n a country that still hasn’t seen its first female commander in chief, her story sticks out as an unconventional detour from her granted office. When her husband collapsed of exhaustion in the middle of a cross country tour, First Lady Edith Bolling Galt Wilson became the chief executive officer of an administration she conducted from the president’s bedside. Cabinet members began going through Mrs. Wilson to get to the president, and the First Lady would review any policy papers or pending decision before deciding which paperwork was important enough to pass on to her husband. And though Mrs. Wilson insisted that she never acted as more than a “steward” of the presidency, she ultimately ended up serving as the country’s chief executive until the end of her husband’s second term.
As told from an era where women were on the eve of enfranchisement, Edith Wilson’s story seems surprising. And yet, Wilson’s story is one we are still telling today and from a perspective that has imagined far more than voting rights for women. In a podcast released earlier this year, American researcher Julia Sweig describes the critical role First Lady Ladybird Johnson played in her husband’s administration. Mrs. Johnson, Sweig reveals, was far more than a “saccharine Southern belle.” In fact, Ladybird was the one who encouraged her husband to run for the presidency after he inherited the office as vice president to President Kennedy, and she was the person who drafted the memo suggesting he only campaign for the office once. In her research on the former First Lady, Sweig has answered many questions about Mrs. Johnson in painstaking detail. The question today is, when we interrogate the lives of our past presidents’ wives, why are we still surprised by the answers?
Take Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, for example. In the podcast, In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson, Sweig contrasts Mrs. Johnson’s political engagement while serving as First Lady to Mrs. Kennedy’s apolitical approach. In the first episode of the series, for example, Sweig suggests that Kennedy’s choice to host a televised tour of the White House might have been inspired by a recommendation from Johnson. However, just because Mrs. Kennedy stayed away from the campaign trail did not mean that she didn’t pursue aspirations of her own. After the death of Kennedy’s second husband, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, she took a job as a book editor, first for Viking Press, and later for Doubleday. Though Viking Press President Tommy Guinzburg was excited to bring Kennedy on board, he allegedly said, “You’re not really equipped to be an editor. It’s not that you don’t have the talent for it, the ability for it, but you don’t have the background and training…”
Kennedy, however, had a lot more of the background for book publishing than Guinzburg thought. A gifted writer, she had written a series of essays in college that had won Vogue’s Prix de Paris contest. After college, she worked as the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the Washington Time-Herald newspaper, taking pictures of people she met in Washington, DC, asking them questions about current events, and writing a column featuring their answers. Kennedy’s journalism experience served her well as a book editor, a career she maintained for almost two decades.
Of course, Kennedy is not the only First Lady whose legacy as a hostess has concealed her other professional accomplishments. And accomplished, tactical first ladies are hardly a unique artifact of presidencies of the 20th and 21st centuries. Dolley Madison, wife of fourth president and constitutional framer James Madison, acted as her husband’s “tacit political partner.” She once diffused an international incident, using her ties with diplomatic wives to soothe tensions that arose between Great Britain and the United States after then-President Thomas Jefferson snubbed the wife of a British ambassador at an 1803 dinner. In another instance, Mrs. Madison helped develop the relationship between her husband and War Hawk congressman Henry Clay by dipping snuff with the legislator.
After Dolley Madison, other first ladies of the 19th century were notable for their careers as teachers and their devotion to education. Abigail Filmore was a teacher when she met her husband and future president Millard Fillmore in class. Once in the White House, Mrs. Fillmore oversaw the development of the White House library, a controversial feat considering the fact that Congress had opposed the development of a presidential library in the years preceding her husband’s election. Several decades later, another teacher would occupy the position of First Lady. Lucretia Garfield had met President James Garfield at college in Ohio and had feared losing her independence throughout their courtship. When the pair eventually married, Lucretia worked as a teacher until the birth of their first daughter, and she taught French, algebra, and Latin before her ascent to the White House.
Even though many first ladies have exhibited political acumen within the White House and career strengths outside of it, their presence in popular culture has overshadowed their strengths. For decades, visitors of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, have delighted in the First Ladies exhibition. When walking through the exhibit, which is defined by its large historical collection of dresses owned by various first ladies, it can be easy to see the garments and further solidify the stereotypical view that the wives of the American presidents were mere hostesses, as was their official role. However, in 2021, it’s time to adopt a more dimensional view of the office and recognize the many roles played by the women who have held the position. Over the past three centuries, American first ladies have been teachers, journalists, lawyers, and skilled political strategists. So next time you read an article detailing a first lady’s career accomplishments or roles in her husband’s administration, don’t be surprised. Such intrinsic success has always been a hallmark of the women who have held this office.
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America's First Ladies Have Always Been More Than Their Office
Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian.
March 29, 2021
I
n a country that still hasn’t seen its first female commander in chief, her story sticks out as an unconventional detour from her granted office. When her husband collapsed of exhaustion in the middle of a cross country tour, First Lady Edith Bolling Galt Wilson became the chief executive officer of an administration she conducted from the president’s bedside. Cabinet members began going through Mrs. Wilson to get to the president, and the First Lady would review any policy papers or pending decision before deciding which paperwork was important enough to pass on to her husband. And though Mrs. Wilson insisted that she never acted as more than a “steward” of the presidency, she ultimately ended up serving as the country’s chief executive until the end of her husband’s second term.
As told from an era where women were on the eve of enfranchisement, Edith Wilson’s story seems surprising. And yet, Wilson’s story is one we are still telling today and from a perspective that has imagined far more than voting rights for women. In a podcast released earlier this year, American researcher Julia Sweig describes the critical role First Lady Ladybird Johnson played in her husband’s administration. Mrs. Johnson, Sweig reveals, was far more than a “saccharine Southern belle.” In fact, Ladybird was the one who encouraged her husband to run for the presidency after he inherited the office as vice president to President Kennedy, and she was the person who drafted the memo suggesting he only campaign for the office once. In her research on the former First Lady, Sweig has answered many questions about Mrs. Johnson in painstaking detail. The question today is, when we interrogate the lives of our past presidents’ wives, why are we still surprised by the answers?
Take Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, for example. In the podcast, In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson, Sweig contrasts Mrs. Johnson’s political engagement while serving as First Lady to Mrs. Kennedy’s apolitical approach. In the first episode of the series, for example, Sweig suggests that Kennedy’s choice to host a televised tour of the White House might have been inspired by a recommendation from Johnson. However, just because Mrs. Kennedy stayed away from the campaign trail did not mean that she didn’t pursue aspirations of her own. After the death of Kennedy’s second husband, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, she took a job as a book editor, first for Viking Press, and later for Doubleday. Though Viking Press President Tommy Guinzburg was excited to bring Kennedy on board, he allegedly said, “You’re not really equipped to be an editor. It’s not that you don’t have the talent for it, the ability for it, but you don’t have the background and training…”
Kennedy, however, had a lot more of the background for book publishing than Guinzburg thought. A gifted writer, she had written a series of essays in college that had won Vogue’s Prix de Paris contest. After college, she worked as the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the Washington Time-Herald newspaper, taking pictures of people she met in Washington, DC, asking them questions about current events, and writing a column featuring their answers. Kennedy’s journalism experience served her well as a book editor, a career she maintained for almost two decades.
Of course, Kennedy is not the only First Lady whose legacy as a hostess has concealed her other professional accomplishments. And accomplished, tactical first ladies are hardly a unique artifact of presidencies of the 20th and 21st centuries. Dolley Madison, wife of fourth president and constitutional framer James Madison, acted as her husband’s “tacit political partner.” She once diffused an international incident, using her ties with diplomatic wives to soothe tensions that arose between Great Britain and the United States after then-President Thomas Jefferson snubbed the wife of a British ambassador at an 1803 dinner. In another instance, Mrs. Madison helped develop the relationship between her husband and War Hawk congressman Henry Clay by dipping snuff with the legislator.
After Dolley Madison, other first ladies of the 19th century were notable for their careers as teachers and their devotion to education. Abigail Filmore was a teacher when she met her husband and future president Millard Fillmore in class. Once in the White House, Mrs. Fillmore oversaw the development of the White House library, a controversial feat considering the fact that Congress had opposed the development of a presidential library in the years preceding her husband’s election. Several decades later, another teacher would occupy the position of First Lady. Lucretia Garfield had met President James Garfield at college in Ohio and had feared losing her independence throughout their courtship. When the pair eventually married, Lucretia worked as a teacher until the birth of their first daughter, and she taught French, algebra, and Latin before her ascent to the White House.
Even though many first ladies have exhibited political acumen within the White House and career strengths outside of it, their presence in popular culture has overshadowed their strengths. For decades, visitors of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, have delighted in the First Ladies exhibition. When walking through the exhibit, which is defined by its large historical collection of dresses owned by various first ladies, it can be easy to see the garments and further solidify the stereotypical view that the wives of the American presidents were mere hostesses, as was their official role. However, in 2021, it’s time to adopt a more dimensional view of the office and recognize the many roles played by the women who have held the position. Over the past three centuries, American first ladies have been teachers, journalists, lawyers, and skilled political strategists. So next time you read an article detailing a first lady’s career accomplishments or roles in her husband’s administration, don’t be surprised. Such intrinsic success has always been a hallmark of the women who have held this office.
