America’s First First Lady: Foxy or Frumpy?

Historians use technology to revamp Martha Washington’s image

 By BRIGID SCHULTE WASHINGTON POST

Feb. 4, 2009, 12:07 AM

     Forensic anthropologists used a 1796 portrait miniature by James Peale to generate an image of how Martha  Washington might have looked in her 20s.

WASHINGTON – This just in: Martha Washington was hot. Or at least hotter than we thought.

Our image of the mother of our country, vague and insubstantial as it is, is drawn from portraits painted after her death showing a frumpy, dumpy, plump old lady, a fussy jumble of needlework in her lap, wearing what could pass for a shower cap with pink sponge rollers underneath.

But today, 250 years after Martha and George tied the knot, a handful of historians are seeking to revamp the former first lady’s fusty image, using the few surviving records of things she wrote, asking forensic anthropologists to do a computerized age-regression portrait of her in her mid-20s and, perhaps most importantly, displaying for the first time in decades the avant-garde deep purple silk high heels studded with silver sequins that she wore on her wedding day.

Take that, Sally Fairfax.

History is about to be revised. 

See full article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/02/02/ST2009020201419.html?sid=ST2009020201419&s_pos=list