Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was a partying, social-climbing woman who made some Founding Fathers squirm. Her light, white, skimpily-draped (for the period) Empire gowns — all the rage in Europe, but less acceptable in the United States — gave them pause and caused young men to line the windows of homes when she attended parties.
Perhaps her fashion or her intellectual conversation attracted Jerome Bonaparte, who married her in 1804 in New Jersey, raising fears among Americans that she would birth a new monarchical American dynasty. Even after Jerome’s older brother, Napoleon — yes, Napoleon — forced Jerome to divorce Elizabeth, some in Congress sponsored the (failed) 1810 Titles of Nobility Amendment to prevent Elizabeth for maneuvering her son into power. See why some Americans felt threatened by her “un-American” expression of womanhood, expressed in her clothing and intellectual interests, during the period they were forming their national identity.
