Martha Washington is often depicted as a grandmotherly figure in a mob cap. Yet her contemporaries knew her as a woman of strength, determination, intellectual curiosity, and high fashion.

In an age before photography, some of the best clues to understanding Martha Washington's personal appearance come from portrait miniatures and paintings done during her lifetime. Because many of them were rendered later in her life, we are prompted to think of Martha as a simply dressed matron with hair tucked neatly into her mop cap.

A different Martha Washington emerges, however, through earlier renderings and surviving personal articles.

"Fine" Fashion from London

In 1757, at the death of her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, Martha assumed the administration of the Custis estate, as well as her late husband's extensive business operations. She was called upon to deal directly with the London mercantile community. It was an unusual role for an 18th-century woman to play, yet Martha was astute in her dealing.

In addition to negotiating tobacco sales, she requested and received fashionable English laces, silks, jewelry, footwear, bonnets, and dozens of kid gloves and silk stockings. Martha was quite direct about the kind and quality of goods she desired, specifying repeatedly that they be of the "best" and "fine" variety.