Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Petticoats and Kitchen Cabinets: A Capital City Shake-Up

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

On this episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting, we discuss someone whose defiance of social and moral convention irrevocably shaped the nation’s political stage during the Antebellum years. In the 1800s, the role of Victorian women–especially the wealthy wives of prominent political figures–was to serve as protectors of our nation’s values. Those values centered around the home and church: wives were dutiful, modest, faithful, and charitable. But there are always rule-breakers, aren’t there? Today, we talk about the Petticoat Affair. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. In the 1800s, the role of Victorian women was to serve as protectors of our nation's values, especially the wives of prominent political figures. And for women, these values centered around the home and church. Sometimes it's referred to as the cult of domesticity by historians. Wives were supposed to be dutiful, modest, faithful, and charitable. But there are always rule breakers, aren't there? People who don't let moral or social conventions dictate the way they live their lives. They shake things up. People whisper and they talk. And sometimes the ripple effect is so great that it alters the course of history. Let's talk about the petticoat affair.

I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. On New Year's Day in 1829, our favorite Washington, D.C. gossip columnist, Margaret Bayard Smith, penned a few short paragraphs that would irrevocably shape the nation's political stage for the next decade to come. She wrote, Tonight, General Eaton, the bosom friend and almost adopted son of General Jackson, is to be married to a lady whose reputation, her previous connection with him, both before and after her husband's death, has been totally destroyed. She has never been admitted into good society. She is, it is said, irresistible and carries whatever point she sets her mind on. The ladies declare they will not go to the wedding.

And if they can help it, they will not let their husbands go. Who was this irresistible 19th century vixen who spoke her mind and scandalized the wives of prominent American politicians? Her name was Peggy. And she was proof that while women may not have always been granted the right to hold political office, they have always influenced it. Peggy was born Margaret O'Neill in Washington, D.C. in 1799. Washington, D.C. in 1799. And even though most people called her Peggy after she married Senator John Eaton, she mentioned how peculiar the nickname felt. She wrote in her autobiography growing up, I never was called Peggy in all my life. I was ordinarily called by my proper name of Margaret. Peggy's parents owned the Franklin House, a popular hotel in Washington, D.C., a place where countless politicians and dignitaries stayed throughout the years. The stately home was always busy and full, and Peggy delighted in its bustle.

She was outgoing, outspoken, and unrivaled in her ability to turn heads. Her beauty was even featured on the side of a cigar box. The Franklin House had a tavern attached to it, and Peggy loved to work there, right in the center of the action, serving customers, entertaining them by playing the piano, and by her own admission, flirting openly. It was an unusual upbringing for a girl, but Peggy was quick-witted and charming and was rarely told no by her family, friends, or suitors. When she was 16, she hatched a plan to run away with an army major and elope. But as the story goes, she kicked over a flower pot on her way out the window, and it woke her father, who then marched Peggy right back into the house. Barely a year later, Peggy was betrothed to a new beau, this time with her parents' consent,

even though he was 20 years her senior. His name was John Timberlake, not Justin, His name was John Timberlake, not Justin. Not Justin Timberlake. John. And after they got married in 1816, Peggy's parents set them up in a house across the street from their Franklin House Inn. And from there, Peggy and John Timberlake were able to keep socializing with all of the elite boarders at the O'Neill's Hotel. And they met and befriended a young widower, John Eaton, who was 28 years old and a newly elected member of the United States Congress from Tennessee. Eaton's young age went against the Constitution's requirement that all senators should be at least 30 years old. In fact, John Eaton still holds the record for being the

youngest member to serve in the U.S. Senate, although there were a few others that may have also been around age 28 or 29 when they were elected, because birth records in the early 19th century were sketchy. I've mentioned this before, that we don't really even know which state Andrew Jackson was born in. So, the notion of record keeping was more something that happened in things like family Bibles and lists, something that was being kept down at an official directory of records. So remember, though, at the time, senators were not elected by the citizens of the state. They were selected by the state legislature. So in many ways, this was more of an appointment than an election. John Eaton was selected by the Tennessee legislature to serve as senator from Tennessee. And he was completing the term of somebody else who left office. And

they just, you know, it's unknown if they decided to be like, you know what, close enough, or if they really didn't know that he was not old enough. History is not sure about that fact. But we do know that John Eaton was a wealthy and well-connected man, a man who was so close to Andrew Jackson that he wrote a biography, although a historically bad one, of the man he served with in the War of 1812. John Eaton's first wife, Myra Lewis, was under Andrew and Rachel Jackson's guardianship when they got married in 1813. And Andrew Jackson was such a popular figure in Tennessee politics that it was almost a fashionable thing to name him the guardian of your children or the executor of your estate

upon your death. At one point, Jackson is said to have been the guardian of more than 100 people, although it's really more of a legal formality than a familial one. It doesn't mean that he actually adopted them or financially supported them. But Myra was the niece of another one of Andrew Jackson's wards, which just demonstrated how popular a concept this was at the time. Not long after John Eaton married Myra, she died. And no one else caught his eye until he met Peggy Timberlake. To be fair, John Eaton and Peggy Timberlake started out as just social friends. Peggy's then-husband, John Timberlake, wasn't doing so hot with his business adventures, and John Eaton helped him petition the United States government to get reimbursement for ships

he had lost at sea during the war. His request was denied, however, and so John Timberlake took a position in the Navy to earn a steady income. He spent long periods away from his wife, Peggy, and their children. John Timberlake died at sea, and the rumor mill immediately began circulating that he had died of a broken heart, knowing that his wife was with another man. Some people said that he died by suicide because he was so distraught that Peggy was openly having an affair. And that man, of course, was said to be John Eaton, who was often seen escorting Peggy Timberlake around the city while her husband was away serving in the Navy. And while Peggy and John Eaton were well-behaved in public, everyone loved to speculate about what was going on behind closed doors.

was going on behind closed doors. John Timberlake's autopsy reported that he had died from pneumonia, but most people just ignored that. Scandalously, and serving only to fuel the rumors about her affair with John Eaton, Peggy did not take an extended time to mourn the death of her husband, which was the tradition of the wealthy elite. Nine months after John Timberlake was buried with full military honors, Peggy and John Eaton got married. Andrew Jackson, when John Eaton wrote to him and asked for advice about whether or not he should marry Peggy, replied emphatically, why yes, Major, if you love the woman and she will have you, marry her by all means. Because despite Jackson's many, many faults, he was a bit of a romantic. Peggy and John Eaton were married in the O'Neill home in a candlelit ceremony on January 1st of 1829. Andrew Jackson had recently won the presidential election. His wife, Rachel, had recently passed away.

Despite all the gossip, the future of John Eaton's political career was looking promising. political career was looking promising. Enter another woman. Her name? Floride Calhoun. Floride Calhoun was the wife of John C. Calhoun, a politician from South Carolina who had served as vice president under Andrew Jackson's arch nemesis, John Quincy Adams. John Calhoun grew dissatisfied and disillusioned with many of Adams' presidential policies, especially as John Quincy began growing the size of the central government, which Calhoun felt threatened individual states' rights. He did a little bit of a switch up, and Calhoun wrote to Andrew Jackson and said, hey, I'll campaign for you in the next election cycle. Andrew Jackson rewarded his new political ally

by selecting him as his running mate in 1828, which meant that when Jackson was elected president, Calhoun kept his position as vice president through Jackson's first presidential term. So he served two different presidents who had wildly different ideas of how the country should be run. And as Jackson took office in 1829, Floride, John Calhoun's wife, accepted a customary social call from the Eatons after their wedding. But however gracious she may have been in accepting the couple, Florede, who was a veteran at the game of political maneuvering, refused to pay Peggy a return visit, which was a completely calculated snub, and everyone in Washington knew it. These kinds of social engagements were extremely important. It would be a little bit like leaving somebody unread. You know what I mean? Like by today's standards,

she left me unread. She didn't even reply. It was a purposeful snub. After Jackson's inauguration, many of his well-meaning supporters cautioned him against naming John Eaton to his cabinet. If the wife of the vice president was refusing to accept the Eatons into her social circle, they would shortly be blacklisted everywhere else, too. But Andrew Jackson was immovable in his resolve to name John Eaton as a Secretary of War, and so he went ahead with the appointment. Jackson's reported to have raged at one unlucky advisor, saying, do you suppose that I have been sent here by the people to consult the ladies of Washington as to the proper persons to compose my cabinet? He's essentially saying,

I'm not looking for any advice from women. His support of John and Peggy Eaton is easy to understand given its parallels to his own wife's name being dragged through the mud for a similar supposed moral infraction. Rachel had only recently passed away, as I mentioned, and Jackson was still smarting from the sting of her death and of the heartbreak she suffered at the hands of the vicious rumors that were spread by his opponents. So Jackson was sensitive to this idea. His own light had been maligned, and here he is watching the same thing happen to Peggy Eaton. So he was not about to let the attacks on Peggy and her supposed lack of propriety dissuade him from honoring his relationship, which was both personal friendship and a political one, with John Eaton, who was one of his oldest and most

valuable friends in Washington. It is well documented that Jackson also believed that it was his own political opponents who were spreading the rumors about the Eatons in an attempt to discredit his reputation. Essentially, he thought everyone was using Peggy as a way to show that Jackson aligned himself with disreputable people and was not to be trusted. And so he was all too happy to double down and prove them wrong. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends.

And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! laughs. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink.

You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Andrew Jackson's niece, Emily Donaldson, was serving as his White House hostess when she sided with Floride Calhoun. It may have been strategic on her part. As the person who was tasked with handling all of the social engagements for the president, she couldn't very well isolate herself and the White House from the politicians the president needed to schmooze in order to advance his policy agendas. But the rumors about Peggy's past grew more mean-spirited with the wives of Jackson's cabinet members saying she was a

former bar wench and a prostitute who was not fit for polite company. Florey called Peggy an indecent little thing and argued that her presence among them was an attack on morality. President Jackson famously said, I would rather have live vermin on my back than the tongue of one of these Washington women on my reputation. These wives of Jackson's cabinet members refused to attend events where they knew Peggy would be and continued to leave her off of social calls. They were referred to at the time in newspapers and magazine columns as the petticoats. This is like Real Housewives of Washington, D.C., early 19th century edition. It's likely that referring to these women as the petticoats was intended as a slight or a dismissal,

that they were of little importance, that they were playing a frivolous, catty game behind the scenes. In the first half of the 19th century, however, petticoats were worn to shape the skirt and dictate the trends of fashion, much like the cabinet wives who were shaping the way their husbands participated in politics, for better or for worse. And in Floride's husband's case, things were not going well. And Vice President Calhoun wasn't exactly helping himself either. And while Jackson and Calhoun had worked together on Jackson's campaign in 1828, their relationship turned sour during a political event called the Nullification Crisis. the nullification crisis, this was a tension between the federal government and the state of South Carolina. And at its heart were rising tariffs and whether or not the state of South Carolina was allowed to nullify federal law. Nullify in this context means to essentially

cancel or ignore. Just to give you a little bit more context, starting in 1816, the United States began using tariffs to help regulate foreign trade and protect domestic industries here in America. The protective tariff was supposed to persuade people to support domestic sales by taxing imports. And it was popular with the newer manufacturing industries in the north, but very unpopular in the south, which relied on international trade. The first tariff that was passed was low, but the tax rose incrementally every year until 1828, when the tariff reached such lofty heights that it earned the nickname the Tariff of Abominations. And this Tariff of Abominations soon evolved into an ongoing political debate about state

and federal sovereignty, a balance that is still a topic of debate today. Politicians argued about where federal regulations ended and where state liberties began. And Southerners, led by Calhoun, who, remember, is from South Carolina, argued that states had the right to refuse to obey federal laws that they considered to be unconstitutional, even to the point of secession from the Union. unconstitutional, even to the point of secession from the union. Calhoun authored a pamphlet encouraging South Carolina to refuse to obey the federal law. And to put it more plainly, the vice president of the United States was openly campaigning for people to ignore the federal laws that he swore a duty to uphold. Andrew Jackson told South Carolina that if they wanted to proceed with their shenanigans, that he was going to send federal troops to forcibly collect the money and put an end to their secession talk. Jackson supported states' rights, but not at the expense of the

union. He stated that he would rather die in the last ditch than see the union dismantled. Calhoun became the most visible opponent to Jackson's presidency, and so he obviously fell out of Jackson's favor. Imagine your own vice president openly encouraging people to defy you. So Jackson was publicly agitated with his vice president, John Calhoun, for his political opposition, and Calhoun's wife, Floride, for her social crusade against John and Peggy Eaton. Another man stepped in to fill Calhoun's shoes. Secretary of State Martin Van Buren. Martin had all the right dance moves. Like Jackson, he supported John and Peggy Eaton, calling on them regularly. It was a pretty low stakes gamble for a widower who didn't have to worry about snubs from the petticoats. He had also played a large role in

drafting the bill for the tariff of abominations during the John Quincy Adams presidency and continued to support the tariff alongside President Jackson. And so in the spring of 1831, Martin Van Buren made a suggestion, a suggestion that seems ridiculous by today's standards, but a suggestion that Jackson ultimately took. He fired nearly every single one of his cabinet members. And this cut off both John and Floride Calhoun's influence on his inner circle. Martin Van Buren, however, was having his moment. Martin Van Buren was part of what the press dubbed President Andrew Jackson's kitchen cabinet. Jackson had stopped holding regular cabinet meetings, fired a lot of his cabinet, and turned instead to an unofficial group of trusted friends and advisors.

So when kitchen cabinet member Van Buren suggested that Jackson fire his cabinet and replace them, Van Buren was being strategic. Martin Van Buren resigned his own official cabinet post, and so did John Eaton, the Secretary of War. seats gave Jackson reason to reorder the whole cabinet and dismiss everybody who supported Vice President Calhoun. With only a few months remaining in his second term, John Calhoun resigned as Vice President. When Andrew Jackson ran for re-election in 1832, Martin Van Buren became his running mate, and they won the election, and Martin Van Buren stepped into the role of vice president. And when Jackson declined to run for a third term in 1836,

remember, presidential term limits weren't in the Constitution yet, he endorsed Martin Van Buren. So with Jackson's support, He endorsed Martin Van Buren. So with Jackson's support, Van Buren won his election and became the ninth president of the United States. In the aftermath of the Petticoat Affair, President Jackson appointed John Eaton to positions outside of Washington, D.C., sending the Eatons first to Florida, where John Eaton served as governor, and then he was an ambassador to Spain. And in 1840, President Van Buren recalled John Eaton from Spain for failing to fulfill his diplomatic duties. Eaton's ambassador predecessor, who was still in Spain, tattled on the Eatons and claimed that they

were not right for the job. He said, he and she, meaning both John and Peggy, regularly dispose of two bottles of rum of the strongest kind in the spirit of three days, four glasses each, and every day besides wine. And while they're taking it, she smokes her cigar. So basically he's saying they're drunks. And so when Peggy and John came back to DC, John established a law practice and they had a quiet life. He died in 1856 and left his accumulated fortune to Peggy. And why was Peggy so hated? It could be that people were jealous of her beauty, but more likely, it's that she refused to follow the social norms of how women were supposed to act. And at the time, social

norms were a way to maintain an orderly society. A threat to social norms was a threat to order. People don't like change. And because Jackson supported her so strongly, she was viewed as the power behind the throne, someone who was turning Jackson's head this way and that, potentially upsetting the carefully balanced apple cart of politics and women's roles in society. Peggy, in her later years, steadfastly continued to live exactly how she wanted, even when it meant she was regularly the subject of drawing room rumors and gossip columns. Three years after John's death, she got married again, and this time she found her partner outside the social circle of the Washington elite. But that did not mean that the wedding was any less scandalous.

Peggy married Antonio Buscignani, an Italian artist who was hired as a dance tutor for her granddaughter. Peggy was 59, okay? And historians cannot come to an exact consensus on Antonio's age. As I mentioned, birth records a little sketchy during this time, but they put him between 19 and 25 when Peggy and Antonio tied the knot. Okay, real housewives. That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. For a few years, they seemed to be happily married. Antonio got a job at the Library of Congress. And after the Civil War, he convinced Peggy that they should move to New York and asked her to put up $20,000 as capital for a new business venture, which is like $365,000 in today's money. And so Peggy did. She signed over the money and she gave Antonio unfettered access

to her fortune. By 1866, Antonio's business dealings were a flop and he ran off to Europe with all of Peggy's money and Peggy's 17-year-old granddaughter, Emily, the one that he had been tired to tutor. So ultimately, Peggy and Antonio got a divorce, but she was never able to get her money back. And Peggy O'Neill Timberlake Eaton Bushignani died a decade later in Washington, D.C., in a home for women living in poverty. She was buried next to her second husband, John Eaton.

A newspaper article that reported on her death had this to say, Doubtless among the dead populating the terraces of the cemetery are some of her assailants from the Jackson years. And cordially as they may have hated her, they are now her neighbors. Perhaps Peggy, ostracized in life, had the last laugh after all. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is such a fascinating, messy, political scandal. And let's face it, it wasn't just the women who were behaving badly. I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider sharing it on social media or leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform?

All those things help podcasters out so much. The show is written and researched by executive producer Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, and Sharon McMahon. Our audio engineer is Jenny Snyder, and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. We'll see you again soon.