'Includes index.

This unique account, written by the wife of a congressman from Texas and just brought to light, is a tart, lively, and enormously diverting firsthand report about people and events in a fascinating period of American history. In 1897 Ellen Maury Slayden accompanied her newly elected congressman husband to Washington. James Luther Slayden served as a member of the House of Representatives for the next twenty-two years. His wife, an inveterate diarist, a discerning and socially aware woman, made a record of the social, political, and historical events in her time. Beginning with the drafty, inept receptions of the McKinleys, she re-created four presidents, as well as lavish embassy parties, salon soirées, and intimate dinners with congressional friends and many famous people outside political circles. Her house guest William Jennings Bryan recited "To a Water Fowl" so movingly that Ellen Slayden felt she had never heard it before. At an outdoor reception she noted that Alice Roosevelt Longworth held the skirts of "electric blue" gown alarmingly high above the wet grass. But Ellen Slayden's interests were not limited to the social scene. She was involved in the women's suffrage movement, and both she and her husband gave much of their lives to the cause of international peace. Their extensive travels included a visit to Scotland as guest of Andrew Carnegie at Skibo Castle. The diminutive Ellen and the diminutive "Laird" spent an exciting afternoon counting the salmon leaps. There were also trips back to Texas every year, sometimes for campaigning, which afford a rich lore of Texas humor. Mrs. Slayden writes movingly about a Confederate reunion, waspishly about Woodrow Wilson's pedagogical approach to the Presidency, and disparagingly about Prohibition. She re-creates political conventions, dramatic sessions of Congress, and the climate of Washington during the wars and threats of war.--From jacket flap

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