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First Family

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 The children of Martha Washington’s son by her first marriage—Eliza, Patty, Nelly and Wash Custis—were born into life in the public eye, well-known as George Washington’s family and keepers of his legacy. By turns petty and powerful, glamorous and cruel, the Custises used Washington as a means to enhance their own power and status. As enslavers committed to the American empire, the Custis family embodied the failures of the American experiment that finally exploded into civil war—all the while being celebrities in a soap opera of their own making.

Cassandra Good is a writer and historian focused on gender and politics in early America who currently serves as Associate Professor of History at Marymount University. She is the author of the prize-winning Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic and her newest book, First Family: George Washington's Heirs and the Making of America. Carolyn Eastman is an historian of early America with special interest in eighteenth and nineteenth-century histories of political culture, the media, and gender. She is Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author most recently of the award-winning The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity.

 The children of Martha Washington’s son by her first marriage—Eliza, Patty, Nelly and Wash Custis—were born into life in the public eye, well-known as George Washington’s family and keepers of his legacy. By turns petty and powerful, glamorous and cruel, the Custises used Washington as a means to enhance their own power and status. As enslavers committed to the American empire, the Custis family embodied the failures of the American experiment that finally exploded into civil war—all the while being celebrities in a soap opera of their own making.

Cassandra Good is a writer and historian focused on gender and politics in early America who currently serves as Associate Professor of History at Marymount University. She is the author of the prize-winning Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic and her newest book, First Family: George Washington's Heirs and the Making of America. Carolyn Eastman is an historian of early America with special interest in eighteenth and nineteenth-century histories of political culture, the media, and gender. She is Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author most recently of the award-winning The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity.

More about Virginia Museum of History & Culture
The Virginia Museum of History & Culture was founded in 1831 as the Virginia Historical Society. The oldest museum in Virginia and one of the oldest in the United States, the VMHC has devoted nearly two centuries to collecting and preserving the artifacts of our past to share the far-reaching history of the Commonwealth of Virginia with the world. Today, this nationally respected museum and research organization cares for a renowned history collection totaling more than nine million items and engages hundreds of thousands of Virginians and other guests annually.
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