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The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson 's White House. By John F. Marszalek. (New York: The Free Press, I997. Pp. viii, 296. $25.00.)
"You may think this Very strange," wrote one observer, "that the admission of a certain Female into respectable Society at Washington should be made the basis of political orthodoxy by one branch of the reigning party, and her rejection Equally So by the other, but strange as it may appear, it is no less Strange than true" (I23).
From the Jacksonian Era to the present, the controversy over Margaret Eatonthe author asserts that she was never called Peggy-has fascinated students of American history. The "Petticoat Affair" has been the subject of several popular books, scholarly articles, and plays; but this thoughtfully conceived, carefully researched, and well-written study will stand out as the definitive account of this nineteenth-century Washington drama.
The essence of the story...