Early nineteenth-century American men’s biographies tend to include little information about their wives and children. For example, John W. Edmonds was an eminent early 19th-century American public figure. Edmonds had a large family and was friendly and highly communicative. He loved his wife dearly and publicly expressed that love. Nonetheless, nineteenth-century biographies of Edmonds do not mention his wife’s name and contain little information about his children.
As a person who served as President of the United States, Martin Van Buren was at the center of nineteenth-century American public life. He and his family lived in the White House, the official residence of the U.S. President. Nonetheless, the biography for Martin Van Buren in American National Biography states that after Van Buren’s wife Hannah died:
He also went to great lengths to preserve his wife’s privacy by never referring to her in his future correspondence or in his autobiography.
When Hannah was alive, her status as Martin’s wife was a legal, publicly sanctioned fact. When she was dead, she was unlikely to be disturbed by any references to her. Van Buren’s actions seem to reflect a keen nineteenth-century concern to maintain boundaries between family life and public life.