Martha Washington Was a ‘Real Person’
‘In Pursuit’ series features historian Karin Wulf’s essay of America’s first, first lady who created the role from which future first ladies would evolve.
When historian Karin Wulf considered how one could be an American first lady when there has never been such a thing, she, like others who have studied Martha Washington, were left to piece together answers with a sparse historical record.
The task at hand for Martha Washington was similar to that of her husband George Washington, the victorious general of the American Revolution, as the first president of the United States. How they approached their roles would become the basis for future presidents and their spouses in a newly born country that is this year celebrating the 250th year of its founding.
Still, Wulf, a history professor and the director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, believes Mrs. Washington is a most compelling figure because “we have less of her,” she tells East Wing Magazine Monday in a phone interview.
Women in 18th century America, she notes, are invisible in the archive. But, in her newly published essay about Mrs.…
