ExclusiveSarah Polk: The Longest Widow

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannon. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans Many of the greatest American legends have been the politicians, the presidents, the generals, these strong men who crafted a great nation out of the wilderness to make the United States of America. More complicated is the role which women have played. For the better part of American history, women haven't had the right to vote, and there haven't been many women in political offices. But that doesn't mean that women haven't been very important parts of making this nation great. Today we're going to talk about one of the most interesting first ladies of the United States, a woman who perfectly exemplifies how to be a feminine, un-emancipated woman, yet a very important and powerful political force. This is the 11th president's wife, Sarah Childress Polk. When you look at the first ladies of the 19th century, many historians just gloss over a bunch of them. They say they were inactive first ladies or they were simply acting first ladies because they weren't even the wives of the current president. Only a few are held in high regard during a period of several presidents. Now, I think that's doing a disservice to all those first ladies because each one did play a very important role in her own way. But the wife of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk, is regarded as one of the most important first ladies by any means. Born in 1803, Sarah Childress was the daughter of a businessman and planter in Tennessee. She was one of six children. She had an excellent education for a girl of her years, not only in her youth, but she ended up going to one of the only institutions for higher learning for women at the time, which was called Salem Institution. She learned a lot there, but I think that what she really learned couldn't have been taught at that school. I haven't been able to find much information about her mother, but I can only imagine that Mrs. Childress must have been a very wise woman to have taught her daughter something more important than what you can learn at a school. She taught her how to be a good wife and a powerful woman. Now, what did it mean to be a powerful woman in the 1820s through 1840s? It meant to be influential in politics without acting like you're influential in politics. It meant to influence your husband without acting like you're influencing your husband. To be the most feminine woman, but to also be the most intelligent. Sarah Childress Polk was all those things. The Childress and Polk families were very good friends, and so she knew her future husband when they were still quite young. They met when she was 12 and he was 19 because they were going to the same tutor, but it wasn't until much later that they were formally introduced. They began courting in 1822. Andrew Jackson, who was seventh president of the United States and James K Polk's great political mentor, met the young lady and described her as intelligent, virtuous, and very pretty, and he's believed to advise his young friend to pursue a courtship and marriage with her. They did begin courting and they became engaged and they married in 1824 when she was 20 and he was 28. She didn't immediately accompany him in all his political journeyings, sometimes staying back in their home in North Carolina while he went to Washington. They remained the only presidential couple who didn't have any children, neither of their own nor adopted or from previous marriages. It's believed that perhaps they had no children because when he was only eight years old, Polk had a surgery for urinary stones, which is believed to have made him infertile. This is merely conjecture, but what we do know is that without the duties of bearing and raising children, without frequent pregnancies, and sometimes the illness that would come with it, Sarah had nothing to do but guide, influence, and support her husband's political career, and she did just that. She took an extremely active role in her husband's political endeavors. She advised him, she helped him write speeches, and above all, she guarded his health because even though his health improved slightly after he had that surgery as a boy, he remained frail throughout his whole life, and she was always concerned that his ardent campaigning would cost him his life. She feared that he would overtire himself and grow weak and sickly and die prematurely, so she took it as her duty to keep him as healthy as she possibly could. She would read all the newspapers and make comments on them. She would absorb them and then recount them to him so that he didn't have to spend all that time doing so. She would write to newspapers of his political convictions and her own to influence what they wrote about him, but one of the things she did most powerfully was acting as his charming hostess and his social secretary, if you will. Like some other early presidents, such as John Adams or James Madison, he didn't have the most vibrant personality. He was considered serious, austere, just not exactly the life of the party, but Sarah, on the other hand, was beautiful, charming, engaging, very gracious, so she could make up for what he lacked. He didn't have it in him to really make friends and influence people, but she did, and she helped him make friends not only with other important politicians, but with their wives, and it's really ironic when you read the cliff notes of American history, you'd say, women are important in America now, but they weren't important in the 19th or 18th century. Far from it. Now a woman has to be important in her own right. She has to get a law degree or become a politician to have any sway. Back then, a politician's wife could be the thing that made or broke his political career. There were politicians who weren't even considered for certain roles because their wives weren't deemed suitable, so being a good political wife, whether that was the first lady of a governor or a cabinet wife or a congressional wife, was a very important job, and it could mean the difference between election and public ostracization for the candidate. So Sarah was never anything but a help to her husband. Besides caring for him, she helped him make friends with the most important political couples of the day. Not only on their side, the democratic side, she also made friends with the Whig couples, which was comparable to Dolly Madison, the fourth first lady, who was one of the most influential first ladies in American history. Like her, Sarah was very welcoming, open, and friendly, and she made everyone love her, but unlike Dolly, she was a woman of stronger Christian beliefs. She was a very devout Presbyterian, believing strongly in the idea of predestination. This also influenced some of her political ideas, as it did her husband, James Polk, who was also a Presbyterian. Believing in the idea of predestination, they believed that although slavery wasn't right, it was your lot in life to remain where you were born. Thus, if you were born a slave, God must have willed you to be in that position. She did not agree with some of the new popular customs of dancing, card playing, having a lot of music at festivities, and drinking, but she did serve wine and champagne at some White House affairs because she was, above all, a great hostess. But she did curtail some of the activities which her predecessor, First Lady, Julia Tyler, started because Mrs. Tyler loved dancing and she made the waltz and the polka popular. There was no waltzing during Mrs. Polk's time in the White House, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't an enjoyable time because, again, she was a very gracious hostess, and she made it about having wonderful food and excellent conversation instead of dancing and Andrew Jackson was the main mentor of his good friend, James Polk, and one of his most contentious issues arose over what is called the Petticoat Affair, or the Eaton Affair, where most of the cabinet wives went against Peggy Eaton, and Andrew Jackson ended up ostracizing a good deal of the Sarah Polk did not really like Mrs. Eaton and she didn't agree with her moral background, but she was one of the only cabinet wives who remained friendly to her. She would still greet her and be polite, even though she didn't completely approve of her, and this open-minded attitude is no doubt what kept James Polk still being friendly with Andrew Jackson because Jackson broke ranks with basically everyone who was hostile to the Eatons during this incident. It was during Sarah's time in the White House that Thanksgiving was celebrated there for the first time. She also was in the White House when it was provided with gas lighting for the first time. While Polk was campaigning, one of the issues brought up was their wives. His opponent was Henry Clay, a Whig, and Mrs. Clay was a very domestic woman. Many of the Polk's opponents said that Henry Clay's wife would be a much better first lady because she was very domestic, a far better homemaker. She knew how to churn butter and clearly a more domestic woman, the sort of American woman that the people should have. Mrs. Polk was not ashamed to admit that she was not a superior homemaker. That had never been one of her goals since she always had come from more privilege, and instead she prioritized supporting her husband rather than just keeping the home. Not missing a beat, she replied, If I should be so fortunate as to reach the White House, I expect to live on $25,000 a year, and I will neither keep house nor make butter. Nevertheless, she was an excellent wife in the form of being a good helpmate to her husband, who was quoted as saying, None but Sarah knew so intimately my private affairs. She was politician, counselor, nurse, and emotional resource. Sarah Polk didn't have some great goal she made like more modern first ladies have. She didn't advocate for particular causes or have some pet project. Instead, her project was her husband. She knew that the best thing a first lady can do is to support the president, to be his closest ally, because as we see from studying the early presidents, their vice presidents were not always the right-hand man. All too often, especially in the early days, the vice president didn't even run with the president. He was the runner-up, so he could end up being his enemy. And many times, as with Andrew Jackson, his vice president, John Calhoun, became his greatest foe. So the president doesn't have the vice president to necessarily be that counselor, that support, that sidekick. Really, the only person he knows can be that for him is his wife, his first lady, who is there to take care of the White House, to be the hostess, to entertain people, to make excuses for him when he's not feeling well, to care for his health, to read his speeches, to write his speeches, to look over the newspapers, and above all, to be that shoulder on which he can cry and that hand he can hold when things are difficult. As Polk has frequently quoted, his presidency was no bed of roses, but no matter how difficult it was, he could share that with Sarah. After his one term in office, which was all he planned to serve, the Polks intended to return to Polk Place, the plantation in Tennessee which they had built. Sarah was disappointed to see that it wasn't as finished as they'd hoped when they arrived there, and sadly, Polk's health took a turn for the worse, and he ended up dying at the age of 53 just a few months after leaving the White House. Like a good Victorian widow, Sarah would remain wearing black for the rest of her life, never remarrying, although she lived for 42 years after his death. She had the longest widowhood of any First Lady, and the longest retirement after leaving the White House, until Frances Cleveland succeeded her in that. Although she never had any children, she and her husband fostered their nephew, Marshall Polk, and after her husband's death, she took in her grandniece, who was also named Sarah, after her niece died, and she would end up raising and caring for that young lady. She became a bit of a recluse at first, but Polk Place became a very important center during the Civil War. You see, she was a Southerner, but she also wanted to remain neutral, so she opened Polk Place as one spot of neutrality. Both Union generals and Confederate soldiers and generals would come and visit her there, have discussions and meetings. She entertained later presidents and important political figures, as well as literary giants there, and she's called a recluse in that she didn't leave it very much, but that doesn't mean that she wasn't still entertaining people and being the great hostess she always had been. It's unclear exactly what her feelings were on the Civil War. She was friendly toward the Union idea because she wanted to preserve the Union. She believed that's what her husband would have wanted, but she still was a Southerner, so she was somewhat friendly to the Confederates as well, and she did serve an invaluable role in that place of neutrality. Sarah Polk remains a great example of one of the finest first ladies. She was a great supporter for her husband during their marriage, which was not too long because of his short life, but it was one filled with love, devotion, and support, and he couldn't have achieved all the things he did in office without her support. She made it her sole goal to care for him, support him, and help him in everything he did. Sarah remains a great example of a powerful 19th century woman, and really what it means to be a powerful woman in any era. Her strength was in acting like she didn't have strength. Her power was in acting like she didn't have power. She didn't support the idea of suffrage for women, although it seems like it may have been far in the distance of that time. The first Seneca Falls Convention, which began to ask for votes for women, happened while she was still first lady. She didn't believe that women should vote. She didn't think it was Christian or feminine. She believed that women could serve a very important role in politics without voting or being elected to any office. Instead of saying, I believe such and such, she would say, Mr. Polk feels or Mr. Polk believes, but people knew that she had strong opinions of her own and sometimes she even influenced how he felt, and he would ask her what she thought and what she felt, and she would influence his policy. She didn't act brazen or try to push her opinions, and in so doing, that is why she had such great power, because there is nothing more dangerous than a feminine woman. Sarah Polk is a great example to all women of how to be a great wife, and a good example for all men, whether they're politicians, businessmen, or in any line of work. It's very important what kind of woman you have by your side, because whether you're looking for the presidency in 1844, or simply acting as a common desk worker in 2025, the woman who's by your side is the most important decision you can make in your life, so choose her wisely. Thank you for spending this time with me talking about an excellent first lady and the indelible mark she made on the United States. Join me next time for more American Legends. Thank you for watching. Goodbye. you