Featured Image: George Peter Alexander Healy Oil on Canvas “Portrait of Sallie Ward,” Courtesy Speed Art Museum
Before Instagram and TikTok, there was Sallie Ward – the South’s favorite influencer of the 19th century.
Picture this: It’s 1849, and all of New England society is arriving at the Lawrence family home in Boston for a grand ball welcoming their new daughter-in-law, Sarah “Sallie” Ward. The wedding itself had been a spectacle—an extravagant affair held at the Ward family home in Louisville, Kentucky, attended by hundreds of guests, including three governors. Rumor had it that the bridal gown alone cost nearly $7,000 (around $260,000 in today’s cash).
As music fills the ballroom and guests trickle in, whispers spread about the young Lawrence boy’s new wife. How beautiful she is. The most beautiful woman in America, some claim. Others are less enchanted. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence don’t care for her, the whispers continue. She’s too outspoken, too garish, too Southern.
And where is she, anyway? Late to her own party?
The evening is in full swing, guests dancing and sipping champagne, when a piercing shriek cuts through the room. Every head turns toward the grand staircase.
There stands the new Mrs. Sallie Lawrence, wearing nothing but silk pantaloons, diamond slippers, and a single feather tucked into her hair.
Her mother-in-law stares up at her, pale and speechless, as though the feather itself could knock her flat on the floor. At last, Mrs. Lawrence gathers herself enough to demand that Sallie return upstairs immediately and change into something appropriate.
Silence settles over the ballroom as the two women face off. Guests hold their breath. Finally, the younger Mrs. Lawrence relents and turns to leave—only to pause, pull down her silk pantaloons, and bare her backside to all of the elite families of Boston. The elder Mrs. Lawrence faints.
That is how the legend goes, anyway.
Whether fact or fiction, there is no doubt that Sallie Ward became one of the most legendary women of her era. Born in Scott County, Kentucky, to Robert Johnson Ward—a wealthy merchant, landowner, and Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives—and Emily M. Flournoy Ward, the daughter of an old aristocratic family, Sallie seemed destined for prominence from the start. She later attended a French finishing school in Philadelphia and, by nearly every measure, emerged as the crown princess of the antebellum South.
“Many people lauded her as the most beautiful woman in America,” Ron Bryant, chairman and director of Ward Hall, said. “And she thought so too, I’ll be quite honest.”
But it wasn’t merely Sallie’s pedigree or beauty that kept her at the center of Kentucky society, even amid a scandalous love life, four marriages, and the infamous story of her mooning Boston’s elite. Sallie possessed a magnetic charisma that captivated nearly everyone she encountered. Women copied everything from the way she walked to the way she applied cosmetics, something considered improper for respectable women until Sallie made it fashionable.
Her reputation extended far beyond the South. The British press dubbed her “The Kentucky Belle,” and during a European tour after graduating from finishing school, she was received by both Queen Victoria and Empress Eugénie of France.
“When the empress met Sallie in court, she uttered one word: ‘Exquisite,’” Bryant said.
Some literary scholars have even suggested Sallie may have inspired Scarlett O’Hara, the fiery heroine of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind”. Yet, unsurprisingly, Sallie was not your typical Southern belle.
“Sallie was always a free spirit. She did not follow the norms of society. She did not follow the norms of politics,” Bryant said. “She would live the way she wanted to, she would act the way she wanted to, and she really didn’t care if anybody liked it or not.”
Sallie openly supported Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, a controversial stance for a Southern socialite. According to Bryant, she separated from her second husband, Dr. Robert P. Hunt, after he joined the Confederate army. She later appealed directly to Lincoln for help retrieving the beloved piano she had left behind in the New Orleans home she once shared with Hunt. Sallie, it seemed, had a reputation for getting exactly what she wanted—including her piano.
When Sallie died in 1896 at age 68 from a ruptured stomach ulcer, she left behind a cultural legacy that withstood long after her passing. Her favorite color, lilac, became fashionable among society women. A yellow rose was bred in her honor. A line of shoes and babydolls carried her name, and to call someone “a perfect Sally Ward” was once considered the highest compliment. Upon her death, humorist Irvin S. Cobb famously quipped, “At last, Sallie Ward sleeps alone.”
Today, Ward Hall—the Greek-revival mansion that was built by Sallie’s uncle Junius Ward in Kentucky—embraces Sallie as the star of its story. Visitors to the home can walk through the grand reception hall where Sallie danced the opening number at her aunt and uncle’s first ball and stand before her portrait to judge for themselves what caused such a sensation. Fittingly, the Ward Hall Preservation Foundation is also preparing a musical about Sallie’s life and exploits to debut at the mansion this summer, with details forthcoming.
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