Emily Donelson of Tennessee.

By Pauline Wilcox Burke. Edited by Jonathan M. Atkins. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001. Pp. [xxiv], 358. $35.00, ISBN 1-57233-137-2.)

The 1960s feminist proclamation that "the personal is political" applies, with some allowances, to other eras and situations. Various White House scandals come to mind--for instance, the rift in Andrew Jackson's cabinet over the social treatment of Margaret Eaton, whose alleged sexual dalliances made her, in the estimation of many Washington, D.C., residents, unworthy of the company of decent folk. John F. Marszalek's recent study, The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House (New York, 1997), thoroughly examined the Eaton episode. For those interested in learning more about some of the personalities involved in this Jacksonian sex scandal, here is a new edition of a biography of one of its principal players.

First published in 1941, Emily Donelson of Tennessee tells the story of Andrew Jackson's niece, who, beginning at the age of twenty-one, served as official White House hostess for the widowed president. Married to Andrew Jackson Donelson, Jackson's nephew and private secretary, Emily Donelson was a favorite of her Uncle Andrew, yet she refused to socialize with Margaret Eaton. Because Jackson insisted that Eaton be treated with respect (the charges against her reminded him of those that had been raised against his wife, Rachel), his niece's stand led to the dismissal of the Donelsons from their White House duties for a time.

Donelson's great-granddaughter, Pauline Wilcox Burke, a Washington socialite, wrote the original two-volume version of this biography. Drawing on family stories and correspondence in her possession, Burke constructed an intimate, sympathetic portrait of her famous relative. She also included many details primarily of interest to genealogists or local historians in Tennessee but distracting to other readers and scholars.

Historian Jonathan M. Atkins has slimmed Burke's manuscript down to a more manageable length by excluding some of this rather extraneous material. Atkins, the author of a study of antebellum Tennessee politics, also provides a helpful introduction that places the biography in the context of Jacksonian and women's historiography. Intriguingly, he suggests that the book reveals as much about the conservative Burke's negative view of the "New Woman" of the early twentieth century as it does about Donelson and her times (p. xv).

Atkins notes that Emily Donelson, an important figure who helped make the personal political in the 1830s, deserves a more sophisticated treatment than Burke has provided. Until a professional historian takes on the job of writing a fresh biography of Donelson, however, historians and general readers will thank Atkins for his fine editorial efforts in making Burke's work more accessible.

ROBERT TINKLER

California State University at Chico