room not to imply an affinity for aristocracy. For example, they used Greek furniture styles and motifs, such as klismos chairs and sofas (Figure 3).[38] As opposed to French-style decorative arts, this choice exuded democratic themes.[39] In this effort, Dolley and Latrobe relied heavily on the work of Thomas Hope, a prominent interior decorator and voice in Greek Revival Design. A piece of the Oval Drawing Room wallpaper border that survived the 1814 White House fire also demonstrates Greek influence, as it features “rich hues” and a “delicate texture” similar to those recommended by Hope (Figure 6).[40] These inclusions demonstrated the value and strength of the democratic government that the president oversaw.
Figure 6: Mary Latrobe’s Tea Box. Artisan unknown, probably Washington, D.C., c. 1809-1811. Wood. Dimensions not available. © 2000 White House Historical Association.
The interior of this tea box, owned by Benjamin Henry Latrobe’s wife, is lined with a French woodblock wallpaper. An inscription on the box explains that it is a sample of the wallpaper from the Madison White House, given to Mary as a gift from Dolley Madison.
The combination of exceptional and familiar decorative arts amplified the guests’ feelings of belonging in a democratic system. White men’s connection to these messages was more straightforward. Just as the parlors represented, for them, gaining political power took work, yet was accessible. Therefore, they manifested the interior’s balance of awe and relatability.
For women, these material messages became an opportunity to continue conceptualizing their gendered relationship to ideas about democracy. While they still could not meet government ideals with a sense of relatability, they found themselves more comfortable in increasing their proximity to them. Women’s activity in broader Washington society shows that as they more frequently visited the parlor spaces, they were changing their behavior at other engagements. As Allgor’s research concluded, women of this time began attending events outside the home, such as “horse races, exhibitions, and public restaurants.”[41] Like their social behavior at Wednesday Drawing Rooms, such activities made space for women outside the realm of domesticity. As they pushed this boundary, they continued to reinforce a Republican Motherhood where women’s influence was not just confined to the home. Their confidence in this idea grew as they increased their time surrounded by the Madison White House parlors’ decorative arts and their conveyance of democracy.
“The Reign of Dolley Madison”
Figure 7:“The Reign of Dolley Madison.” L.M. Glackens, April 24, 1901. Drawing: India ink over pencil, with blue pencil on Bristol board. 37 x 58.5cm. Courtesy, Carolina and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature & Cartoon. Courtesy, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Dolley Madison herself presented another feature of the Wednesday Drawing Rooms’ effectiveness in negotiating women’s perceived role as citizens. Dolley’s significant leadership in these spaces positioned her as a role model for women. Her influence in these rooms began with her collaboration with Latrobe on the executive mansion’s domestic arrangements. Urban affairs and material culture scholar Bernard Herman demonstrated that in early American cities, houses conveyed their inhabitants’ place in the social order.[42] Therefore, Dolley’s design role provided her significant agency in generating public perceptions about her husband’s presidency and democratic ideals throughout the parlor spaces.
At the same time, Dolley’s involvement with the White House parlors typified emerging trends in women’s responsibilities. In early nineteenth-century American society, people began viewing parlors as feminine spaces.[43] Such an expectation did not mean that women typically participated in the physical design process, but rather that they should have well-informed tastes in fashioning their parlors.[44] Both new and familiar, Dolley’s work in the parlor spaces demonstrated to women that designing the private sphere could also carry political implications.
Dolley also demonstrated how women could impact the public sphere through intentional consumption choices. Dolley and Latrobe’s renovation of the White House interiors totaled $12,669.31, the coverage of which came from a Congressional appropriation.[45] In spending this amount, they relied heavily on the work of craftsmen based in the United States.[46] Hugh and John Finlay of Baltimore produced the klismos chairs and sofas, the velvet came from Philadelphia upholsterer John Rea, and New Yorker Jacob Mark crafted the mirror that hung above the fireplace.[47] While sourcing materials from within the United States significantly reduced the cost of Dolley and Latrobe’s efforts, it also demonstrated confidence in American products and craftsmen. [48] By attending Wednesday Night Drawing Rooms, guests had the opportunity to take note of Dolley’s purchasing decisions and consider how they supported the American market.
Women attendees could also observe Dolley directly at these events because she maintained a conspicuous presence in their operations. As Allgor pointed out, her name frequently preceded the term “Wednesday Drawing Room” or the event’s other nicknames, such as “crush” or “squeeze.”[49] Dolley entertained guests at these events with great skill, and as Barbara Carson and Kym Rice have argued, this responsibility required much “preparation and performance.”[50] Dolley’s efforts received considerable recognition. For example, an early twentieth-century political cartoon from Puck magazine portrays her greeting a male guest at a Wednesday Drawing Room; the caption reads, “The Reign of Dolley Madison” (Figure 7). While the term “reign” has complicated associations with the American republic’s recent split from the British monarchy, its use in this context communicates the long-standing recognition that Dolley held and exercised significant agency in the White House parlor spaces.
The identification of Dolley with such power resulted from her in-person appearances. At the Wednesday Drawing Rooms, she received considerable visitor attention. While customs dictated that guests should only greet the “lady of the house” upon arrival to a social event, many Wednesday Drawing Room attendees attempted to interact with Dolley throughout the evening.[51] Dolley frequently moved throughout the parlor spaces as the crowd followed.[52]
People also saw Dolley’s likeness in a portrait at the Wednesday Drawing Rooms. In designing the White House parlors, Dolley had initially intended for one of the rooms to display Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington.[53] However, James and Latrobe overruled this decision, arguing that it fit the theme of the state dining room better. In response, Dolley had a portrait of herself hung on a wall in the Ladies Drawing Room for visitors to view as they receded to this informal space during White House events.[54] As Elisabeth Garrett argued, the use of portraits in interiors conveys a sense of “lineal distinction.”[55] In the case of Dolley Madison, her portrait meant that she was of great importance in the Madison family, which, given her husband’s presidency, established her as a figure for the nation. This messaging was certainly achieved, as Dolley was regarded very favorably amongst Americans.[56]
Dolley’s presence in the White House parlors showed women how they could hold a leadership position within a space that crossed the boundaries between private and public. In addition to making statements about the fashioning of parlors spaces, Dolley’s hosting of the Wednesday Drawing rooms had a significant political impact. By bringing people of all political affiliations into a congenial space, she established respect and admiration for her husband’s presidential administration. In fact, historians have concluded that this work is largely responsible for James Madison’s re-election in 1812.[57] As such, Dolley became the epitome of a redefined Republican Motherhood towards which women of this time were working. She not only attended but largely shaped a space that appeared to be within her gender role, and in doing so, she forged a new channel for women to participate in politics.
Conclusion
White women’s presence in the Madison White House parlors influenced their understanding of their role in the developing nation’s government. As women attended Wednesday Drawing Rooms, they negotiated the extent to which they could be involved in political affairs, interpreted their relationship to American ideals of democracy, and adopted Dolley Madison as a source of inspiration. In the following decades, such experiences would prove critical to women’s ability to argue for more equitable access to democracy. By the late nineteenth century, women dedicated to various causes, such as temperance and women’s suffrage, argued that their longstanding influence in the home qualified them for more overt political participation.[58] Not to mention, the Wednesday Drawing Rooms also furthered the extent to which First Ladies wield political influence. Dolley Madison’s “reign” over the Wednesday Drawing Rooms enabled this early negotiation of women’s socio-political positions.
Endnotes
[1] Margaret Bayard Smith and Gaillard Hunt, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, Portrayed by the Family Letters of Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith Margaret Bayard from the Collection of her Grandson, J. Henley Smith (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1906), PDF, 88.
[2] “Slavery and the White House,” White House Historical Association, Accessed September 14, 2022, https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-backgrounders/slavery-and-the-white-house
[3] Benjamin Henry Latrobe to James Madison, September 8, 1809, in Founders Online, ed. National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/?q=domestic%20arrangements%20latrobe&s=1111311111&sa=&r=8&sr=. I distinguish between the Madisons by referring to them by either their full name or first name. My decision is indebted to Catherine Allgor’s approach in her work.
[4] Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2006), 188.
[5] Allgor 2006, 171.
[6] Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary American (Williamsburg: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 32.
[7] Allison K. Lange, Picturing Political Power: Images in the Woman’s Suffrage Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 40.
[8] Hortense J. Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 73-76.
[9] Jo Freeman, A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics (Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 4.
[10] Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville: University of Virgina Press, 2000), 85.
[11] Margaret Klapthor, “Benjamin Latrobe and Dolley Madison Decorate the White House, 1809-1811,” Bulletin – Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology 241, no. 49 (1965): 156-158, 164.
[12] Catherine Allgor, “A Perfect Palace: Dolley Creates the White House,” in Dolley Madison: The Problem of National Unity (London: Routledge, 2013), 76.
[13] Allgor 2013, 75.
[14] Allgor 2006, 188.
[15] Klapthor 1965, 157.
[16] Klapthor 1965, 160-162.
[17] Allgor 2006, 76.
[18] Allgor 2013, 74-75.
[19] Elisabeth Garrett, At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870 (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990), 39.
[20] Garrett 1990, 39.
[21] Barbara Carson and Kym Rice, Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington (Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Architects Press, 1990), 105.
[22] Klapthor 1965, 156.
[23] Allgor 2006, 76.
[24] Klapthor 1965, 156.
[25] Josephine Seaton, William Winston Seaton of the ‘National Intelligencer’. A Biographical Sketch (Boston: J.R. Osgood and Company, 1871), 86.
[26] Seaton 1871,86.
[27] Smith and Hunt 1906, 88.
[28] Smith and Hunt 1906, 31.
[29] Allgor 2000, 76.
[30] Allgor 2000, 77.
[31] Katherine Conover Hunt, “The White House Furnishings of the Madison Administration, 1809-1817,” (Master’s Thesis, University of Delaware, 1976), 5.
[32] Garrett 1990, 57.
[33] Allgor 2000, 171.
[34] Allgor 2013, 76.
[35] Garrett 1990, 157-158.
[36] Gail Caskey Winkler and Roger W. Moss, Victorian Interior Decoration: American Interiors, 1830-1900 (New York: Henry Holt, 1986), 5.
[37] Garrett 1990, 46.
[38] Klapthor 1965, 158.
[39] Allgor 2000, 61.
[40] Thomas Hope, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London: T. Bensley, Bolt-Court, Fleet-Street, 1807), 46.
[41] Allgor 2000, 86.
[42] Bernard L. Herman, Town House: Architecture and Material Life in Early American City, 1780-1830 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 2.
[43] Garrett 1990, 55.
[44] J.C. Loudon, An Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1835), 2; 796
[45] Allgor 2006, 167; According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s calculations on inflation, this expense is equivalent to $305,063.59 in 2022.
[46] Hunt 1976, 47.
[47] Wendy Cooper, Classical Taste in America, 1800-1840 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), 112; Klapthor 1965, 161-162.
[48] Cooper 1993, 47.
[49] Cooper 1993, 47.
[50] Carson and Rice 1990, 118.
[51] Carson and Rice 1990, 130.
[52] Margaret Bayard Smith, What is Gentility: A Moral Tale (Washington, D.C.: P. Thompson, 1828), 150.
[53] Smith 1828, 62.
[54] Gerry Elbridge, The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr, ed. Claude G. Bowers and Annette Townsend. (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), 180.
[55] Garrett 1990, 59.
[56] Allgor 2000, 89.
[57] Allgor 2000, 82.
[58] Freeman 2000, 4.
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