Dolley Madison’s Snuff Box

This monogrammed silver snuffbox belonged to Dolley Madison, wife of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. The engraved initials on the front of the box, "DPM," stand for Dolley Payne Madison. The box was used to hold snuff, a pulverized tobacco product especially popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries among the upper classes in Europe, England, and the Americas. Commonly used by both men and women, snuff was inhaled into one's nostril to receive a jolt of nicotine that was generally scented or flavored. This box was made about 1800 by Charles A. Burnett, a prominent silversmith then working in Georgetown.