Sarah polk biography

Another time, she became so engrossed in a conversation that she failed to even touch the food on her dinner plate. Another factor was her concern for the cost of entertaining which was borne as a personal expense to presidential families at the time. Initially, Sarah Polk even considered renting a small private home for herself and the President to live in, using the executive mansion only as an office and occasional setting for ceremonies.

Ultimately, she cut the jobs of ten household staff members to save money, their work being done by African-American slaves that she owned or purchased at the time from Polk relatives. She had basement rooms remodeled as their living quarters. It was the First Lady, for example, not the President who often greeted members of Congress, enjoying in-depth discussions on legislation or other pending issues when they called for the President on Saturday afternoons likely as a result of not being in working sessions that day.

Since the Polks were so often together during their White House tenure, there were few letters between them from which can be derived definitive examples of her widely acknowledged political acumen. Considering that Polk rarely consulted his Cabinet and disliked frequent and direct interaction with the general public, Sarah Polk played another crucial role as his liaison to the outside world, a filter through which issues and information reached his attention.

As she long had, Sarah Polk not only absorbed information from male political figures but from the President, in reaction to what she brought to him. Her ultimate right of denial to access of the President was overtly acknowledged in letters from and remarks made to her by members of the Cabinet, Supreme Court, Congress and military, including Henry Clay, Henry Gilpin, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.

She did this by routinely introducing her remarks by suggesting they were the opinions of the President. There was at least one major political issue on which Sarah Polk disagreed with her husband, the full implementation of a federal banking system. Decidedly anti- hard-money, Sarah Polk failed to convince her husband to her view that it was an inconvenient and antiquated system.

At the White House, she approved the conversion of lighting to gas, although she decided to keep one room still lit entirely by candle. In line with the traditional Calvinism of her faith, Sarah Polk claimed to believe that God had pre-determined the roles to be played by individual human beings and the events they would face. Using this perspective, she once famously defended the enslavement of African-Americans as ordained, explaining to her husband that they were created for their lot in life as much as she and the President were.

There are no specific examples of the First Lady expressing her views or reflecting on the Mexican War other than ceremonial acts and her acceptance of gifts from two high-ranking generals of the conflict, Gideon Pillow and William Worth. One incident illustrated an effort she made to keep morale for the war raised, as when she asked a lieutenant recently returned from the bloody conflict between American and Mexican troops at Monterey regale those gathered around him with heroic tales of the battlefield.

James Polk had physically deteriorated by his killing work load as President. Highly vulnerable during a cholera outbreak, he died three months after leaving office. Widowed at age 45 years old, Sarah Polk rarely left Polk Place for the nearly four decades that she survived him, except for attending church on Sundays and several visits to his and her family members in nearby Columbia and Murfreesboro.

In , Sarah Polk did travel to inspect her Mississippi cotton plantation. As a slave-owner, Sarah Polk has a mixed record. There was a high infant mortality rate and while she claimed that she wished not to sell individuals and break up families, she did so if it meant a profit. On the other hand, she saw to it that the individual slaves were provided with both medical care and religious training.

Whether it was declining profits or her own political savvy in detecting the imminent outbreak of the Civil War and eventual emancipation of slaves, she sold her plantation and slaves in , a year before the war began.

Sarah polk biography

Polk began his political career as a state representative. The newlyweds then moved to Columbia where James practiced law and launched his campaign for U. During James K. A strict Presbyterian, she did not allow the dancing and heavy drinking that were common at Washington parties. While in Washington, Sarah planned the renovation of the Nashville mansion that she and her husband had purchased for their retirement.

But James K. Polk was a religious woman who openly refused to dance, attend horse races, or theater. She took great pride in being a sociable woman but maintained a great sense of integrity. Though she did not drink herself, she made sure to serve a decadent selection of drinks and assorted foods during promotional dinners being the queen of hospitality.

She was a woman who "enjoyed wide popularity as well as deep respect". In she risked a breach with Jackson, her husband's mentor, by taking part in the social ostracism of Peggy Eaton , during the Petticoat affair , although she continued to greet Eaton, unlike Vice President John C. Calhoun 's wife, Floride Calhoun , and most of the cabinet members' wives.

She was lively, charming, intelligent, and a good conversationalist. President Polk at times discussed policy matters with her. While she enjoyed politics, she also cautioned her husband, whose health was never robust, against overwork. After attending the inauguration of Zachary Taylor on March 4, , Polk and her husband left by horse and carriage to their new home, Polk Place , in Nashville, Tennessee.

Upon arriving in Tennessee, to Polk's disappointment, Polk Place was not yet fully finished. They then went from Nashville to Columbia to spend two weeks with her mother-in-law before going to spend a few days in Murfreesboro with her family before returning to Nashville. Three months later, James Polk died of cholera , having had the shortest retirement of any U.

He was 53 years old. She did not start hosting guests until a few years after her husband's death. Hayes and Grover Cleveland. Once widowed, Polk unofficially adopted a grandniece, Sarah Polk Jetton , nicknamed "Sallie" — , and saw her as her own daughter. After Polk's niece died, she was brought to live with Polk. They lived together in Nashville until Polk's death in at the age of Polk faced small financial difficulties throughout her widowhood.

Her primary form of income was coming in through a plantation she inherited from her husband. She was forced to sell the plantation before the Civil War in Later she received money through her younger brother John Childress. Grant , and William Tecumseh Sherman. However, as a traditional Southern woman she also gave mention to Confederate sympathies during visits from Confederate generals [ 15 ] in Nashville where Sarah would spend over 42 years of her widowhood.

Sarah Polk lived at Polk Place for 42 years, the longest widowhood of any US first lady, and the longest retirement until Frances Cleveland exceeded her in , and Rosalynn Carter briefly in As a true Victorian widow, Sarah always wore black in public. Polk died on August 14, , at age She was originally buried next to her husband at their home in Nashville and was later reinterred with him at the Tennessee State Capitol when Polk Place was demolished in She eventually found some needed company by assuming guardianship of her grandniece Sallie Jetton, and she hosted both Union and Confederate leaders during the Civil War.

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