Dolley Madison and Anna Payne

First Lady Dolley Madison’s (1768–1849) influence in Washington, D.C., was commemorated in 1844, when the House of Representatives voted unanimously to reserve a seat for her on the Congressional Floor to attend political debates. Around this time, she experienced the dawn of photography, as the daguerreotype—the first popular form of the medium—entered into American culture. In 1848, about a year before her death, Madison and her niece, Anna Payne (1819–1852), visited the studio of Mathew Brady, who would later become famous for his Civil War-era photographs.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dortha Louise Dobson Adem Rogus, direct descendant of Dolley Madison