Rachel Donelson Robards Jackson: What I Know Going In

I'm bending the rules a bit with this one. Pretty much the only thing I know about Rachel Jackson is that she died not long before Andrew Jackson was sworn in as President, so, technically, she was never a First Lady. That combined with the fact that a true biography of Rachel Jackson does not seem to exist (the only other book I could find is a short chapter book for children) means that I should probably read a biography of Andrew Jackson for this portion of the blog. Instead, I've chosen to read the story of Rachel and Andrew's relationship in Patricia Brady's A Being So Gentle: The Frontier Love Story of Rachel and Andrew Jackson.  

 

image from amazon.com

While not a true biography of either person, I figure it will give me insight into both as well as the history surrounding them and their lives. Plus, the description of the book mentions an "adulterous beginning and tragic end," so it sure sounds like a good story. 

Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams: A Fully Realized and Complex Figure

There is a lot that could be said about Louisa Catherine Adams. She really did lead an "Extraordinary Life," as Louisa Thomas's book title claims. In the effort to keep moving this project forward, I will be offering some partially formed thoughts about Louisa Adams's life based on my notes, and in no particular order. But first, I want to praise Thomas's effort in writing this book. Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Louisa Catherine Adams is a well-researched, beautifully written biography that presents not simply the wife of John Quincy Adams, but Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams as a fully realized human being in her own right. Thomas does not attempt to reconcile or explain away what to some may seem to be the incompatible characteristics of Louisa's life and personality. Instead, she presents Louisa as a complex, complicated, and contradictory character. The book feels a bit long and sometimes repetitive by the end, but overall gives us a well-rounded sense of Louisa's life and person.  

 

image from wikimedia commons

Just some of the notes I jotted down as I read: 

• Louisa Johnson lived a "decorative" childhood in which she was educated to become someone's wife, but she also developed a mind of her own because she was surrounded by family and friends, including her female teachers, who were smart and vocal. 
• Louisa's parents were not married until she was ten years old, which she may or may not have known about. Perhaps, if she knew something of her parents' past, it might have contributed to the uncertainty she often felt in her own engagement and marriage. 
• The letters she exchanged with John Quincy, especially during their long engagement, were full of passionate feelings both good and bad. Louisa suffered from terrible shame when her father went bankrupt just as she and John Quincy were set to wed, and in the end, she and John Quincy both chose each other – he gave her a clear out, and he would have been within his rights to leave her for the lack of a dowry. 
• After they had married and while John Quincy was serving as a foreign minister, he discouraged a public role for Louisa and yet still valued the ways in which she presented herself at court. His insistence that they live a financially modest, republican life at home, but maintain a luxurious life in court to keep up with other foreign ministers became something of a stressful balancing act for Louisa.
• When she and John Quincy left Europe for America -- her first time there, despite her father's American heritage -- Louisa struggled to meet the work ethic expected of an American white but of which she was wholly unaccustomed due to her European upbringing.  
• Louis was often separated from John Quincy and her children. Both she and John Quincy found these separations lonesome, weary, and uncertain.  Devastatingly, Louisa was not included in the decision -- made by John Quincy and Abigail -- to leave her children in the U.S. when she went with John Quincy to Russia.  Being separated for so long from her young boys was something that would haunt and anger Louisa for the rest of her life. 
• While in St. Petersburg, Louisa fund success at the Russian court, even though she thought the life exhausting.  But time in Russia was difficult for Louisa, especially dealing with the deaths of family members back in the U.S. and the loss of her daughter at just over a year old. 
• Louisa may not have been skilled at the domestic arts, but she proved herself capable while in St. Petersburg, helping John Quincy with business matters while he would travel, and especially in leaving Russia. Her trip across a continent rife with war and tensions, from St. Petersburg to Paris to meet John Quincy, traveling along with her young son and a servant or two, proved her to be beyond capable and brave. That she so often set aside these capabilities or was prevented from using them in her role as wife, illustrates the great contradiction of her personality and her life as a woman in a time when such lives were deliberately limited. 
• Social protocols in Washington were tiresome for Louisa. She caused a major stir in flouting the rules of visitation, and she often used illness as a chance to back out of duties and rest. 
• Louisa pretended not to be interested or involved in politics while in Washington, but in reality, she was essential to John Quincy's political success, especially because her social abilities made up for his lack.  
• While others criticized Elizabeth Monroe as too stately and not as openly social as previous First Ladies, Louisa admired her, had much in common with her, and maintained a similarly limited social schedule while in the President's Mansion. 
• Louisa was lonely and unhappy as First Lady. It did not help that John Quincy completely denied her any role in his work as president, even after she had proven herself capable of assisting in business in the past. Louisa both hated and encouraged John Quincy's potential political success and bid for a second presidential term. 
• Louisa was considerably happier after leaving the White House. She was especially happy and content when the family had left Washington completely. Stains upon her happiness included the death -- most likely suicide -- of her son George and the family's return to Washington when John Quincy became a Congressman. 
• Louisa lived a life of conflict and complexity, especially in terms of her thoughts on slavery and gender, which the last few chapters of the book expound upon.
• Like her mother-in-law, Abigail Adams, Louisa drew up her own will against legal statutes relating to gender at the time.