good evening. i am myra goodman, president of flare. the first lady's association for

research and education. flair's mission is to create and sustain a network to promote and publicize research and education relevant to the contributions lives impact and lasting legacies of america. first ladies. as always, flair is grateful to our inaugural institutional lifetime members that include american university, rider university, the white house, historical association, the massachusetts historical association, the gerald r ford presidential foundation. the national first lady's library. the center for presidential history of southern methodist university. the george w bush institute, and our newest members. the national trust for historic preservation. and the dole institute. it is their support that makes

programs like tonight possible, and it is my pleasure to officially welcome you to flair's first program of 2023, an examination of the life and legacy of julia gardiner tyler. our moderator this evening is elizabeth backer estrada of the san francisco public library. other participants include sharon leahy, an independent scholar and christopher leahy professor of history at keuka park college. thank you, myra, for the lovely introduction. i'm delighted to be with all of you today. i will be providing a brief and basic overview of julia tyler's era as an introduction to the presentation by christopher and sharon leahy. julia gardner oh, sorry. julia gardner the future mrs. john tyler was born in new york

in 1820, during the post-revolution arie war era of the early republic. julia lived in a time of transition as the elite revolutionary past receded and the antebellum or pre-civil war era of the common man came into being. i will mention three aspects of antebellum society and culture that affected julia tyler. a narrow view of ideal womanhood emerged in the antebellum era. separate spheres became a salient concept of the time. the public sphere of politics, government and professional careers was man's domain and the private sphere of family, home and church was women's realm known as the cult of domesticity or the cult of true womanhood. this ideology held that white, upper and middle class women were designed primarily for the roles of wife and mother and were expected to cultivate the for cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. the true women would perform housekeeping, very good children

and make her family's home a haven of health, happiness and virtue. while society benefited from her performance of these sacred domestic duties, religious literature and print media extolled the virtues. a next slide, please. the industrial revolution brought innovations in communications and printing and the use of paper making machines and steam powered printing presses enabled newspapers to be printed faster and more efficiently. this and higher literacy rates and the affordability of penny newspapers led to an explosion in newspaper circulation in the 1830 1840. the invention of lithography in 1800 allowed for the production of numerous prints. from one illustration, including caricatures. women who did not appear to conform to the confines of their sphere were caricatured. julia tyler as will be discussed in the next portion of this program, was one of these women. next slide, please.

manifest destiny a term coined in 1845, the last year of the tyler administration was the belief that americans had a destiny to settle at the american west and to expand their control from the atlantic ocean to the pacific. this philosophy supported u.s. territorial expansion and was used to justify the forced removal of native americans from their lands. rapid territorial expansion. aggravated sectional tensions over the spread of slavery as new states joined the union. the annexation of texas, which john and julia tyler supported, was an example of manifest destiny. next slide, please, as this is a program of the first lady's association for research and education. i want to say something about the wives of presidents who preceded julia tyler. much as you mentioned. the united states transitioned from the elite age of the early republic to the common man era. famous and celebrated founding mothers including martha

washington, the wife of president george washington and abigail adams. the wife of president john adams, were followed by lesser known wives, daughters and daughters in law of presidents of the antebellum era. as women became increasingly confined to the private sphere, so too were first ladies of the antebellum era generally less visible publicly? although julia tyler was an exception. next slide, please. jolene madison, the wife of president james madison, served as first lady from 1809 to 1817 before julia tyler was even born as white house hostess. she provided a space where the official masculine sphere of politics and the unofficial feminine sphere of hostessing interacted, bringing people of different, differing political persuasions together. even northerners and southerners. with the goal of national unity, a widow, dolley, returned to washington city in 1837 and mentored several presidential wives and other white house hostesses, including julia

tyler. at the age of 76, dolley madison took 24 year old julia tyler. the new bride, and the new first lady of john tyler under her wing, serving as a bridge between the new republic and the antebellum era. as mrs. madison graced the white house functions during the tyler administration. i now turn the program over to the ladies. thank you, liz, and thank you, myra. and thank you to her for allowing us to be participate in this really interesting project. and we're happy to bring our presentation on julia gardiner tyler. and it represents a portion. next slide, please, of our chapters six of our forthcoming biography of first lady julia gardiner tyler. the title illustrates how closely julia became married to

the annexation of texas policy after her secret wedding to a sitting u.s. president and i became interested in julia when christopher was working on his 2020 by agra fee of presidents tyler president without a party. he asked me to transcribe some of her letters because he couldn't read them. and i know why. because she has the handwriting only on mother and love. but i was able to read them and i transcribed them and we thought we would do a book with a collection of her edited letters. but we ultimately decided to do a full scale biography. next slide, please. so, julia was born when james monroe was president and the missouri compromise had been signed into law and maine had entered into the union as the 23rd state. and she was born on may 4th, 1820, on gardiners island, which

is just at the tip of long islands and for her early life, she lived in the village of east hampton. her father and mother, david and juliana gardiner, were financially well-off, and julia benefited from her family's position in new york society and also received a substantial education in new york city, which she fortified with a one year tour of europe with her father and sister. next slide, please. chris and i found during our research on julia garner that there's a good deal that's not known about her and more importantly, there's a lot that is misunderstood or just simply incorrect about the various chronicles of her life. on the right is case in point. here is the rose of long island lithograph caricature that was

published in 1840. my 2018 new york history journal article, i'm not a model first lady julia gardiner tyler eller in the new york city print culture addresses this long standing error that she agreed to pose for it and that it was an advertisement for dry goods store in manhattan. so if you can see at the bottom there the month that the caricature was published, this the artist for the lithograph was thrown in jail and for creating a series of caricatures on several new york city families at the time. so indeed, got himself in a good bit of trouble there. and and you can see on the left above the 2021 exhibit of first ladies of the national portrait gallery in washington, d.c. you can see it all the way on the left there. it's quite small. so really would make a rather poor advertiser. next slide, please.

so john tyler married julia gardner on june 26th, 1844, in new york city. it was such a closely guarded secret. it was essentially an elopement. and the happy couple returned to washington, d.c. and on hearing the news, john quincy adams, who was serving as a u.s. congressman at the time and no fan of tyler, he was a whig and president. tyler had thrown the whig party into disarray because he kept vetoing all of their legislation. and john quincy adams, quote, as he was fairly nauseated by their marriage and he called it the old fable of january and may because he was disgruntled by their 30 year age difference, with tyler being 54 and julia being only 24. next slide, please. so the annexation of texas

became president. tyler's main focus. and as this slide shows how he thought it might be, he might be able to use this issue to win a presidential term in his own right in 1844. however, it wasn't to be because right before he married julia, the treaty, his administration was working on to bring texas into the union failed in the senate so that went by the wayside. but he married her right at that time. and next slide, please. so let me give you a little background on tyler's first wife, leticia just suffered a series of strokes before he became president and she actually died on september 10th, 1842. so all that time that she was ill and certainly after her death, he had to use surrogates. and those surrogates were his daughter in law, priscilla cooper, tyler, and also his daughter, leticia tyler semple.

neither one of those women knew that he was getting married to julia. so you can imagine their surprise and perhaps chagrin when he shows up in washington with julia as his bride. so when you brought julia back to washington, d.c., you know washington was just flush with energy and excitement about it because essentially, julia tyler became the first presidential spouse to serve as white house host us since louisa. catherine adams in 1829. so there's three visualizations i want you to pay attention to on this slide. on the left is julia garner tyler's wedding portrait, which was created in 1846 and was finished in 1848. it's about a year and a half after she married tyler for the portraits. she wore a diamond. veronica on her head to honor her late father, who had given her the diamond set. but on her wedding day, she actually had a wreath of orange

blossom in her hair. and it was just like queen victoria, which you see here on the right that she had on her wedding day, because julia was obsessed with queen victoria. and just note, the newspaper accounts. i loved reading those. they kept referring over and over again. every article you would read about this wedding treaty ratified tyler and ms. gardner. the dome, the domestic treaty over and over again. and these images and words directly link her wedding. their wedding to the texas annexation and that secret marriage to a u.s. president during an extraordinarily contentious political battle made worldwide news and the visualization of this wedding provided that metaphorical nourishment that the new york city print culture capitalized

on. and chris is going to share with you more on that next slide. please. okay. well, as sharon has indicated, the newspapers really had quite a field day with julia and john tyler's marriage, but they weren't the only ones. the lithography trade, which had largely matured by 1844, part of the media explosion that liz mentioned at the outset of the prram. lithography had emerged as part of the second party syem. the second party system refers to the political combat between the democratic party and the whig party. and political caricature was, as they were called. that was the terminology that theysed at the time had been

used in presidential politics, going all the way back to 1824. but it wasn't until the 1840 that t trade and lithography trade really matured and that people actually came to expect that lithography first caricaturist, political cartoonist would do their best to try to make all the issues of a particular presidential campaign very much public for public consumption. so this is actually quite within the the realm of the explosion of media and print like the newspapers, the lithography has pounced on the couple as well. and for our purposes here, political caricatures offers another lens through which to view the presidential election of 1844. we think that scholars have ignored their real significance. we treat these lithographs as import and primary sources and our analysis will look at both the source itself, but the

lithography itself, as well as the background of the artis. before i begin to explain this particular slide, i want to make sure tt everybody knows that we have the dates for the slide, for the lithograph, for the caricature in the bottom right hand corner and highlight. so the chronology is important to see how all of this built on the previous ones. the first lithographic political caricature to portray julia tyler as the personification of texas annexation is shown here. the caricature was published by a man named james as bailey on the very day of the tyler gardner wedding virtue was. harry features a woman playing the part of texas dress suspiciously like julia gardner on her wedding day, bailey or perhaps his partner h closer places a bridal wreath of flowers in a woman's hair similar to that which julia gardner wore. i want to also call attention to the brooch that's on the middle of her dress.

we have a letter from julia in 1844 where she's described what she called her diamond start pin that she wore on her dress. so there are some aspect of this particular lithograph that might have and probably did, in fact, use some actual details from her wedding date. the woman here, julia texas, turns away from the wig nominee for president, henry clay, who was virtuous. harry was known as harryf the west and offers her hand to the democrat james k polk. james k paulk had been nominated by the democratic party in 1844 and had made texas annexation part of the democratic party platform. he enthusiast supported it, and he says that texas this woman was a perfect match for the land of the brave and the home of the free. the dialog attributed to clay on the caricature alludes to his reputation for fast living, as he denounces the woman by declaring, do you think we will

have anything to do with gamblers? horse racers and licentious, profligate? that is the very types of people who favor the annexation of texas. and to be honest, the very types of people that henry clay hung around with while he was in washington. on the other side of clay is a quaker minister who admonishes the candidate that his scandalous language will prevent religious fallout from voting for him. this may be bailey's way of introducing clay's running mate, theodore frelinghuysen of new jersey, a man placed on the whig ticket to appeal to evangelical voters. the effectiveness of the caricature lies in how current events and political movements favors were weaved into the image. bailey realized that even though tyler's texas treaty had failed in the senate, that the issue of texas annexation was still very much alive and he wanted to capitalize on it. one might ask whether bailey's timeliness in portraying texas as a young woman who resembled julia gardiner on her wedding

day was mere coincidence. the answer requires us to dig a little more deeply into the lithography trade and into bailey's personal story. to start a skill, lithography required very little time to produce caricatures such as virtue. was harriet bailey had emigrated from the united kingdom several years earlier and had actually been a lithography distance 1838. so he was no novice in the trade, knew what to do, knew exactly how to get things done pretty quickly. and since he plied his trade in new york city, it is not unreasonable to imagine that he had heard news of the president's marriage and soon after the event took place, he hastened to his studio where either he or bucholz are sketch. the image that became virtue was harriet bailey intended to strike fast because lithograph would hit the streets, just as in new york daily herald newspaper carried a two column story of the president's wedding on june 27th. timeliness was very important. a whig in his partizan

orientation, bailey published some 34 caricatures during the 1844 election campaign. most demonstrated his deep antipathy for president tyler and for his project, the texas annexation, taking his personal feelings toward the president into account and linking them with what was surely a typically negative view of tyler's january and may fable marriage to julia gardiner, it becomes apparent that employing the first lady as a symbol for texas allowed bailey to heap scorn on the president, on his first dy, and on texas annexation all at once. the motif employed by the lithograph would have resonated with the political class in washington and with those people who follow the news. the trick for a political caricature, louis, was to capitalize on current events and to translate that into sales of his work. bailey no doubt knew that he had tapped a rich vein by chronicling the personal and political life of john tyler and by representing texas as a

woman, a particular woman, the first lady of the united states. next slide, please. bailey persisted in using his gender motif as the 1844 campaign unfolded. on july 10th, he published a lithograph entitled cleansing the augean stable, which was itself a popular metaphor for getting rid of political corruption, as if that could actually be done. this depicts clay and other notable whigs ridding the white house of democrats such as andrew jackson and martin van buren. who bailey clearly conveyed, had made a mess of the place as the whig nominee in 1844. clay has the honor of barring james k paul from entry a woman texas shown there on the left resembles the president's bride, julia, and she is dressed as she was in virtuous harry. she is being unceremoniously kicked out of the people's house, literally by henry wyse,

who wants nothing to do with the debts that the united states would incur upon texas annexation in what is most significant for our purposes, however, is that julia again plays the central role in the political caricature the part of texas she wears a gown similar to the one she wore in the first family lithograph and the same wreath of flowers adorns her hair. but there are some differences. as the dress is rumpled, suggesting long use, long wear, her face is not quite as young and beautiful as it was in the previous lithograph, suggesting that as the annexation annexation issue aged and was revealed in better light, it became less attractive to everyone who saw it. next slide, please. this is my favorite lithograph that barely completed during the campaign of 1844. on the very next day, from cleansing the augean stable, bailey published poking company

going up salt river with president tyler. you can see the arrow pointing to president tyler and his famously long nose, which john quincy adams also made fun of a lot in his diary, represented as the master said, in front of a less than seaworthy dinghy that carried prominent pro annexation, democrats such as andrew jackson and james k pollock, who was shown here in the back of the dinghy as a rooster. the dinghy is being towed by a steamer named ballot box, now going up to salt river was a popular political phrase that meant a candidate was headed for sure defeat and political oblivion, which obviously is what bailey is hoping for. for polk, in 1844, a closer examine portion of this lithograph reveals bailey's ingenuity on the end of the steamer, seemingly within grasp of both van buren and tyler martin van buren is shown sitting in the front of the dinghy, stands a cabbage in the shape of a rose. the references in double

entendre during the 1840 campaign, when van buren was running for reelection against william henry harrison in john tyler, the whigs proclaimed that they were going to vanquish van buren and send him back to his farm in new york, where he could raise cabbages. for a time, he was also a potential democratic candidate for a potential nominee of the democratic party for president in 1844, presenting the cabbage in the form of a rose. however, conveys its significance to president tyler, as we have already seen. sharon showed you the rose of long island lithograph that alfred baker published in may of 1840, which was meant to embarrass the 20 year old julia gardner, who had been nicknamed the rose of long island by an admirer. so the rose by inserting the rose into the lithograph in july 1844 and by showing tyler in hot pursuit. james bailey adapted the work of baker to help him make a political statement about the presidential election.

and this is something else that the lithography trade really engaged in. you would have lithography built on the work of other lithography firms if they knew that a particular image or a particular concept had actually penetrated the public consciousness. and what he's doing here, what bailey is doing here, particularly for a new york audience, is to hearken back to the rows of long island lithograph that was published by rafferty baker. next slide, please. bailey continued his assault on the democratic party's desire for annexation in a lithograph published on july 24th, 1844. and he reinforced the motif of his earlier efforts. mattie meeting the texas question, and mattie refers to martin van buren. in this caricature, the woman portraying texas is being carried on a platform, a party platform, if you will, hoisted by thomas hart benton on the left, and john c calhoun on the

right. if you look at the lithograph, you can see that texas is grotesque. the inevitable has come to pass and she is no longer a beautiful young bride. the wreath of flowers that adorned her hair has dried up and resembles a nest of snakes on medusa's head. her face is weathered and ugly. worse, though, she still wears the dress around her waist. she now bears two misshapen breasts, a sight that causes martin van buren to shriek, take any other shape with that and my firm nerve shall never tremble. to add to the negative image of texas, the female monster is shown clutching a dagger in her right hand that is aimed at the heart of democracy, as well as shackles for enslaved people in her left, and clearly indicates the the sectional aspect, the slavery aspect of texas annexation that was beginning to make the annexation issue a problem for a lot of politicians on unbowed and steadfast to his

party's goal of annexation. you see james kay polk over there on the right telling george dallas, his running mate, that texas is not the handsome is lady i ever saw. but the 25,000 a year, meaning the presidential salary. yeah, it's worth a little stretching of conscience. next slide, please. bailey's concludes vision for the saga of julia tyler in texas was published on august 23rd, 1844, two days after john tyler formally announced his withdrawal from the campaign. and the timing is significant in foot race. pennsylvania avenue stakes $25,000. the president is shown at a crossroads in one direction, often the distance stands. the white house in the other direction is texas shuffling in that direction with her back to tyler as an attractive young woman in a fine dress carrying a parasol. tyler proclaims that he has used

up in the race, meaning he's not going to be able to run for president and signals his intention to give up his quest for reelection in his own right so that he can make case for the young woman who is clearly julia tyler. tyler will eventually accomplish the annexation of texas by joint resolution right before he leaves office. tyler asks, a farmer leaning on the fence in front of him to tell him the identity of the woman who is hastening up the road. there. oh, that's the gardener daughter, the farmer replies. as the caricature cleverly spells julia's maiden name differently, perhaps in a halfhearted effort to keep james as fairly from being prosecuted for libel. it's also worth pointing out, i think, that now what lithography is they're doing is they're bringing women who are married to politicians into the public sphere, into the trade. not quite going so far as to specifically point them out, but leaving enough hints to make sure that everybody knew to whom they were referring.

the caricature makes the connection between julia tyler and texas explicit. the road she travels along is labeled texas, indicating that the female molly employed throughout the summer of 1844 consciously linked the first lady with the pursuit of annexation. tyler intends to proceed towards his goal, which he now saw as a legacy issue, even as he acknowledges he cannot secure another four years in the white house. the caricature also cleverly reprises the rows of long island motif. you can see the rows of long island there in the inset on the right by having julia hold her parasol in exactly the same manner that is tilted towards her face as she was shown doing by alfred baker. four years earlier. so all of this is building on what had come before. next slide, please. this is a photograph of julia gardiner late in life. you can see the cameo that she

wore often around her neck on her neck approach of her late husband, john tyler. it did not take julia long to become aware that she had been linked in the public mind with texas late in her life. she referenced a poem in the newspaper, the daily mail, disowning and claiming that she had not forgotten the amusement. i felt to see my name connected with texas annexation. while old age had apparently softened her memory for during the campaign of 1844, when she was a newly married first lady, julia acknowledged. julia acknowledged that these association with the unpopular policy of annexation, as well as the unpopular husband, was taking a toll. so what she did is she sought favorable press to counter the negative publicity that james, as barely had created with his caricatures. at one point, she even pleaded with her mother, who was back in new york, to see to it that the new york newspaper reported that julia would be traveling north

with daily madison and prior to the election of 1844, when dolley madison informed julia that she could not make the trip. julia insisted to her mother that she include the story anyway, so desperate, which she to be associated with. dolley madison to try to generate more favorable press. very consciously trying to do this, julia tyler hourly projected that she had suffered no permanent damage from her experiences with political caricatures during the 1844 campaign. but the proliferation of provocative lithography throughout the summer had left an indelible mark on her reputation. on the election. and on american politics during the campaign, the new york daily herald pointed out that our principal sheets are filled with ludicrous caricatures of the several candidates for presidential office. what a target a man becomes. as the paper said, whenever he enters his list as a

presidential candidate. the herald could easily have commented about what a target a woman becomes when she marries a presidential candidate during a campaign. president tyler's marriage to julia gardiner launched a concerted effort by the print media and lithography to connect his bride to the administra tions goal to annex texas. the unmistakable sectional overturns of the drive to bring texas into the union and annexations implications for slavery made first lady julia gardiner tyler a vehicle for print, culture and political caricatures. julia tyler was a consequential first lady. again, she was the first of these women to have her image and her name attached to a major policy initiative of her husband's. she was also the first to construct a specific and pointed approach to the press following the maxim that you had to hit back once the press attacked you. she didn't always do it as aggressively as the press did, but she made comments

nonetheless. she would follow this maxim beyond her white house years. probably the best example is that was her letter to the dutch sailor lem that she wrote in 1853 in response to wealthy british women imploring american women to put pressure on their slave holder husbands to end the institution of slavery. so julia gardiner tyler had learned some valuable lessons during that campaign. of 1844. if thank you very much for your attention, i guess will open it up for questions now. thank you very much, sharon and chris, for your excellent presentation on julia tyler. and thank you flair for sponsoring this program. at this point in the presentation, the lady's will welcome your questions. and i will start out with my own question, which is, sharon, you

mentioned that you became interested in julia tyler while chris was writing his book, president without a party. so i'd like to know, chris, what pique your interest in contact? well, my book, president without a party came about as an outgrowth of my dissertation, my doctoral dissertation at lsu. and i guess way back when when i when i first began looking for a topic, i was just fascinated by the notion that a an american president could actually be kicked out of his own party. and i was interested to find out, you know, how that dynamic really evolved and how it could actually happen. so that really, really became the germ for my interest. great. thank you. another question is, what was julia tyler's relationship with other first ladies? and did she mentor any of her successors as dolley madison and mentored her?

well,. in 1878, president rutherford v hayes and his wife lucy invited her to a reception and a reporter approached her and she said that she felt like dolley madison that night because she said that when she was first lady, she always remembered to invite dolly madison to every single reception that she had. so while i don't exactly call mentoring, i'm sure that lucy rutherford, when she read that in the newspapers the next day, i'm sure she felt somewhat schooled by it. so that was just her. a very interesting way to mentor other first ladies. thank you. we do have another question, which is so how would you assess julia tyler's overall handling of the press? did public opinion support her or was she seen in a negative light. i actually think she did a pretty remarkable job of or at least trying to manage the press and, you know, trying to

generate positive multiplicity for for herself, if you will. she was actually involved in the white house with trying to get favorable impressions of the tyler administration itself out into the public sphere. so she i guess in some ways regarded part of her job as trying to do the best that she possibly could personally for her husband and for his administration. and i think she was rather surprised that she was the focal point or that the press and the lithography has made such a big deal about her being a focal point for texas annexation. so i think she had to pivot a little bit and make sure that she then started thinking about her own role in the whole process. obviously, this is uncharted territory. she had experience dealing with the press and in fact, i think that's one of the recurring themes of her life, is that, you know, the press did play a role

in her in her life from almost from beginning to end. but as i said, at the end of the program, i think she she really did a a good job of translating some of the lessons that she had learned in 1844 to other aspects of her life and other parts of her life. okay. thank you. there's another question, which is, are you aware of other prominent women of the antebellum era, including presidential wives and white house hostesses who are caricatured in lithographs? and if so, please give some examples. well, there are other women, other politically connected women who were caricatured. one of the, i guess, most egregious examples occurred in 1835, when julia chinn, who was richard and john's since common law wife, a woman of mixed ancestry, was caricatured by the anti-democratic press as he was running for election.

martin van buren was running for election. richard and johnson was vice presidential running mate. they were running for the in 1836. and julia chinn became the subject of a particularly caricature. dewitt clinton's wife at one point had been caricatured. seward. there was an incident at saratoga in upstate new york that was a popular spa resort and place where a lot of politicians found themselves in the late summer of every year. and mrs. clinton did what they called cut, which was basically look at somebody and turn her head really quickly. she cut martin van buren and the press actually glorified this. for some reason, it seems like martin van gurr was not really all that much beloved by the press. so the press caricatured the way clinton's wife, but also used the opportunity. and the caricature was based on a parent. so there are other examples of

other women in the part of these caricatures who were part of the lafargue betrayed. but to our knowledge, julia was the first first lady to actually have this happen to her confession. thank you. another question, can you say more about why the press associated her with texas. well, i think the. the connection between tyler's marriage and the terminology of admixture and concluding a treaty that some of the the newspaper articles that sharon highlighted in her portion of the program, it's almost like they couldn't help themselves but to deliver upon after pon. and it just seemed a natural progression that if the newspaper were looking at the marriage and connecting it, literally connecting it semantically connecting it to annexation that the lithography

trade would then take that and run with it as well. so i think it it almost progressed from that. the very clever or not so clever puns that were being introduced by the newspapers and the biography trade really worked and even went beyond what the newspapers were doing in that regard. great. okay. thank you. that actually that segways nicely into the next question question, which is besides the caricatures of julia tyler as a symbol of texas, what other interesting or surprising discoveries have you made about her? well, i would just say that all of her interactions with the press is really extraordinary for some. a woman at that time, women just did not engage proactively with the press, and she did her whole life. and she was very, you know, she was very used to she read lots and lots of newspapers every day. if someone walked into her house, they'd see just

newspapers and periodic scattered all over the place. she she was a real newshound and she did not hold back when she had an opinion that she wanted to get out to the american public. so that really surprised us. so that's one of the things that i think we have been really good at document knowing that behavior. yes. you have been it's very it's very interesting to discover, i think, about the caricatures and then next question are what did the tylers think of the mexican-american war, which followed the annexation of texas? well, john tyler was supportive of the war. he was a little bit critical of some of the that james kay polk did. and crossing during the war. i think tyler certainly regarded the mexican war as an outgrowth, at least partial outgrowth of the annexation policy that he pursued. i don't necessarily say that he

predicted war, but he did meet with polk very early on in the war. he had gone back to washington, d.c., actually in the midst of a scandal. he had to appear before a couple of congressional committees to defend his secretary of state, daniel webster, who was being accused of malfeasance and using what was known as the secret service fund during the the webster ashburton treaty negotiations. and tyler was back in washington. he had dinner with james paul with president polk, and the recently recalled minister to mexico, a guy from louisiana named john slidell. so louisiana and again, he was supportive of the war in the sense that he believed that american honor would be at stake. i think he was certainly pleased with the way that polk in effect, almost aggressively pursued war. you know, tyler really had no problem with that.

julia wasn't, so much was wasn't vocal on the mexican war, didn't really speak. it certainly didn't write anything about it or didn't publish anything about it. tyler actually had a bit of a personal connection to the mexican war because both of his elder sons, robert, the eldest son, and john junior, also had a connection to the mexican war. at least, you know, tangentially for a brief period of time, robert organized a militia company in philadelphia that disbanded, and pretty soon after it started. and john junior had actually purchased a commission to the u.s. army, but resigned. that commission towards the end of the war. so i think tyler was a little bit worried that his sons might end up on the shooting end of the mexican-american war, but it ended up not turning out that way. that's fortunate for them. i think. next question is to julia tyler

remained pro-slavery throughout her life, even after the civil war, or did she modify her support for it? well, i read the duchess of sutherland letters an interesting episode in her life, and she felt, i think, put upon that the wealthy women of britain would criticize the south and criticize the slaveholding south. and one of the things that she pointed to was her time in ireland when she was 19 years old, 20 years old. she had gone to europe with her parents and her sister, and they had spent some time in ireland. and she was aghast at the way the british had allowed iall in to devolve here by 1840. so she was basically in the sense of thinking about it in terms of, you know, you have a lot of your own problems. do not interfere with ours. her husband certainly believed that he wanted no interference from britain especially, but

from the north either. with respect to the slavery question. so, you know, julia took on that that mantle. she did abide by that. as far as what happens after the war, julia never becomes part of the lost cause mythology. she does not have any time for that, did not pursue anything connected to that. daughters of the confederacy or any you know, any group like that. and it was almost as if she said, well, you know, this is this is what happened. this is how history. this is the hand that history has dealt. so i just have to adapt to that. and that's another thing that we have found in our research is that she was very adaptable in some ways, this might not be considered a positive move in the sense that she could adapt to the slave once she married tyler and moved to virginia. and i think in some ways, to her adaptability also allowed her to survive things that that might shaken her otherwise.

thank you. and do you have a publisher for your julia tyler biography? and if so, when do you anticipate the will be will be published? yes, we do. it's the university press of kansas and we anticipate it being published towards the end of 2023 or early 2024. so stay tuned. great. look up. look out for the the new then and then finally, like i learned from reading president without a party that you were invited to sherwood forest the tyler plantation for thanksgiving. and what was your experience there? yeah. harrison tyler, john tyler's grandson invited sharon and me to thanksgiving dinner. it was an interesting experience. we've always enjoyed our time with the tyler. they actually served lamb chops. so we we thought it was interesting that at least for that particular thanksgiving, it i don't think it was because we showed up they decided not to

serve the standard fare of turkey and stuffing chops. instead. it was a it was a terrific time. it was a terrific experience eating in the same dining room where we're julia and john tyler in their family. yeah. and just to add to that, pay me, tyler, his wife, harrison's wife had the researched a lot of the furnishings and decorating that julia had done. so she had really made the dining room to be exactly the way it was with the same wallpaper and everything. so it really we were kind of pinching ourselves and of course they were just having dinner there. there used to two dining history things. so. well, well, thank you so much. if there are no more questions. i'm now pleased to turn the program back over to the president, to the first lady's association for research and education. dr. myra. thank you, liz.

we do have a minute or two before we say good night for the evening. and i'm wondering sharon and chris, are there any concluding comments that you might like to make. and if not, that's okay. well, just that we are hard at work trying to finish up the book manuscript. and, you know, we look forward to putting this project to bed hopefully soon. and the comment i would just like to make, is it i just think that that i know when i went into this project, i thought that there was everything that was needed, that needed to be known about julia tyler. her was already known, but what we found out was that there was an enormous amount of primary sources out there that had never been touched. and i am just really excited to share this work with the

historical community and anybody that's interested in first ladies because that that is an untapped, you know, avenue of research. and i hope that there is more historians out there or people interested in first ladies that want to do that research because they are very fascinating people. they are they are the first. and the witnesses to some really important things in our in our history. so that is my closing thoughts. well, thank you. and i can tell you that all of us here looking forward to your book. and thank you, liz and sharon and chris for really a wonderful, enl