9p Monday: Martha Washington starts First Ladies series

TONIGHT at 9 p.m. ET LIVE on C-SPAN Networks and at http://cs.pn/15KCXft:

Care to watch C-SPAN’s First Ladies Series premiere, about Martha Washington? More here: http://firstladies.c-span.org/

from C-SPAN:

Explore her legacy as First Lady and discuss America in its earliest years, her biography, marrying George Washington, life at Mount Vernon, the Revolution, and life after the presidency.

The yearlong C-SPAN series “First Ladies: Influence and Image,” which launches Monday night, provides an opportunity to ponder the question.

The series starts with Martha Washington and winds through 220 years to Michelle Obama, providing one of the first deep looks at each of the 45 women who have held the title of first lady.

“Many of them are more interesting than their husbands . . . because their lives are not defined by political ambition,” said Richard Norton Smith, the presidential biographer and historian who is advising on the project.

First lady Dolley Madison, who was raised as a Quaker but expelled from the community when she married Presbyterian-reared James Madison, made the position one of preeminent hostess.

Madison was as charming as her husband, James, was socially awkward. She actively politicked for his causes by throwing lavish parties. After British troops burned the White House in 1814, it was Dolley who rented another house in Washington and began hosting there.

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