And Tyler Too

"She really doesn’t fit the Martha Washington model of first lady. She had scandalised her high society family by posing for a lithograph advertisement as a young debutante. Then she scandalised the nation by suddenly marrying the recently widowed President Tyler, who was 30 years her senior. He had kids from his first marriage who were older than she was at the time. His first wife had died in the White House just 16 months before they married. She was 24 when she became first lady. She was witty, well travelled, well educated and an accomplished, international flirt. She put her formidable abilities to work during her short time in the White House—she was only first lady for eight months. And she had tremendous influence in helping Tyler initiate the annexation of Texas, which was his signature achievement. She personally went to the Capitol Galleries to watch the debate. She applied her charm to curry favour with members of the House and Senate. As Seager’s book uncovers in great detail, she worked very closely with a reporter from the New York Herald who gave her endless glowing press and turned her into an American celebrity. She threw fantastic parties and became so associated with dancing that the “Julia Waltzes” were written in her honour. They sold out so rapidly that she couldn’t get a hold of the sheet music herself. After he left office, her husband sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, so she was viewed as a turncoat by most of the Northern part of the country. But she methodically worked her way back into favour. She remained widely written about and fixed in the public imagination throughout the 19th century. Her life was a saga worthy of William Makepeace Thackeray. Seager’s book is written well, with humour and with a wise eye for human nature. It’s a forgotten book about now forgotten figures."