 Hello from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff. My name is Sarah Lyons Davis and I'm an Education Specialist at the National Archives. Welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. Today we meet Dolly Madison, portrayed by storyteller and actor Johanna Dunphy. Dolly Madison was the wife of President James Madison and White House First Lady. Her most important act in service to our country was during the War of 1812 when she saved many of our nation's important papers, including the Declaration of Independence and Gilbert Stewart's Lansdowne Portrait of George Washington when British troops set fire throughout Washington DC, including the White House. Madison was known as a socially engaging, witty and diplomatic communicator. She also set many trends as White House First Lady, including welcoming all political parties, hosting children's events and even popularizing ice cream in America. Johanna Dunphy portrays Dolly Madison. The National Archives has many records related to Dolly Madison, which can be found in the National Archives online catalog, founders online, and this one in our Education Specific Resource docsteach at docsteach.org. This image is a copy of an engraving based on a painting by the famous Federalist painter Gilbert Stewart. This image of Dolly Madison was gathered as part of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission in 1931 to 1932. The commission's purpose was to celebrate the birth and accomplishments of Washington and to collect, preserve, and publish writings, artworks, and photographs pertinent to his life and times. Dolly Madison and her actions as First Lady, as well as supporter of political discussions of the day, make her an important part of our nation's history. If you have a question for Dolly Madison, please send it to us via the YouTube chat box and we'll try and answer it at the end of the program. National Archives staff monitors the chat box. Our programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. You can find information for teacher and student programs on the National Archives website, archives.gov, under Educator Resources, or learn about upcoming programs under Attendant Event, and on the National Archives Facebook page. Let us now give a warm welcome to Dolly Madison. Well, my friends, I am so pleased that you would join with me today, Sarah. That was such a lovely introduction. Thank you so much. Now, I must tell you, it is rare that anyone asks for me to talk about myself for a lengthy period of time, so I am pleased that you are here today because I would love to tell you a bit about myself. Now, I was born with a different name than the one that you are used to. I was born as Dolly Payne in North Carolina. Now, some might claim that I was born with the name Darcy or Darthea, this is simply not true. This is the name that my parents gave me, Dolly. Now, I do not spend much time in North Carolina as we moved to Virginia to be closer to my mother's family. And now my sweet father, he loved my mother so much. He was not a Quaker when he met her, but upon meeting her, he changed from Quaker and he raised us as such as well. And we moved to Virginia. And after a time there, when I was around 15 years old, we moved again to Philadelphia. We had heard that there was a fine Quaker community there. Now, you must understand if you don't know much about Quakers, of course it is a religion, but we believe that everyone has a piece of the light within us and everyone else does too. We believe in peace and we believe in simplicity and kindness. Now, in Philadelphia, this is when my life took a bit of a turn. My father took ill and while he lay there, he asked me, he wanted to ensure that his eldest daughter, I am the eldest daughter of an eventual eight children, he wanted me to be married so he could pass in peace. And he suggested I'm married a Quaker lawyer named John Todd. Now, John is quite handsome, tall, red hair. And so, of course, I listened to my father. I married John. I became Dolly Payne Todd. We had a beautiful life together. We lived right here in Philadelphia on 4th Ann and Blomette Street. And we had two beautiful sons John Payne Todd, William Templeton. Now, after William was born, you see, something terrifying happened in Philadelphia, a yellow fever epidemic. So, we were not sure what it was at first. Folks took ill and Philadelphia lost quite a large portion of its population in the span of three months. Now, my oldest boy and my youngest boy, we moved out to the countryside in a place called Grays Ferry to try to escape. We weren't sure what was causing our sickness but we did move on just in case it was nearby. And my John eventually did come and take care of us for a bit. But then one day after being out in the marshes, I noticed there was a tint of yellow in his eye. I was 14. John had passed on. Took on the youngest boy, William Templeton. So, here I am in Philadelphia, a widow. But I do have my young John Payne Todd. I call him my little pain. I hope he does not grow up into that name. And my brother-in-law, James Todd, he chose to ignore all of the people, all of the wills that my John left, bequeatting all of his goods to me. In fact, my brother-in-law tried to take my John Payne, my little pain as well, that when my father fell ill, my mother had to make up for it. So, she started a boarding house. And when you have a boarding house in Philadelphia, who do you suppose stays there when you are so close to a place called the Pennsylvania State? Many congressmen would stay in our boarding house. And I served as a hostess. And so I met certain people like Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, and we became armed friends. Yes. And so, when James Todd, my brother-in-law, when he was trying to take my son and my property from me, I had some pretty substantial lawyers on my side. And my dear friend Aaron Burr introduced me to another man. Well, this man was a bit shorter than I. He had never been married, even though he was 17 years older than me. But upon meeting him, I discovered he made me laugh. And he understood my mind, and he understood my heart. And he was also a lawyer. And so, he helped me with my case against James Todd. So, I was able to keep my son and keep my possessions. And in the summer, this is 1794, this congressman, a short stature, who did take ill that summer. So, if I'm being fair, I did not respond as quickly as I think he would have liked me to. Eventually, in September of 1794, I became Sally Madison. And James, he has been so good to me and good to us. And quite pleased. Now, something I would like you to understand too, when I moved to Philadelphia, to a new Quaker community, they were not fond of me. Now, something you must understand about the Quaker apparel. It is quite plain. You will see grays and nothing of this light move that I'm wearing today. And I did not appreciate this. I found small ways of still expressing the fashions that I want. When you live in a city like Philadelphia and ships are coming in, you see fashions from all over the world. You see fabrics. And it is quite challenging to restrain yourself from participating in that. And when I moved to Philadelphia, the elders in the Quaker community, they stated that they did not like the shape of my cap or the cut of my shoes. And the rule, you must wait an entire year after a spouse passes before meeting again. And if you remember, my John passed in October of 1793. And got married James Madison in September of 1794. Just 11 months. Of course, James was not a Quaker. He was an Episcopalian. So by being a Quaker and choosing to marry an Episcopalian, Quaker elders, I think they finally got what they wanted. And they asked me to leave. The phrase is, I was read out of meeting. I was asked no longer to participate. Which is a challenge when that is your entire community. But my mother, my sisters, my brothers, they still held me dear in their hearts. No, we stayed in Philadelphia for quite a bit after we were married, as he was still working in Congress. But after a time, he was tired. And he decided that we should relocate. We should leave the bustle of this city. And if I am honest with you, I had much grief. And though I didn't have many friends to leave, that as well, it was time for me to go. So we moved to Virginia, to Montpelier, which is the estate that my husband James Madison, that is his family's home. And we stayed there for four some years. Now we did have a neighbor who I've already mentioned. He was a Petman, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. He lived 30 miles, not too miles, my apologies, 30 miles from him. So we were able to visit him and he was able to visit us. And as I had known, Mr. Jefferson for quite a long time, when he needed any assistance in his home, if he had guests who brought their wives with them, and he needed another woman present when his daughters were not available, as we see Mr. Jefferson, his wife, passed long before this, when he never did remarry. It was on occasion I would go to his home and help serve as another woman in the room as a hostess, which he'd already seen me do at my mother's boarding house. Now towards the end of the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson asked, as Mr. Jefferson knew that he wished to run for president, but he needed to appoint certain people. And so he appointed my James, James Madison, as Secretary of State, which meant it was his job to have the communications with anyone from abroad. And so we moved to Washington City. Now, you may know Washington as a fine city, but when we moved there, it was still a bit of a swamp, and there was still some work to be done, which was a good thing for me to notice. And Mr. Jefferson was not one for social affairs. And so when we relocated from Amelia to the house on F Street, well, it became, it was a self appointed job, but I chose to open our doors and begin inviting people from Washington City to come stay, to come with us, to come be with us, to spend an evening and a frivolity of food and of conversation in opposition to Mr. Jefferson, or at this point President Jefferson chose to run his office. When he had dinners, he would always separate by party. I think from what I have been told, there was some disagreement early on, which made him decide to only have the federalists on one night and the Democratic Republicans on another. Well, when you can't come to the house on F Street on our Wednesday nights, everyone is invited. In fact, I would even put invitations in the newspaper. Now, of course, it was customary to have a formal introduction to James and myself before attending, but you could even write a written letter to introduce yourself. Oh, we enjoyed them so much. In the beginning, we only had a few hundred people, but they became so abundant. The young folks of started to refer to these parties as squeezes because you have to squeeze everyone in. This is much different from the events of the previous administration. Now, after President Jefferson left office, my James decided to run for office, and he became the fourth president of the United States. Oh, I was so pleased. And at this point, I must tell you, my eye for fine clothes and dresses and turbans are very much in fashion. So I made sure to wear one for you today with the feathers. So you can see those as well. I think you can see my feathers right up here. Very much the fashion. And it became my job to establish what it meant to be the wife of the president. The two wives that preceded me, as I mentioned, Mr. Jackson, President Jefferson's wife had passed in the 1780s. So she wasn't there for that part of his his career. But Michael Washington and Abigail Adams, they supported their husbands very much. I'm not sure they ever wanted the role of public figure, which is one that I happily stepped into. Yes, we had a wonderful inaugural ball at Long's Hotel. We even had another part of the evening back at the house at X Street. I talked with Benjamin Metro, the architect, to help finish and complete the president's house, the president's mansion to bring it to life. We still had some bits of furniture from previous administrations, but we wanted to make a statement. We wanted to have a place that people felt comfortable no matter what part of the world they came to visit from. And we completed it. Oh, we were so pleased. So please, we even hung up our very first president, George Washington. It's known as the Land's Down Portrait, and it was painted by Gilbert Stewart. And I think I can show it to you. Let me see. Ah, here it is. Yes, doesn't he look fine? We wanted to be sure to represent our founding, our first president within the president's house, the president's mansion, which eventually started to gain the reputation, the nickname, the White House. And this is the portrait that hung inside for all to see. Oh, thank you for sharing that with everyone. Thank you. And please remember this portrait as I will bring it up again. Now, in 1812, there was some, some trouble between America and Great Britain, you see, and a war began, which became known as the War of 1812. And it continued for about two and a half years. But in its second year, in 1814, we received war. The British were coming to Washington City, burn it down, burn it down. I have, I have spent so much time building friendships and camaraderie in this White House. We had dinner parties weekly. They were much like the squeezes. And we had dinners. We had, we had friends. It was a delightful time. And I received word that the British troops were planning on marching to the White House, burn it down, my home. This place that I had worked very hard to design, to, to plan, make it a place where anyone could come from anywhere and feel that America had something, that we weren't some scrappy, rebellious teenagers from the colonies, know that we had established our place in the world. And that is what the White House needed to represent. But you see, I had a dinner party plan. And I received word that James, my Jimmy, Mr. Madison, he, he moved on. He, he left the White House because he needed to take, to take, to take care of the troops. But I remained inside the White House. I kept hearing word that I should cancel the dinner party. I should put all the food away. I should put all the things away. But I refused. In fact, I demanded that the dinner all be laid out. Did I think anyone would show up and attend this event? I did, but not the people that you think. So as I keep receiving messages, they keep receiving word that the British are getting closer. I made some very quick decisions. Luckily, I had other hands to help. I ordered the, the curtains be tucked down. I ordered that all of the paper, all of James's writing. And if you remember, he was also one of the writers of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers and many documents we had in our possession. And I made sure to get them out of the White House. We took the curtain, we took as many silver urns and cutlery as we could, but also there was that painting of George Washington that lands down the portrait, like Gilbert Stewart. And I knew that if the British came in and they saw that portrait, they would be able to take it down. They might even take it back to England and parade it around as a way to laugh at the United States. And I refused to let this happen. The frame was screwed into the wall and it was nearly impossible to take down quickly. So I ordered the frame be broken and I ordered the portrait cut out of the wall and the portrait was handed over to men from New York, New York to get it safely out of the White House. And eventually at the last minute, I made sure that myself and everyone else had escaped safely. Now, I mentioned that by setting up for dinner, I was expecting guests. So when the soldiers entered the White House, before causing their destruction, I don't know if you have met soldiers who have been marching around for days and weeks. But one thing that I have learned is, and so I knew that by setting up for a beautiful dinner, what would they do? They would sit down, they would eat, they would drink the wine that we gave us, more of a chance to get it. And it prevented them from doing one of the things that I thought eventually did, burned down. It still breaks my heart to think we lost most of the original furniture from the wash. And though the house was burned, James and I moved to Washington City, Octagon house. We were still able to throw our parties and throw these squeezes. We wanted deeply to establish all that risked their livelihood. They risked much coming to Washington City, especially before it was completed. I read once that there were streets without houses and houses without streets. This was not a place at first that was set for dignitaries. I have spoken to so much today. Does anyone have any questions for me? Thank you so much. I know that I learned so much from what you were sharing. I just wanted to let you know that we have friends joining us from all over, including Texas. And we do have a few questions. I would love to hear them. So we actually have a question about your fashion. Our first question, one of our friends would like to know, they say the necklace seems understated. Is that typical of the place and time? This is a lovely question. I chose to be a bit more simple today, because when you put on all of my accoutrements, all of the jewelry, I feel on occasion it can overwhelm. Now there are some lovely portraits you'll see of me, where there are multiple necklaces. They're wrapped around. I chose to be understated today for the venue that we are in. So perhaps I did not want anything that could glint off light, for example. So it has to be thoughtful. And this is a part of dressing in my time. You must be thoughtful of where you are going and who is going to see you. But I did put my feather in for you. So I hope that you can take my sincere apologies for not wearing all of that lovely jewelry. Well, that is so great to hear. And it sounds like you were just a wonderful hostess in your time at the White House and before. Another question we have, did you have a favorite cook or a favorite meal or dessert? Oh, I do love this question. Now, I do love food, but I must tell you, when you are the hostess, it is rare that you are the one that is sitting doing the eating. Now it is much, but when you think about this, when you are eating, what is happening? Your mouth is closed. So you cannot participate in conversation. So in many meals, I found that it was my job to continue the conversation, to continue bringing subjects up and wondering how people are doing and things of this nature. But I will tell you that I do love. Now my friend Thomas Jefferson, and you must forgive me if I switch between calling you President Jefferson or Mr. Jefferson, and sometimes simply Thomas. I have known him for many years, and sometimes it is easy to slip up and forget which official title you should give a person. But when he returned from France, he brought with him a recipe for vanilla ice cream. And vanilla, I find it is fun. I have two favorite flavors of it. Now the ice cream, from what I understand in your time, is it's very, very cold. And sometimes it is very hard and you have to cut into it a bit. But with ice cream in my time, and yes, I am saying iced with a D on the M, iced cream. It is more of the consistency, it's more like, I guess you have to say a pudding, a custard, something like that. It is not as hard as ice cream that you have in there. But I do have two favorite flavors, then they may surprise me. Tomato, tomato ice cream. Oh, it is simply delightful. My other favorite is oyster. Oyster ice cream is also quite good. How interesting those seem like much more savory flavors than perhaps we're used to today. Oh, as I see that, I've heard that in fact. But you know, with ice cream, you could do anything you wanted with it. And depending on how you added ingredients, you would bring out different flavors. And a tomato, I do like to talk about the tomato as Mr. Jefferson was the one to prove that they are not poisonous. They can be quite sweet. And if you add a little bit of sugar to them, it is, I must tell you, it might sound surprising, but it is a delightful treat. We'll have to try that sometime. And I'll let you know, we have even more friends joining us. We now have people from North Carolina and Burke, Virginia. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, we have another question. Was there a certain cause you were associated with? Oh, yes, in 1815. I believe this is for various reasons. We don't always know all the reasons that we do things. But when you see a need and you're in a position to fill that need, it is right to do so. In Washington City, I noticed there were many young women who often had no place to go. And so myself along with some others, we started the Washington Women and Children's Asylum. It was a place full of them to go, to have a place to sleep. They were not out on the street. That was in 1815 that we started. And I do hope that any First Lady after me chooses a cause. There's nothing greater than helping others. It's wonderful. We have another question. I think you've really inspired our audience today. So this question is, Mr. Madison's writings were very intellectual. Did he share those concepts with you or was that reserved for the men he represented? I must say it's a bit of both. As I've said, when Mr. Madison and I met, one of the reasons that we ourselves were finally acquainted was because we were meeting with mine. Sometimes I can give him perspective, but not at first to see. No, of course, I do not share any of this information. Those are his private affairs, and I do not wish to speak out of turn. But yes, we did. He would write to me. There are many wonderful letters. And some even question, I must say, big question if we loved each other, because the 17-year age difference, how could that even look at the letters we wrote to each other and see how clearly we did. That's great. And another question we have, I heard something funny happened once with a British minister named Mary. Could you tell us some more about that? Anthony Mary was a British minister. This is during the Jefferson administration. It is important to delineate when these things are happening. This is in the beginning of Jefferson's first term as president. And Jefferson, President Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson Thomas, he was a lovely man. But he was not a fan of, well, the British. And he was also not fond of many of the social norms of the time. So when the British minister, Anthony Mary, makes his way to Washington City to greet the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, Anthony of Whitmary, of course, is dressed in his finest. He's wearing blue robes that are trimmed with black velvet and gold trim. He's wearing a plumed hat and silk stockings. And President Jefferson arrived late on purpose, wearing his dressing gown. He was a bit disheveled. In fact, while Mr. Mary gave him his prepared speech, President Jefferson sat with his legs crossed, bouncing his slipper on his foot. This is not an appropriate way to greet a minister from a foreign country. This is what President Jefferson chose to do. And in fact, he goes even further, as President Jefferson shows on purpose, to break the social norm. There was a dinner in which Mr. Mary thought, oh, this is when you make this up to me. When you show that I am worthy of, this is a dinner held for me. I am honored by this. So Mr. Mary shows up and it also there is a French minister. Now England and France were warring at the time. And Jefferson made this decision quite deliberately, forcing the French minister to leave his vacation early to attend this dinner. To make matters worse, President Jefferson wrote another, but his customary two as the head of the dinner table, to take the arm of the visiting guest's wife. Yes, this would be Elizabeth Mary. President Jefferson does not do this. You see, this is one of the occasions, there were very few, but on occasion I would act as hostess for him if they were going to be women president. Let me just dispel this myth right now. I've heard people say that I stepped up as first lady for President Jefferson. This is not the case. I stepped in, as did his daughters, as did other Congressmen's lives, when it was appropriate to do so. But I in no way took that stance next to him. Yes. So in any case, the President Jefferson walks by Anthony Mary and his wife, when he should have taken her arm and instead takes mine. And he walks me into the dinner. I must tell you, I was whispering under my breath to him, what are you doing? But he did not change that down. There were other dinners as well where this sort of custom was disregarded. Now, President Jefferson and my husband came up with a solution as to not to continue to offend the Marys. They wrote a book called of Pelmel. They were saying it's a French term. And they were saying that in the new United States, the state of Pelmel is how we were going to conduct ourselves. So this means that it's a bit more chaotic. It doesn't have the formality of previous administrations or how things are done outside of the United States. They gave this pamphlet to the mayor after all of these atrocities had been committed. They wrote it after all of these atrocities had been committed. And some have even gassed it because of this conflict early on, perhaps the War of 1812 could have been avoided. If only President Jefferson had had kinder words and behavior towards British ministers. How interesting. Thank you for sharing that story. And I think folks are really interested in your entertaining and what you shared about that. We have another question that seems related. Do you eat much seafood? We do. Something that must be known. Because I think in your day, when you think of the fancy seafood you could think of, it's also known as a trash fish. Because it is a bottom feeder. In fact, I know that in Philadelphia, there was a time at the Wall Street prison, where they, the prisoners were being served lobster multiple times a day to the point that they considered it to be inhumane. Living in Washington City and living last night, I said I very rarely get to enjoy all of the delightful dishes that are served. Thank you. And we have one final question for you today. Yes, of course. That is, what advice do you, as Dolly Madison, have for young people today? This is the one question. Native people are placed to be seen and to be heard. All comes down to this one kindness. Well, that is wonderful advice. Thank you so much for your time. I know I have learned so much today and I'm sure that our guests have as well those watching along. So, thank you again for your time. And we'll take one last look at the Dock's Teach educational activity related to Dolly Madison. Again, with the activity for today's program, and that's Dock'sTeach.org. And I hope you can join us next month for our next young learners program with painter Gilbert Stewart on June 15th. Thank you all for participating in our program today.