Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 973.56 MAR | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
This account of the Eaton Affair describes the story of how Peggy O'Neale Eaton, the wife of President Andrew Jackson's secretary of war, was branded a loose woman and snubbed by Washington society. The president's defence of her honour fuelled intense speculation and a scandal began.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
From Marszalek (History/Mississippi State Univ.; Sherman, 1992, etc.), a vivid evocation of a dramatic episode that preoccupied and temporarily crippled the Jackson administration. More than 160 years before Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, America's first sex scandal, the Peggy Eaton affair (1829-31), rocked the White House. Newly elected Andrew Jackson was a controversial figure and no stranger to scandal; he'd killed a man in a duel, wedded another man's wife before her divorce was final, executed two British civilians in an extralegal military action in Florida, and massacred hundreds of Indian women and children in frontier battles. Marszalek shows how Jackson's frequent encounters with scandal had made him proud, rigid, and quick to take offense. His wife Rachel's death soon after the 1828 election, thought to have been brought about by the vicious attacks on her character, filled the grief-stricken Jackson with righteous anger, and when Washington gossips snubbed the vivacious young Peggy Eaton, wife of Jackson's secretary of war, Jackson vigorously sprang to her defense. Peggy, the widow of a navy purser who allegedly consorted with John Eaton while her husband was at sea and married him before the requisite mourning period expired, was thought to have low morals, although Marszalek argues that her real offenses were her low social origins and her unfeminine, ""forward"" behavior with men. What began as an act of social ostracism ultimately polarized the Jackson cabinet, resulted in a fatal estrangement between the president and vice president (Calhoun's wife led the ostracism of Peggy), and caused the resignation and reorganization of Jackson's cabinet, leaving the presidential aspirations of Calhoun a shambles and positioning Martin Van Buren to succeed Jackson. Marszalek's absorbing narrative illuminates how much, and how little, Washington and American society have changed: The small-mindedness and sexism of Washington's matrons, and the punctilious protectiveness of the president, would be inconceivable today, but the vicious nature of political rumormongering and scandal in Washington remains. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Marszelak (history, Mississippi State Univ.) has written a scintillating account of the "Eaton Affair," America's first great tabloid tale. Deemd a "loose woman" by the wives of Andrew Jackson's cabinet, Margaret Eaton, the new spouse of Secretary of War John Eaton, was therefore snubbed at all social functions. A seemingly trivial matter, it soon escalated into a major cause célèbre with a variety of political repercussions. (The vice president's wife, Floride Calhous, was her most ardent detractor.) The author, whose biography Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order (Free Pr., 1993) has become the standard work on the subject, places the Eaton Affair squarely within the context of Jacksonian democracy. Thoroughly researched and wonderfully written, this book will no doubt become the definitive work on the topic. This is academically informed "popular" history at its very best.Stephen G. Weismar, Springfield Technical Community Coll., Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
