Editing Martin Van Buren (section)

===White House hostess===
For the first half of his presidency, Van Buren, who had been a widower for many years, did not have a specific person to act as White House hostess at administration social events, but tried to assume such duties himself. When his eldest son [[Abraham Van Buren II|Abraham Van Buren]] married [[Angelica Singleton Van Buren|Angelica Singleton]] in 1838, he quickly acted to install his daughter-in-law as his hostess. She solicited the advice of her distant relative, [[Dolley Madison]],<ref name=CaroliFirstLadies>{{cite book|title=First Ladies|last=Caroli|first=Betty Boyd |author-link=Betty Boyd Caroli|page=41|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3DiQRbwz6jcC |isbn=978-0-19-516676-7|access-date=March 10, 2017}}</ref> who had moved back to Washington after her [[James Madison|husband's]] death,<ref>{{cite web|title=Van Buren's Presidential Hostess|url=http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/buren/aa_buren_hostess_2.html|website=America's Story|publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=March 9, 2017|archive-date=February 9, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170209124443/http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/buren/aa_buren_hostess_2.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and soon the president's parties livened up. After the 1839 New Year's Eve reception, ''[[The Boston Post]]'' raved: "[Angelica Van Buren is a] lady of rare accomplishments, very modest yet perfectly easy and graceful in her manners and free and vivacious in her conversation&nbsp;... universally admired."<ref name=CaroliFirstLadies/>

As the nation endured a deep [[economic depression]], Angelica Van Buren's receiving style at receptions was influenced by her heavy reading about European court life (and her naive delight in being received as the ''Queen of the United States'' when she visited the royal courts of England and France after her marriage). Newspaper coverage of this, and the claim that she intended to re-landscape the [[South Lawn (White House)|White House grounds]] to resemble the royal gardens of Europe, was used in a political attack on her father-in-law by a Pennsylvania Whig Congressman [[Charles Ogle (politician)|Charles Ogle]]. He referred obliquely to her as part of the presidential "household" in his famous [[Gold Spoon Oration]]. The attack was delivered in Congress and the depiction of the president as living a royal lifestyle was a primary factor in his defeat for re-election.<ref>{{cite web|last=Anthony|first=Carl|title=First Ladies Never Married to Presidents: Angelica Van Buren|date=September 24, 2014|url=http://www.firstladies.org/blog/first-ladies-never-married-to-presidents-angelica-van-buren/|publisher=National First Ladies Library|access-date=March 10, 2017|archive-date=August 13, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180813113531/http://www.firstladies.org/blog/first-ladies-never-married-to-presidents-angelica-van-buren/|url-status=dead}}</ref>