First Ladies

Because of the prominence of their husbands, First Ladies left more complete records than most of their contemporaries. Evidence on mid-nineteenth century presidents' wives is rather scant, but even the little-known Eliza Johnson, wife of the only president to be impeached, had her biographer (who went after information about Eliza like a detective intent on solving a crime). Several First Ladies, including Julia Grant, Helen Taft, Edith Wilson and most of those who lived in the White House after 1863 published their memoirs. I was convinced that all this record keeping could help elucidate not only the First Ladies' lives but also the lives of their countrywomen. A few dozen examples from two centuries of American history cannot be taken to represent all women-no one would claim that they do-but where else could a researcher find so much material about women who moved consecutively through American history?

Thomas Marshall did well to note the limitations of his job. Few people remember his name, while Edith Wilson acquired a reputation as one of the most powerful of all First Ladies. After Woodrow's stroke in 1919, she controlled the flow of communications between him and everyone else, thus prompting Massachusetts Senator Lodge to complain, "A regency was not contemplated in the Constitution."

A few First Ladies marked watersheds in the history of the job. Dolley Madison's popularity does not stem solely, as many believe, from her having introduced ice cream to Americans. (That distinction belongs more likely to Thomas Jefferson who recorded in his own hand the preferred recipe for the cold dessert that he had liked so much in France.) But Dolley Madison did exert unusual influence. For almost half a century, she remained a central figure in the capital, showing an uncanny ability to use social occasions to her husband's political advantage.

No matter how they performed their jobs, First Ladies never lacked detractors. Critics pointed to their extravagance ( Mary Lincoln), coarseness ( Margaret Taylor), casual entertaining ( Dolley Madison), elitism ( Elizabeth Monroe), prudishness ( Lucy Hayes), gaiety ( Harriet Lane), excessive grief ( Jane Pierce), advanced age ( Martha Washington), and youth ( Julia Tyler). When wives appeared to exert some influence on their husbands or on government, they were charged with exercising "petticoat government" ( Edith Wilson), running their husbands' careers ( Florence Harding), putting words into the president's mouth (Eleanor Roosevelt), "getting people fired" ( Nancy Reagan), and making her husband look like a wimp ( Hillary Rodham Clinton).

The reader who expects to find here a tightly argued thesis will be disappointed. None had emerged, except the unsurprising conclusion that individual First Ladies have reflected the status of American women of their time while helping shape expectations of what women can properly do. They extend our understanding of how women participated in government in ways other than simply voting and holding office.