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  Thoroughly Modern Martha

  Posted Monday, February 02, 2009 9:52 AM | By Dayo Olopade
  Just when I thought that nipping and tucking was falling out of favor in the brave, new “frugalista” era—this creepy, yet informative Washington Post story about Martha Washington sucks us all back in. Apparently, our first FLOTUS was not some dowdy pincushion of a woman; in fact, she liked to get down. Choice quote:
  
  

  "[George Washington] was clearly sexually excited by her," said Patricia Brady, a historian who wrote the first revisionist biography of Martha a few years ago. "When Martha decided to marry George, she didn't marry him just to be a kind stepfather to her two children. He was a hunk, and I think she decided to make herself happy. ..."

  Nice. It is a bit unfair that Martha Washington has been essentially interchangeable with Mrs. Claus in the popular imaginary. But the next Angelina? I respectfully question the intentions (probably commercial) of the “handful of historians” who
  
  

  are seeking to revamp the former first lady's fusty image, using the few surviving records of things she wrote, asking forensic anthropologists to do a computerized age-regression portrait of her in her mid-20s and, perhaps most importantly, displaying for the first time in decades the avant-garde deep purple silk high heels studded with silver sequins that she wore on her wedding day.

  It’s cool to know more about Martha. And I get that first lady fashion is back like black—the Smithsonian is displaying a beautiful onyx pocket watch worn by Mary Todd Lincoln after her husband’s assassination/ (I have it on good authority that DVF is an admirer.) But must we describe Martha’s shoes as “the Manolo Blahniks of her time”? I’m more interested in the mention of her late 18th-century management of five tobacco farms. What was that like? Ironically, this extreme makeover ends up bounding its subject within a rather retrograde portfolio, comprising what she wore and how she related to men and who wanted to diddle her. Exchanging the trope of the schoolmarm for that of the proto-Bovarian fashionplate isn’t really progress, is it?

  Filed under: fashion, hooking up, First Ladies, women's ambition, late bloomers, sexual politics

About Dayo Olopade

• Dayo Olopade is the Washington Reporter for the Root.

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