The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama (44 page)

2.
Norman F. Boas,
Jane M. Pierce
(1806–1863)
; Pierce-Aiken Papers (Seaport-Aiken Autographs, 1983): “Mrs. Pierce found Benny”; Michael Minor and Larry F. Vrzalik, “A Study in Tragedy: Jane Means Pierce, First Lady,”
Manuscripts
40 no. 3 (Summer 1988): 177–89: “It destroyed her forever.”

3.
Jane Walter Venzke and Craig Paul Venzke,
The President’s Wife: Jane Means Appleton Pierce, a Woman of Her Time
, http://www.nhhistory.org/publications/Revealing_Relationships_Pressidents_wife.pdf (accessed February 27, 2011).

4.
Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr.: “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,”
New England Quarterly
28, no. 3 (September 1955), 339–348; Deborah Kent,
Jane Means Appleton Pierce
(New York: Children’s, 1998), 47–9.

5.
Minor.

6.
Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=15 (accessed February 14, 2011).

7.
Robert P. Watson,
The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of the First Lady
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 59, 64–5; Roy Franklin Nichols,
Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills
(Norwalk, CT: Easton, 1931), 230–1.

8.
Nichols, 242: She did not appear at table when company was present. She did socialize with friends and accompanied Nathaniel Hawthorne to Mount Vernon. Nichols, 313–4: In February 1854, Mrs. Pierce’s customary ill health and melancholy prevented her from giving any attention to society, much less playing the leading part befitting her as mistress of the White House. Accompanied by Daniel Webster and other friends, but never by Mrs. Pierce, the president regularly attended concerts in Washington; Nichols, 360: In August 1854, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce escaped Washington’s heat by sailing down the Potomac with a party. Later they spent a week at Capon Springs, Virginia.

9.
American President, Reference Resource, Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/events/12_06 (accessed October 19, 2011); Joel Martin and William J. Birnes:
The Haunting of the Presidents: A Paranormal History of the U.S. Presidency
(Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky and Konecky, 2003), 213; “The Fox Sisters: Spiritualism’s Unlikely Founders,” http://www.histroynet.com/the-fox-sisters-spiritualisms-unlikely-founders.htm. Maggie and Katy Fox were charlatans but had a remarkable career for decades as they duped countless people into “communication” with their beloved deceased.

10.
Jane Pierce to (deceased son) Bennie, January 23, 1853 (New Hampshire Historical Society manuscript, Franklin Pierce papers, accession number 1929–001).

11.
Nichols, 375, 421, 439.

12.
Venzke; Nichols, 76: described as “tubercular.”

13.
Nichols, 94; Venzke.

14.
Nichols, 103–4: “Sewall did his best”; Nichols, chapter three, for Sewall’s other patients; Venzke: diagnosis of tuberculosis.

15.
Venzke, for Jane Pierce’s use of leeches; “Leech,” Wikipedia, http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech (accessed 27 February 2012), for contemporary leech therapy.

16.
Nichols, 507–8.

17.
Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library, for the diagnosis of tuberculosis; Minor for the Pierces’ wanderings in search of a cure; Deborah Kent,
Jane Means Appleton Pierce
(New York: Children’s, 1998), 78–86: “All during her travels”; Craig Hart,
A Genealogy of the Wives of American Presidents and Their First Two Generations of Descent
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), 165, for the date and location of her death.

18.
Hart, 165; Kent: 14,16; Venzke.

19.
Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; Jonathan R.T. Davidson and Kathryn M. Connor, “The Impairment of Presidents Pierce and Coolidge After Traumatic Bereavement,”
Comprehensive Psychiatry
49 (2008), 413–419.

20.
Minor: “Disaster almost from the start. The couple was completely mismatched—she, a shy reclusive sickly introvert”; Nichols, 76: “Her husband presented quite a contrast.”

21.
Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr.: “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,”
New England Quarterly
28, no. 3 (September 1955), 339–348.

22.
Minor; Taylor; Nichols, 140.

23.
Nichols, 203, Taylor, Venzke, and Minor all describe Jane Pierce’s prayers for her husband’s defeat; Davidson for Bennie’s comments; Nichols, 204: “the results were too dreadful.”

24.
Larry Gara:
The Presidency of Franklin Pierce
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 183–4.

25.
C-SPAN: 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey, 2012
.

26.
Minor

27.
Ibid.

28.
Davidson.

29.
Louisa Adams quote as reported in Paul C. Nagel,
The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

30.
William Degregorio,
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents
(New York: Wing, 1993), 94; Joan Ridder Challinor, “Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams: The Price of Ambition,” PhD diss., American University, Washington, D.C., April 20, 1982; Paul C. Nagel,
Descent from Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 63; Michael O’Brien,
Mrs. Adams in Winter
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), xv.

31.
Alan Levenson, M.D., e-mail, April 15, 2011.

32.
Jonathan R.T. Davidson, Kathryn M. Connor and Marvin Swartz: “Mental Illness in U.S. Presidents Between 1776 and 1974: A Review of Biographical Sources,”
Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseas
e 194, no. 1, (January 2006): 47–51.

33.
Nagel,
Descent from Glory
, 77–80, 88, 122, 133, 147, 157–9, 171–3, 178.

34.
Louisa Adams,
The Adventures of a Nobody: Autobiographical Sketch, Begun 1 July 1840
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1956).

35.
Challinor, “Mr. Adams has always accustomed me to believe that Women had nothing to do with politics.”

36.
Nagel,
The Adams Women,
188–9.

37.
Nagel,:
Descent from Glory
, 107–8, 170.

38.
Degregorio, 94.

39.
Robert Remini,
John Quincy Adam
s (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 30.

40.
Paul C. Nagel,
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 253.

41.
Presidential Notes: “Louisa Catherine Adams,” http://www.essortment.com/presidential-notes-louisa-catherine-adams (accessed January 3, 2012): “reading and writing and spice through story telling”; Louisa Catherine Adams:
Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out
; http://www.ourwhitehouse.org/flpages/ladams.html (accessed January 3, 2012): lists Louisa’s musical talents.

42.
Presidential Notes: “Louisa Catherine Adams.”

43.
Adams,
Adventures of a Nobody
. The “old gentleman” is her father- in-law, former president John Adams.

44.
Challinor: “At times wished obsessively and overwhelmingly to die”; Hart, 23: The Adams only daughter who was not stillborn was Louisa Catherine, who died September 15, 1812, in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

45.
O’Brien.

46.
Ibid., 228.

47.
Nagel,
Descent from Glory
, 116–7.

48.
Jack Shepherd,
Cannibals of the Heart: A Personal Biography of Louisa Catherine and John Quincy Adams
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 99.

49.
Puerperal Fever;
Wikipedia
, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerperal_fever#Famous_Victims, (accessed January 23, 2012).

50.
Challinor; Shepherd, 190.

51.
Challinor.

52.
Adams,
Adventures of a Nobody
: “My husband’s time was entirely occupied”; Shepherd, 103, and Challinor describe the traumatic birth of George Washington Adams; Shepherd, 111, alludes to John Quincy’s absences.

53.
Challinor, use of “illness” as a bargaining device; Don Keko,
Louisa Adams: The Reclusive First Lady
, http://www.examibner.com/american-history-in-national/louisa-adams-thr-reclusive-first-lady (accessed January 3, 2012): frequent migraines and fainting spells.

54.
Challinor for her use of laudanum both in Massachusetts and in Saint Petersburg.

55.
Nagel,
Descent from Glory
, 83.

56.
Laudanum: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudanum (accessed March 8, 2012); Laudanum encyclopedia topics: http://www.reference.com/browse/laudanum (accessed March 8, 2012); “What is Laudanum”: http://www.laudanumonline.com.drupal/content/what-laudanum (accessed March 8, 2012, for Mary Todd Lincoln and laudanum, see below.

57.
Challinor and Shepherd, 329, for the long term recurrences of erysipelas; Nagel,
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life
, 290, and Nagel,
The Adams Women
, 212–3, for Louisa’s symptoms and her attempted respite at the Bedford spa; Erysipelas: Pubmed Health National Library of Medicine, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/publicmedhealth/PMH0001643/ (accessed January 19, 2012).

58.
Shepherd, 220, 221, 223.

59.
Ibid., 223, 226–8. 239.

60.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 287–8.

61.
Presidential Notes: “Louisa Catherine Adams”: “Louisa’s Room became a central area”; Keko, First Ladies’ History, “Louisa Adams: The Chocoholic Resurfaces,” http://firstladyblog.typepad.com/my-year-with-the-first-la/2011/04/first (accessed January 3, 2012): “The Adams residence became a social center”; Catherine Allgor,
Parlor Politics, in Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000), 165, for Louisa’s political skills.

62.
Allgor, 191, 193, for being sidelined in the White House; Presidential Notes: “Louisa Catherine Adams,” http://www.essortment.com/presidential-notes-louisa-catherine-adams (accessed January 3, 2012): description of Louisa’s social skills as wife of the secretary of state.

63.
Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams:
Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out
, http://www.ourwhitehouse.org/flpages/ladams.html (accessed January 3, 2012).

64.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 189, and Challinor record for John Quincy’s recommendation of the Rush book; Louisa Catherine Adams,
Diary and Biographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams
, Judith Graham, et al., ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012), 1812–1814 Diary, 373, records Louisa’s reaction.

65.
Nagel:,
Adams Women
, 212–13, for the unnamed physician’s diagnosis; Hysteria, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria (accessed November 5, 2013) for a discussion of hysteria.

66.
Shepherd, 256.

67.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 217: opinions on the status of women, and 236: advising niece against marriage; Keko; http://www.examibner.com/american-history-in-national/louisa-adams-thr-reclusive-first-lady (January 3, 2012): chocolate addiction.

68.
Shepherd, 260–4; Nagel:
Adams Women
, 220.

69.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 219–20; Shepherd, 256–60.

70.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 214–5: 1828 recurrence of erysipelas; Shepherd, 307–8, for Huntt’s White House treatments; Ludwig M. Deppisch,
The White House Physician: A History from Washington to George W. Bush
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), 20–31, for Dr. Huntt’s biographical information.

71.
Nagel,
Adams Women
, 220–1.

72.
Shepherd, 359–60; Hunt, Harriot Kezla (1805–1875), http://www.jiffynotes.com/a_study_guides/book_notes_add/amer_000 (accessed January 16, 2012).

73.
Shepherd, 405, 409–10.

74.
Elizabeth Keckley,
Behind the Scenes
(Los Angeles: Indo-European, 2011), 53.

75.
Catherine Clinton,
Mrs. Lincoln: A Life
(New York: HarperCollins, 2009): 84, 221; Anne E. Beidler,
The Affliction of Mary Todd Lincoln
(Seattle: Coffeetown, 2009): 12–13, 32–5: Mary Lincoln’s lifelong headaches; Clinton, 244: Fear of headache subservient to desire to accompany her husband to Ford’s theater.

76.
Jason Emerson,
The Madness of Mary Lincoln
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007); W.A. Evans,
Mrs. Abraham Lincoln: A Study of Her Personality and Her Influence on Lincoln
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010); Mark E. Neely, Jr., and R. Gerald McMurtry:
The Insanity File: The Case of Mary Todd Lincoln
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986).

77.
Evans, 65, 138; Clinton, 88–9.

78.
Clinton, 86–7; Emerson, 12; Jerrold Packard,
The Lincolns in the White House: Four Years That Shattered a Family
(New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005), 19.

79.
Evans, 155: “She kept Mr. Lincoln from making several mistakes”; Carl Sandburg,
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1954), 155: Mary provided excellent political counsel; David Herbert Donald,
Lincoln
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995),158, summarized Mrs. Lincoln’s unpredictable behavior.

80.
Packard, 1.

81.
Clinton, 127: describes her social and ceremonial activities; Packard, 71, and Robert P. Watson,
The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of the First Lady
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 77: Prince Bonaparte’s reception; Donald, 311, for more on her social success; Evans, 165–6, and Watson, 95–6: Mrs. Lincoln as political partner.