Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening. My name is kevin butterfield. Im the executive director of the washington library. Its my great pleasure to welcome you here tonight on behalf of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association and to our annual Martha Washington lecture. The event was created to share scholarship and insights into the life and times of Martha Washington and is made possible through a generous grant from the Richard S Reynolds foundation of richmond, virginia. Tonights Exciting Program celebrates the publication of an important new book, the papers of Martha Washington, one many years in the making actually part and related to a much bigger project, the papers of george at the university of virginia and sponsored by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Since 1968, the project began with the ambitious aim of publishing all of George Washingtons correspondence, but its since expanded to include other members of his family, allowing us to know so much more about the personal lives and associates of this remarkable founding family at this time, id like to thank each of the donors of the papers of Martha Washington project. Hold your applause to the end, because there are several the Richard Reynolds foundation. Id like to particularly thank major and pam reynolds, who are likely watching us virtually tonight. Thank you for all of your support. The dr. Shaw foundation, the founders Washington Committee for historic mount vernon, karen buchwald, right. Julia colby cook. Jacqueline b mars. The honorable paul michael and miss p brooke england. Mr. And mrs. C ashton newell. Miss kate schuster. The h. W. Wilson foundation and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the union. Please join me in thanking them. Tonight. Its going to be a lot of fun because when were done, were going to walk out into the reception area and continue the conversation and the celebration. Copies, copies of the papers of Martha Washington, along with for fraziers Award Winning book, the washingtons will be available for purchase. Ive seen many people lining up already for will be signing copies of her book. Miss washington is not here to sign her book. We were serving rum punch and authentic 18th century recipe from the book dining with the washingtons. Well have several original letters written by Martha Washington on view in a display case, so be sure to track those down. Well also be and you would have seen it as you came in the handsewn reproduction of Martha Washingtons childrens games quilt, which is an exact copy of the original in our collection expert quilter cecilia anne masterly completed it after two years of meticulous work, a process that uncovered ms. Washingtons remarkable skill and eye for detail. Cecilias passionate about sharing the craft and history of quilting and will be available to answer your questions now to welcome our wonderful speakers. And there will be a Panel Following where youll have an opportunity to ask questions of both of them. For frazier, as a professional writer and historian, his career began with apprenticeships under her grandmother and mother, both well known historical biographers. Shes written numerous historical biographies of her own, including princesses the daughters of george, the third, the unruly queen, the life of queen caroline, venus of empire. The life of pauline bonaparte, and of course, the washingtons, george and martha, joined by french crowned bivalve, which received 2016 George Washington book prize for it was also mt. Vernon georgian papers fellow where she worked at Windsor Castle and the archives on her forthcoming biographies of the jacobite heroine Flora Macdonald and lord horatio nelson. After a presentation by four frazier, Katherine Geren come to the podium. Shes a Research Editor at the papers of George Washington. And the center for digital editing at the university of she holds degrees from Bowling GreenState University and Sarah Lawrence college, and she was one of the team of editors who completed the papers of Martha Washington and is now working on the Digital Edition of the papers of bush. Rod washington. I also want to say this broom and the 200 and i think 300 people who are watching us virtually is just such an exciting celebration of what weve been able to do across years. Weve been diving into this project to better understand Martha Washington and women in the 18th century. This Martha Washington lecture is just such a success. Im to see so many people here. I know there are a few hundred more watching us virtually. Thank you so much for being here. Now, please me in welcoming our first speaker for a frazier. Thank you, director, and thank you very much director and all mount vernon for hosting me here it always such a pleasure to speak to the many distinguished guests who come from all over region and beyond. And i very much forward to answering any. You may have a later or just discussing Martha Washington which i love to do so. Oh. Let me just. See and. Well all of a slides are a background and what i really oh it may be a blank background owing to my technical income pittance, but when i first had the opportunity have viewing these this volume the papers of Martha Washington i felt like keats on looking into chapmans homer then felt i like some watcher of the skies when the new planet swims into his can. It really is a most remarkable addition to. 18th century and founding era scholarship. This this volume. And i have to congratulate everyone. Catherine and all her team who worked on it and i believe have supplied a very worthy companion to the papers of George Washington. And now. Marthas first marriage to Daniel Custis was, all important in her story. And indeed, in washingtons the daughter, a Virginia Court clerk, she persuaded this irascible. But prominent Virginia Council member john custis to let her be daniels. And in she made such a success she persuaded him this irascible man who hated her uncle, a fellow member of the ruling council, that daniels father said hed rather daniel marry her than than any woman in in virginia. Those thats the sort of woman that martha was. She was redoubtable. She was persistent. And throughout the papers of of Martha Washington, you see these powers of persuasion when shes a first wife living close to her own family on the poor monkey river and then when shes the wife of George Washington here, mount vernon, and bringing up two children, jackie and patsy, her children she had with daniel and. You see it when shes lady washington can going effectively into battle for the republican cause or you could say she is coming to come and give solace to washington the general and commander in chief in his wintering campaigns. So this is young martha and the first section of the papers Martha Washington shows her. In total control as a young widow. How marthas father husband and two of her infant children have died. But in the space to have. I think its three years and bear that in mind because she has a well you could say she does death very badly all her life and well see that later but this in her twenties she is a act as her first husband executor as the administrative two of her young sons infant sons estate until. He can assume a control of them on his majority and she does it with almost perfect composure and authority. 80 in august 1757, the papers is open with this. This is the first communication we have from Martha Washington that that extent she writes to a merchant in london to whom shes consigning the years tobacco. I shall yearly ship a considerable part of the tobacco i make to you. And i hope you will your in endeavors to get me a good price. Shes a very, very businesswoman. And thats what you see all the way through. And as the as the. Papers show and as the editors note had a good grasp of loans which were an important part of the tobacco economy and in in virginia at that time and but you could say that with two small children, with with these these are the largest states to that. And two very small children to manage the advent of a certain George Washington coming down to to bear her and the children of north was not unwelcome and and you could say also that the wealth that martha brought washington was not unwelcome. And indeed mount vernon was in banished in advance of their marriage. But it continued a while washington had the use of of marthas money for his life to certainly a very a very. Important part. And as we know John John Adams in a sour mode said would washington George Washington ever become commander in chief and president had it not been for his marriage to the rich. Mrs. Custis. As i say, john was in a silo mood that day well, this is a copy the earlier one, but i think the copy shows how dear this portrait of the children and was, and how very dear these two children were to both george and Martha Washington and who were not to have Children Together and through. I particularly like the the cardinal, but the symbol of virginia. I hope it is a cardinal. A modern jack is hand, but but. This is a different phase of marthas life. And the section in the papers that dwells on this on this period of a happy a happy married life a happy, educative experience for jackie at home and here he is as he grows and a and im afraid martha him which is perfectly plain both from the papers of George Washington and and if you look at marthas correspondence with sister nancy plain there to and here is paul patsy this heiress and im not sure if you can see but she is first wound with expensed jewelry from london but that perhaps doesnt doesnt entitle early detract or if you like it cant do away with that very pale and frail appearance which has washington and martha seeking everywhere for remedies or cures for these fit and in her teens these fit what historical postmortems the difficult did for our. Daisy but epileptic fits is a fair of i guess and without without. And so when she would the age of 16 and 17 being courted by every young young man in search of a rich bride in the region. She stayed at home dancing on the terrace when when when she was when waup to it. And but this apparently bucolic and peaceful existas we know, in the 10 his gave gave way to deep, dissatisfied action with. The not least with the tobco merchants in london on the part of those Virginia Farmers who were really quite sick of being taken to the cleaners time they sent over some tobacco and asked for the best goods possible back and got you know last year frocks if they were lucky and carriages which didnt roll and so on. I mean ive always thought that was part of you know there are niggles as well as the great. Affairs of state that trigger a final. Of a final decision to throw off those traces and washington as we know, it was late to declare himself ready to go to war for his principles. But when he went, martha went him. As i say, she she became this if you like this battle ax of the republic and lady washington, they would cry when she came into and that actually does have in the at least one of the original all in print i think its the one in yale the the the a contemporary print. And it has lady underneath and. So there was the general and then there was lady washington and she came to the first winter ha caught us to cambridge achusetts and of course it wasnt just that wasf the few places is where martha ha came to cheer washingtons life, where she was ac within a hearing of a battle field. If you like wi the of of boston and. She writes a like a rather Like Washington himself wrote saying it was wonderful to hear the the bullet bullets singing around my my my my my head in the in an earlier war. Well she caused splendid with her sister nancy, who still was married and lived so down on the poor monkey. And nancy marthas correspondence with nancy comes singing out that this book that nancy was her favorite sister is the person in all marthas life that i think she unburdened herself to whether it was about her children, whether it was about politics. And you see and in in her charisma, on her letters to nancy, we dont have nancys to her that. Every woman in war was political and martha was, well, very conservative in other ways. And in in fact, of want in the the american cause to succeed she was ferocious and i think in it would be very interesting to see what what other the pay what papers of other women of this period emerge which in one part of her letter theyre talking about their children or the sewing or the cooking and then theyll have a paragraph of absolute you know the news as its being made. Well, course it wasnt only other american who martha met, but her circle broad dinners as the papers show, and those lafayette first coming as a volunteer who she meet in the winter at valley forge and then there the young women Betsy Schuyler and of course we know about that courtship and marriage, but there were many others, many other of these women and many of them much younger than martha lucy flack and knox, a remarkable woman. And we do her correspondence with her husband, henry, in the gilda lamb and institute. But there was a kitty, catherine littlefield, green. And so but martha would gather these women at in these in encampments and provide a of atmosphere of normality as as was possible. And then of course, she was not involved in the in the in the summer campaigns and went back to mount vernon. But im sorry, but the war too was a time of terrible loss again for martha and she lost not only her sister, nancy, and she did write to her. Brother in law a verbal basset and say, im after nancys death and say i must own that she the greatest favorite i had in the world. And i think this was this idea of, friendship and friendships comes really startlingly. The papers many the papers here are to be found elsewhere, but its when theyre together and the focus is on martha that you really see how they they gel together. And, of course, forth of her children. Jackie dies in the hour of victory. Hes not an officer, but hes in attendance at yorktown and dies of camp fever. And and martha is at the lowest ebb. Washington couldnt have been more more, more keen to console her and. But jackie is left out. A wife whos sweet but a bit of a and four children, thankfully for the park custis estates theres a son and but there are three daughters and so we find when inevitably after a period at mount vernon, when the washingtons have time to take stock and see what being away for eight years has done, despite marthas efforts, despite the efforts of land, washington washington georges cousin, as to keep the estates going there is not wrack and ruin but but they martha feels strongly that they have earned the right that washington has earned the right to enjoy retirement. But as we know, he is called to new york to be the first president of thetas. And with them go on ft marthas grounds and washington, gegeasngton park is known as wash or, wash or indeed tub. I leave you to work out and eleanor or nellie and so ey have to make a Republican Court whh must both satisfy americans as beingemrat not monarchical but also satfy visiting envoys, ambassadors from the courtofurope. So and a ts is something they are doing over the next seven or seven years as washingtons serves two terms at the same time the bringing up in effect and educating a new generation and of course as children and theyll not theyre not Spring Chickens and im glad to say that with nellie, they succeed and washes very much. His fathers son and spoiled rotten by by Martha Washington despairs of him but he cant despair all over again. And im saying he washes his hands of him but its but they leave new york thats a later house. But on this side, Cherry Street in new york and in in philadelphia. Oh, here, martha, really does have some she she makes some very interesting friendships, as does as does washington and not always with those in government, many of whom were with them in the in the war. But with the philadelphians and mrs. Powell and samuel powell, that interesting couple. And Samantha Snyder here is at work on a book, a biography of elizabeth will willing polled so looking forward to that and so many more of these mercantile professional families and so martha again expands her circle as does george but but she she does it always quite natural really. And she has a gift for whether shes in the cramped revolutionary sort of pot house in in in valley forge entertaining or at a at one of these drawing rooms. As her reception are called, even liston, the British Ambassador or envoy extraordinary wife who comes not to well, anyway, possibly with a critical a gives us not only gives