ExclusiveEmily Donelson and Sarah Yorke Jackson: Rival Acting First Ladies

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannan. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories. But here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous, and some are obscure. But each person deserves to be discovered, because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. We know of many first ladies. Certain names are really famous. Jacqueline Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, or if you go farther back, Martha Washington. Yet there are so many first ladies, especially from that long period between the founding fathers and those in recent memory with the 20th century, whose names are barely even a memory. Interestingly, many of those presidents were widowers, so their wives were not able to serve as first lady. In their place, they had other relatives act as acting first ladies, the hostesses of the White House who were not the official first lady, because they were not married to the president. Today, we're going to talk about the only time in history when there were two first ladies serving at the same time, Emily Donaldson and Sarah York Jackson, who were both first ladies for President Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States. Being elected in 1828, he served two terms. He was married to Rachel Jackson. He loved her very much, and they were wed in 1791. Yet she died in 1828, mere weeks before he took office. This death of his wife was a shadow over Jackson's whole presidency. There was very little celebratory hosting at the White House during his tenure because of that. He didn't want to host a bunch of parties. He was very sad because he lost his beloved wife. They'd had no children of their own together, but he did adopt her nephew, whom he named Andrew Jackson Jr., and they raised him as their son. But with the death of Rachel Jackson, he needed somebody to be his first lady. So he appointed his niece, Emily Donaldson. Emily Donaldson was married to Jackson's nephew by marriage. Her husband was Andrew Jackson Donaldson, who was the son of Rachel's brother. Emily and Andrew, her future husband, were actually first cousins. They would often walk to school together or walk back from school together, even though she was eight years younger than he was. But they were very close during their childhood, and eventually they became sweethearts. As he was a young man, he was very close to his aunt and uncle, Andrew Jackson and Rachel, and they almost considered him their son. They were very fond of him, and they helped with his education. So when Jackson was becoming more important in Washington and looking to run for president the first time in 1824, he wanted the young man to be his secretary and his assistant. Because it seemed that her beloved was going to be leaving their home area of Tennessee, they decided to get married. So when she was 17 and he was 25, Emily and Andrew got married. This was just a few weeks before they would all leave for Washington, as Andrew Jackson was running for president the first time. Throughout her life, Emily suffered from bouts of ill health. In her later years, it was discovered that she had tuberculosis, and this may have been something that was plaguing her in her younger days. She was remarkably well-educated for a girl of this time. Up until the age of 14, she went to an academy for girls, and she learned a lot about not only reading and writing, but also affairs of the day. When Jackson was eventually elected president in 1828, he appointed his nephew as his aide and his secretarial aide, and Emily became his first lady. They lived in the White House with him, and she ended up having three of her four children in the White House. She was very close to him, as was her husband, and they acted as a sort of family for him, since he didn't have his wife anymore. Although she didn't have the experience or the history of traveling, or even knowing as much about etiquette as former first ladies, she was very well-regarded and admired for her excellent hostess skills. She was only 21 when she first moved into the White House, making her one of the youngest first ladies, and she was noted for the charm and propriety with which she served. Everyone commended her for the fine food and drinks she served at her gatherings. But it turns out that she wasn't just a good hostess and a charming lady for serving things. Unfortunately for Jackson, she was also a woman of very strong principles, and early on in the presidency, the Eaton scandal, also known as the petticoat scandal, broke out. Peggy Eaton was a wife of one of the cabinet members, and rumors began to circulate that she had been the mistress of her husband before they were married. Also, they were married only nine months after the death of her first husband, so this was considered a great indiscretion that they did not wait a longer period of time of proper mourning. Vice President Calhoun's wife, Floride, was one of the main proponents of the petticoats who were against Peggy. Emily quickly joined Mrs. Calhoun in this belief. She was very much opposed to having Mrs. Eaton at any of her social gatherings, and tension began to build as Emily publicly snubbed her several times. Firstly, she wouldn't repay a visit to go and call on Mrs. Eaton. At the time, that was the height of impropriety. If someone called on you, you had to go and call on her. One time, when Emily was pregnant, when she was rather sick, on a boat ride, she wouldn't accept any aid from Mrs. Eaton and ended up falling off the boat as a result. The tensions began to build so much that it began to create a very bad position for Jackson, the president. So he tried to tell Emily that she needed to be more friendly, and she wouldn't do it. So she ended up leaving the White House and to go back to Tennessee, to her home. It's unknown whether he asked her to leave or she just decided to leave. But she and her husband left for a little while, and the president asked them to come back and said it was unconditional. She could come back even if she didn't make friends with the Eatons. You see, he really needed her husband. Donaldson didn't make a very strong stand either way, but for the most part, he was siding with his wife. He was torn because he wanted to continue helping his uncle, but he also wanted to support his wife and what she was feeling. Before the Donaldsons were able to return to the White House, Jackson changed his stance and he said, I need you to be welcoming to the Eatons. She wouldn't do it. Eventually, he had to concede and say, please, come back, I really need you. So she came back and they lived at the White House for a while. But around this time, partly because of the whole Eaton scandal and because of her occasional bouts of ill health, he appointed another hostess who was his daughter-in-law. You see, his son, his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Jr., got married around this time to a woman named Sarah York. And as soon as they were married, people began to wonder, will she be the new White House hostess? Now, that was not what Jackson wanted because he really liked having Emily in that role. And Emily was more suited for that position, being that her family was so close to his and she knew more what he liked, whereas Sarah came from a Quaker family and she had a very different background. So he appointed her the mistress of the hermitage, his plantation. And she lived there with her husband for a while. But then after their wedding, she and her husband came and stayed at the White House as a honeymoon for several months. And eventually he invited her to come and stay there. So from 1834 or so onward, both ladies were in the White House as hostess, making it the only time in history when there were two acting first ladies. The relationship between them isn't really known. It seems that they were friendly because it wasn't as if Emily was being replaced. She chose to not act as the acting hostess because of the issue with Mrs. Eaton. This led to everyone in the cabinets being replaced except the postmaster general. Even Van Buren, Martin Van Buren, who was a supporter of Jackson on the issue, ended up resigning to make it easier for him to cleanse the whole cabinet. And that alleviated tensions to some degree because then the Eatons were sent to some other positions and that got them out of Washington. By 1836, Emily was really suffering from ill health, so she went back to Tennessee. And then Sarah took over full-time, acting as first lady, for the remainder of the presidency. Sarah became a very close confidante of Andrew Jackson. She cared for him greatly, and he was very fond of the children, the five children whom she and her husband had. After the presidency, she ended up moving back to the Hermitage. She and her husband lived there near him, and she cared for Andrew Jackson in his dying days. Emily only lived a few months after returning to Tennessee. She actually died in 1836, waiting for her husband to come home, but sadly, she died two days before he returned. It's interesting to see why Andrew Jackson was so determined on the point of the Eatons scandal. After all, he really loved Emily, and it created a great deal of political difficulty for him. Why was he so strong in that point? And I think that goes back to, really, the third lady who must be discussed in discussing his first lady, his wife, Rachel. Andrew Jackson met Rachel when she was separated from her husband, Louis Robards, and they got married in 1791, but she was still technically married to Mr. Robards. They thought they were divorced, but they weren't. So they lived together as man and wife for around three years without being legally married. Then when they realized that she wasn't really divorced yet, after she finally was divorced, they got married again in 1794. But when he was running for president, that became a very big issue, and there was a good deal of mudslinging. One of the earliest instances of attacking not only a president's character, but the character of his family. And the incident was very distressing to Rachel, and she ended up having something like either a heart attack or a stroke shortly after he was elected president. And Jackson always blamed his political opponents for creating so much stress and ill feelings toward her, he felt that that caused her death. So he was very upset about that. But then when the whole incident with the Eatons happened, it was a lot like what had happened with his own wife. He saw this poor woman being maligned, and her character being accused of being immoral and being maligned. That's why he had sympathy for her, and took compassion on the Eatons, siding against his own niece and nephew, vice president, cabinet. He didn't care, because he saw that that was unfair, and he thought that it wasn't the right thing to do. So he even got into at least one duel, probably more, over his own wife's honor. And he may have gotten into some duels about the Eatons too, it wouldn't surprise me he was known for that. On the other hand, Emily was a woman of very strong principle as well. And some people have considered, why was Peggy Eaton such a threat to all the cabinet wives in the first, and the first lady, the second lady, why do they all dislike her so much? Well, at one point, Emily made the statement, it has nothing to do with moral issues, I simply find her to be a very unpleasant character. But historians have considered that it was more likely because Peggy was known to go against what was considered polite behavior for women at the time. She was very outspoken, to the point of being considered uncouth. She would comment on events and matters which were considered not for women to discuss in public, and certainly there were many first ladies before her who were very active and influential in their husband's life, but there was something about Peggy that was simply deemed indecorous. Thus, the wives just couldn't abide having a woman like that in their circle, and then they thought that she was a disgrace to polite ladies everywhere. Sarah Jackson was a strong Presbyterian, and she helped her father-in-law, Andrew Jackson, as he came back to his Presbyterian faith, because he was raised as a Presbyterian, and considered becoming a minister at one point in his childhood, yet he didn't make any public statements about his faith when he was in office. After he left the presidency, though, she gave him some counsel and guidance and helped him as he eventually became a member of the church again. Each of these three ladies played an important role in American history, although Rachel never was actually first lady. Emily was first lady for a good deal of time acting, and then Sarah, although for less than a year, acted as an assistant first lady and then the official acting first lady for a while, each of them serving the role that the first lady must have, not only of being the White House hostess, but most importantly of supporting the president politically, with advice, and emotionally and spiritually, as a wife, in the case of Rachel before he was president, as a devoted niece with Emily, and as a beloved daughter-in-law with Sarah. Emily and her husband even had to represent Andrew Jackson at the inaugural ball, because he was so grief-stricken at the death of his wife that he didn't want to attend. So that shows just one of the many ways that Emily was an important first lady before the rift and her ill health, which ended up making her leave the post before he left the presidency. Thank you for spending this time with me talking about Emily Donaldson and Sarah York Jackson, the only time when two women have served as acting first lady at the same time. Each of them had a fascinating story and a unique background, serving in that important role of not only being the White House hostess, but the beloved confidant of the president of the United States. All three of these ladies, including Rachel Jackson, are representative of feminine women who supported their husbands, served their nations, and were devoted to the cause of freedom, without ever voting on any issue or serving in any government position. They served in the all-important role of being the woman behind the man. Thank you for spending this time with me. I hope you enjoyed American Legends.