Washington, Martha
Born June 2, 1732 (New Kent County, Virginia)
Died May 22, 1802 (Mount Vernon, Virginia)
First lady
The lives of prominent eighteenth-century women were rarely recorded in any detail. Yet women played as vital a role as men in early America. Women managed the household duties, including food preparation and storage, sewing, giving birth to and caring for numerous children, and over-seeing the health of the entire family. Martha Washington performed all these duties but on a grander scale than most women. She was a member of the wealthy planter class, which meant she had to oversee the household operations of large plantations. Her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis (1711–1757), was the richest man in Virginia. After his death, she remarried military hero and large landowner George Washington (1732–1799; see entry in volume 2). The wealth she brought to her second marriage ensured the success of Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon.
Washington became the first president of the United States and the most respected and honored American of the late eighteenth century. Few in the twenty-first century realize that at that time, Martha Washington was considered an American hero in her own right, cheered everywhere shewent. Her sense of duty to General Washington and his soldiers in the American Revolution (1775–83) became legendary.
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