By Catherine Allgor.  ISBN 978-0-8139-2118-1.  Copyright 2000.  Softcover with 299 pages including 9 black and white illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. 

In the early 19th century, the ladies of the new nation’s capital, Washington City, while often living in the shadow of their Great Men, were political actors in their own right.  The women, most notably First Ladies Dolley Madison and Louisa Catherine Adams, used the unofficial, social sphere to cement relationships that politics needed to work.