Ask any American what Martha Washington looked like, and you’ll hear of a kindly, plump grandmother, her neck modestly covered and her gray hair poking out of a round, frilled mob-cap, as she was portrayed in Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 portrait. Her husband explained her straightforward style in a 1790 letter: Martha’s “wishes coincide with my own as to simplicity of dress, and everything which can tend to support propriety of character without partaking of the follies of luxury and ostentation.”
Martha, then the first lady, was 65 when she sat for that famous portrait, but in earlier paintings, she is slim, her neckline plunging, décolletage on full display, her dark hair offset with a fashionable bonnet. (Make no mistake about it: Martha was considered attractive.) Her wardrobe—including custom-made slippers in purple satin with silver trimmings, which she paired with a silk dress with deep yellow brocade and rich lace on her wedding day—indicates a fashionista who embraced bold colors and sumptuous fabrics that conveyed her lofty social and economic standing. And it wasn’t just Martha, or Lady Washington as she was called: The couple’s ledgers are full of extravagant clothing purchases, for George as well.
I made use of those sources in my biography of George Washington, You Never Forget Your First, but I felt frustrated by the limited descriptions of Martha that we find in letters, and which focus almost exclusively on her role as wife, mother and enslaver. Biographers have tended to value her simply as a witness to a great man. Artists painted her according to the standards of the time, with details one would expect to see from any woman in her position—nothing particular to this woman. Indeed, Martha might be pleased by how little we know about her inner life; after George died, she burned all the letters from their 40-year marriage, although a few have been discovered stuck in the back of a desk drawer.