Angelica Van Buren

Angelica Singleton Van Buren (born February 13, 1818 in Wedgefield, Sumter County , South Carolina , † December 29, 1877 in New York City ) was the daughter-in-law of the eighth American President Martin Van Buren . He had been widowed for a long time, which is why she acted as his first lady from 1838 .

Life

Sarah Angelica Singleton was the daughter of wealthy planter Richard Singleton and his wife Rebecca Coles Singleton, who was a cousin of Dolley Madison . She was born on Singleton's Plantation Home Place in February 1818 as the fourth of six childrenborn in South Carolina. Some sources give an earlier year of birth, which is possible because it was fashionable at the time to pretend to be younger. Because her parents wanted their daughters to have an education that went beyond what girls usually had to do with domestic and social skills, they sent Angelica to an academy in the state and later to a well-known seminar for young women in Philadelphia, the also visited the daughter of the former President James Monroe . The focus of the training there was on the language and culture of France , but other European nations were also covered.

In 1838 she and her sister visited relatives in Washington, DC Dolley Madison introduced her to the higher society of the capital and ultimately to a private evening reception at the White House, which at the time was President Martin Van Buren , who had been since the death of his wife Hannah Van Buren was a widower almost 20 years earlier and resided with his three unmarried sons. There she got to know and love Van Buren's eldest son Abram, whom she married on November 27, 1838 on her parents' plantation. Due to the acute tensions between the increasingly aboltionist northern states and the southern states, which were shaped by the planter aristocracy, the president saw in this connection not only a political benefit, but also a suitable woman in the function of first lady in the charming bride. It so happened that the young couple moved into the White House after the wedding and Angelica assumed the role she was supposed to play, taking advice from the former First Lady Dolley Madison. At the New Year's reception in 1839 she made her debut as hostess at the side of the President and was well received by the press.

In the spring of 1839, the couple spent their honeymoon on an extensive trip through Europe. There she caused confusion in diplomatic circles, as there was uncertainty as to how she should be received as a first lady who was not married to the president. Ultimately, she was treated with the status of a royal visit, possibly due to her cultural and linguistic adeptness, and met, among others, the young Queen Victoria and Louis-Philippe I. In the fall of 1839 Van Buren returned to the United States and resumed her function as First Lady in the White House true. The way the receptions were organized had changed drastically as a result of their journey; they became much more formal and based on the court ceremonies of the European aristocracy. At that time, she gave birth to a daughter who died shortly after giving birth. In the course of the marriage, four more children followed, all sons, all of whom remained unmarried and without offspring. After Martin Van Buren lost the presidential election of 1840 to William Henry Harrison, she accompanied him with her husband to his retirement home in Lindenwald in Kinderhook. She spent the winters with her husband on their parents' plantation in South Caroline. She left a portrait of herself in the White House that Henry Inman had painted.

In Lindenwald she was again present at societies, increasingly in 1844, when her father-in-law ran at the party convention for the presidential election in 1844 . She had to act cautiously because she came from a slave-holding planter family and the politicians invited to Lindenwald were mostly abolitionists . From 1848 she and her husband moved permanent residence to New York City. Here she got involved in charity work and developed reform ideas regarding the living conditions and exploitation of the working class as well as an interest in the women's movement . During the American Civil War , she was faced with the difficulty of balancing feelings for her original family and those she had married into. She donated blankets to a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira, New York, and was active in charities for the benefit of prisoners of war and the poor. After the death of her parents she inherited their plantation, although it is not known whether she ever traveled there later. She died five years after her husband in December 1878.

literature

John F. Marszalek: Angelica Singleton Van Buren, First Lady for a Widower. In Katherine AS Sibley (Ed.): A Companion to First Ladies. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2016, ISBN 978-1-118-73222-9 , pp. 129-141.

Web links

Commons : Angelica Van Buren - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Angelica Van Buren in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)

Individual evidence

^ Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 60f.
↑ Ted Widmer: Martin Van Buren (= The American Presidents Series. Ed. By Arthur M. Schlesinger , Sean Wilentz . The 8th President). Times Books, New York City 2005, ISBN 978-1-4668-3271-8 , p. 112.
Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , p. 61.
^ Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 61-63.
^ Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 63f.

personal data
SURNAME	Van Buren, Angelica
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Singleton, Angelica (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American first lady
DATE OF BIRTH	February 13, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wedgefield, Sumter County , South Carolina
DATE OF DEATH	December 29, 1877
Place of death	New York City

[1] Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 60f.

[2] Ted Widmer: Martin Van Buren (= The American Presidents Series. Ed. By Arthur M. Schlesinger , Sean Wilentz . The 8th President). Times Books, New York City 2005, ISBN 978-1-4668-3271-8 , p. 112.
Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , p. 61.

[3] Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 61-63.

[4] Nancy Hendricks: America's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-882-5 , pp. 63f.