Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Monica Lewinsky wasn’t the first woman to almost take down a Presidency. In many ways, Washington DC is a small town where gossip spreads like wildfire. In 1830’s Washington, Margaret O’Neale Timberlake Eaton almost took down the Presidency of Andrew Jackson all because the women of Washington society would not accept her It came to be known as the ‘Petticoat Affair’ and it caused the resignation of Jackson’s entire cabinet, changed the direction of John C. Calhoun’s political career, and led to the rise of Martin van Buren as a serious candidate for the office of President. Margaret’s behavior had excited Washington gossip for years. Born in 1799, Margaret had grown up around the politicians that frequented her family’s boarding house. As a small child, they had dangled her from their knees, as a pretty and vivacious teenager she had flirted with them, practicing her feminine wiles. She would listen to the lively talk of the men at the dinner table and in the tavern, eventually sh...