Hello, friends. Welcome. For the past few weeks, we've been exploring the lives of our

country's earliest first ladies. These are the women who served the people in an entirely new way,

and really began to take on the task of defining the role.

And today's first lady, she understood the assignment.

I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

On the evening of March 4, 1809, the city of Washington, D.C. wore an air of festive merriment.

People were dressed to the nines and the street lanterns flickered cheerfully.

The fourth president of the United States, James Madison, had been sworn in at the Capitol building that afternoon.

He wore a new black suit and spoke quietly.

But the crowds flocked to a brick home on F Street where 40-year-old Dolly Madison, the new first lady, warmly welcomed visitors into their home before she dawned a deep velvet gown and a fashionable turban trimmed with the snow-white feathers

from a bird of paradise. She accompanied the president down the street to Long's Hotel, where she had worked

for weeks on the details of the evening's gala, and sold 400 tickets to the inaugural ball for $4 each.

Valley spent the evening surrounded by admirers. She dined next to diplomats and made lively

conversation with members of Congress. She was the perfect hostess, charming, immaculately

mannered, and social. Margaret Bayard Smith, who was a well-known society gossip writer,

like Washington DC's very own Lady Whistledown,

wrote about Dolly, she looked a queen. It would be absolutely impossible for anyone to behave

with more perfect propriety than she did. James Madison, on the other hand, described the evening as

exhausting and unpleasant. This odd couple dynamic would play out in many ways during their 42-year

marriage, and Dali would go on to achieve fame across the country.

She dove into her role as the first lady with gusto, relying on the art of entertainment

to successfully play the game of politics. But Dolly wasn't always the picture of aristocratic

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