First Ladies

by Caroli, Betty

  120. Richard O’Connor, The First Hurrah: A Biography of Al Smith (New York, 1970), p. 166.

  121. Josephson, Al Smith, p. 388.

  122. Frederick L. Collins, “Mrs. Hoover’s Washington,” Woman’s Home Companion (March 1929), p. 66.

  123. Mary Roberts Rinehart, “A New First Lady Becomes Hostess for a Nation,” World’s Work (March 1929), p. 34.

  124. Hoover, “Memoirs,” Collier’s (March 10, 1951), p. 33.

  125. Dare Stark, “Heirlooms in the White House,” Woman’s Home Companion (March 1932), pp. 17–18.

  126. Parks and Leighton, Thirty Years, p. 52.

  127. Parks and Leighton, Thirty Years, p. 80.

  128. Ava Long (with Mildred Harrington), “Presidents at Home,” Ladies’ Home Journal (September 1933), p. 8.

  129. Irwin Hood Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House (Boston, 1934).

  130. Myra Greenberg Gutin, “The President’s Partner: The First Lady as Public Communicator, 1920–1976” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1983), p. 156.

  131. Hoover, “Memoirs,” Collier’s (February 17, 1951), p. 13.

  132. Letter to author, July 23, 1985, from Dale C. Mayer, archivist and supervisor of the Lou Henry Hoover project at the Herbert Hoover Library, West Branch, Iowa.

  133. New York Times, November 6, 1931, p. 4.

  134. Gutin, “President’s Partner,” p. 166.

  135. New York Times, June 23, 1929, p. 16.

  136. Gutin, “President’s Partner,” p. 160, cites an interview with Thomas Thalkin, former curator at the Herbert Hoover Library. Dale C. Mayer, supervisor of the Lou Henry Hoover project at the library, substantiated the point in a letter to the author, July 23, 1985.

  137. Gutin, “President’s Partner,” p. 173. Joy Scimé, who is completing at SUNY Buffalo a doctoral dissertation on the federal government’s regulations on married women working in the 1930s, concluded that Herbert Hoover listened to members of the National Woman’s Party in deciding to issue the 1932 Executive Order. Scimé found no evidence of Lou Hoover’s influence. The order did little to advance the cause of women’s equal right to work—in fact, it worked to their detriment, as Scimé has pointed out. Prior to 1932, Civil Service appointments were made “without regard to sex unless sex is specified in the request.” Since a request for either a man or woman was usually included in the job description, the appointment was made from the appropriate list of those who had taken the Civil Service examination. (The exam had been open to both men and women since 1919.) What the National Woman’s Party (and presumably President Hoover) had not foreseen was the disadvantage that women faced when placed on a single list that included men. Because veterans automatically received extra points on their examination scores and since few women had military experience to qualify them for the extra points, men got the jobs. Franklin Roosevelt, with the encouragement of the League of Women Voters, reinstated the dual list.

  138. Karen Keesling and Suzanne Cavanaugh, “Women Presidential Appointees Serving or Having Served in Full-Time Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation, 1912–1977,” Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, March 23, 1978.

  139. Gutin, “President’s Partner,” p. 160.

  140. Mildred Adams, “The First Lady Rules a Broad Realm,” New York Times, November 30, 1930, section 5, p. 9.

  141. Pryor, Lou Henry Hoover, p. 180. See Journal of Negro History, vol. 65 (1980), pp. 6–17, for a political interpretation of this event.

  142. Collins, “Mrs. Hoover’s Washington,” p. 32.

  143. Bess Furman, Washington By-Line (New York, 1949), p. 57.

  144. New York Times, March 24, 1931, p. 20.

  145. New York Times, November 6, 1932, p. 34; New York Times, November 28, 1932, p. 3.

  146. Alice Longworth, “Some Reminiscences,” Ladies’ Home Journal (February 1936), p. 8.

  147. New York Times, February 26, 1944, p. 9.

  Chapter 7

  1. Lorena Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, Reluctant First Lady (New York, 1962), p. 4.

  2. Eleanor Roosevelt, “Today’s Girl—Tomorrow’s Job,” Woman’s Home Companion (June 1932), p. 11.

  3. Joseph P. Lash, “Eleanor Roosevelt’s Role in Women’s History,” Mabel E. Deutrich and Virginia C. Purdy, eds., Clio Was a Woman (Washington, D.C., 1976), pp. 243–253.

  4. Roosevelt, “Today’s Girl,” p. 11.

  5. Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (New York, 1971), p. 122.

  6. Eleanor Roosevelt, Autobiography (New York, 1960), p. 55.

  7. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 68. See Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: 1884–1933 (New York, 1992).

  8. Joseph P. Lash, Love, Eleanor: Eleanor Roosevelt and Her Friends (Garden City, 1982), p. 67.

  9. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 67.

  10. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 192.

  11. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 150; Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 13.

  12. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 104.

  13. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 112. A great deal of attention has focused on Eleanor’s network of women friends. See Elisabeth Israels Perry, “Training for Public Life,” in Without Precedent, ed. Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman (Bloomington, 1984), pp. 28–45. Also see Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage (Cambridge, 1981) for a discussion of women’s networks in the 1930s.

  14. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 103.

  15. M. K. Wisehart, “What Is a Wife’s Job Today?” Good Housekeeping (August 1930), p. 34.

  16. Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 2. For one view of the relationship between Eleanor and Lorena Hickok, see Doris Faber, The Life of Lorena Hickok (New York, 1980).

  17. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 278.

  18. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 441.

  19. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 283.

  20. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 161.

  21. Maurine Beasley, ed., The White House Press Conferences of Eleanor Roosevelt (New York, 1983), p. 170.

  22. Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 5. In 1959, after Eleanor Roosevelt had left Washington, she agreed to advertise margarine on television because, she said, the $35,000 remuneration would buy many CARE packages. See Bernard Asbell, ed., Mother and Daughter (New York, 1982), p. 329.

  23. Hickock, Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 5.

  24. George Gallup, Gallup Poll, 3 vols. (New York, 1972), vol. 1, p. 39.

  25. Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, pp. 75–78.

  26. Gerald D. Nash, The Great Depression and World War II: Organizing America (New York, 1979), p. 75.

  27. For a fuller discussion of Eleanor Roosevelt’s relation with the press, see chapter 11, “Presidential Wives and the Press,” from previous editions of this book.

  28. Beasley, Press Conferences, p. 107.

  29. Nash, Great Depression, p. 76.

  30. Susan Ware, Holding Their Own: American Women in the 1930s (Boston, 1982), pp. 40–41. For several important essays on Eleanor’s efforts to help women, see Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, eds., Without Precedent (Bloomington, 1984).

  31. Paul C. Taylor, biographical entry for Mary Williams Dewson, in Barbara Sicherman et al., eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, 1980), p. 190.

  32. Lois Banner, American Beauty (New York, 1983), p. 189.

  33. Beasley, Press Conferences, p. 128.

  34. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 471.

  35. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 470.

  36. Jerre Mangione to author. Jerre Mangione has also described his visits to the White House in Ethnic At Large (New York, 1978), pp. 353–365.

  37. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 157.

  38. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 170.

  39. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 180.

  40. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 159.

  41. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 189.

  42. James Roosevelt, My Parents (Chicago, 1976), p. 170.

  43. Asbell, ed., Mother and Daughter, p. 177.

  44. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 331.

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p; 45. Lash, Love Eleanor, p. 223.

  46. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 192.

  47. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 223.

  48. Ware, Holding Their Own, p. 91, quotes from an unpublished manuscript at the Schlesinger Library.

  49. Beasley, Press Conferences, p. 90.

  50. Dorothy Bromley, “The Future of Eleanor Roosevelt,” Harper’s (January 1940), pp. 13off.

  51. Time (March 6, 1939), p. 11.

  52. Robert Day, The New Yorker (June 3, 1933), p. 15.

  53. Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 3.

  54. Beasley, Press Conferences, p. 101.

  55. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 178.

  56. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 209.

  57. Bromley, “Future of Eleanor Roosevelt,” p. 131.

  58. Raymond Clapper, “10 Most Powerful People in Washington,” Readers’ Digest (May 1941), p. 45. Good Housekeeping editors in 1980 rated Eleanor’s influence with the president much lower. See Appendix V.

  59. Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 256.

  60. Beasley, Press Conferences, p. x.

  61. Eleanor Roosevelt, “Flying Is Fun,” Collier’s (April 22, 1939), p. 15.

  62. Kathleen McLaughlin, “First Lady’s View of First Lady’s Role,” New York Times, January 21, 1940, p. 3.

  63. Eleanor Roosevelt, “Women in Politics,” Good Housekeeping (April 1940), p. 45.

  64. Susan Becker, Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: Feminism Between the Wars (Westport, 1981), pp. 216–217.

  65. Ware, Holding Their Own, p. 90.

  66. Joanna Schneider Zangrando and Robert L. Zangrando, “ER and Black Civil Rights,” in Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, eds., Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor Roosevelt (Bloomington, 1984), p. 99.

  67. Eleanor Roosevelt, “24 Hours,” Ladies’ Home Journal (October 1940), p. 20.

  68. Modern First Ladies Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 18–20, 1984.

  69. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 167.

  70. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 193.

  71. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 399.

  72. Eleanor Roosevelt to Jacqueline Kennedy, December 1, 1960, in Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt, Hyde Park.

  73. Asbell, Mother and Daughter, p. 189.

  74. William H. Chafe, biographical entry for Eleanor Roosevelt in Sicherman et al., eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period, p. 600.

  75. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin, p. 97.

  76. Lash, Love, Eleanor, p. 399.

  77. Bess Furman, Washington By-Line (New York, 1949), p. 324.

  78. Lilian Rixey, “Bess Truman and Her Town,” Life (July 11, 1949), p. 88.

  79. Helen Worden Erskine, ‘The Riddle of Mrs. Truman,” Collier’s (February 9, 1949), p. 14.

  80. Margaret Truman, Souvenir: Margaret Truman’s Own Story (New York, 1956), p. 13. For more on the enigma of Bess Truman, see Margaret Truman, Bess W. Truman (New York, 1986).

  81. Jhan Robbins, Bess and Harry: An American Love Story (New York, 1980), p. 80, cites Oral History Project interview, Columbia University. On the announcement of the cancellation, see New York Times, May 7, 1945, p. 30.

  82. Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances Spatz Leighton, It Was Fun Working at the White House (New York, 1969), p. 14.

  83. For the public report, see “First Lady Swings Bottle Unbroken,” New York Times, May 31, 1945, p. 22. For repercussions in the Truman household, see Margaret Truman, Souvenir, p. 107.

  84. Margaret Truman pointed out that her mother began to fly after 1953, and that almost all her trips after that date were by air, Bess W. Truman, p. 401.

  85. New York Times, October 30, 1947, p. 27.

  86. Truman, Bess W. Truman, p. 271; Parks and Leighton, It Was Fun, p. 19.

  87. New York Times, July 23, 1944, p. 29. Truman, Bess W. Truman, p. 87, notes her mother’s family’s connections to politics and how they helped Harry in the early years.

  88. New York Times, July 27, 1944, p. 11.

  89. Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910–1959 (New York, 1983), p. vii.

  90. Ferrell, Dear Bess, p. 465.

  91. Ferrell, Dear Bess, p. 521.

  92. Marianne Means, “What 3 Presidents Say About Their Wives,” Good Housekeeping (August 1963), p. 184. Margaret Truman later wrote that her mother “obviously knew about the atomic bomb” but that Harry did not discuss its use with her. See Bess W. Truman, p. 270.

  93. Ferrell, Dear Bess, p. 554.

  94. Furman, Washington By-Line, p. 336.

  95. Rixey, “Bess Truman,” Life (July 11, 1949), p. 88.

  96. Robbins, Bess and Harry, pp. 17–21.

  97. Truman, Bess W. Truman, p. 387, writes that the story of the suicide was not told during Bess’s lifetime, but Jhan Robbins wrote about it in Bess and Harry, p. 22.

  98. Ferrell, Dear Bess, p. 143.

  99. Robbins, Bess and Harry, p. 31.

  100. Erskine, “Riddle of Mrs. Truman,” p. 14.

  101. Robbins, Bess and Harry, p. 38.

  102. Newsweek (January 7, 1946), p. 26.

  103. Bess Furman, “The Independent Lady from Independence,” New York Times, June 9, 1946, p. 20.

  104. Erskine, “Riddle of Mrs. Truman,” p. 14.

  105. New York Times, October 30, 1947, p. 27.

  106. New York Times, January 19, 1947, section VI, p. 43.

  107. Time (November 10, 1947), p. 24.

  108. Newsweek (January 7, 1946), p. 26.

  109. Time (June 3, 1946), p. 45.

  110. New York Times, February 28, 1946, p. 21.

  111. J. B. West, Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies (New York, 1973), p. 75.

  112. Newsweek (February 4, 1946), p. 25.

  113. New York Times, January 25, 1946, p. 20.

  114. New York Times, July 22, 1944, p. 10.

  115. Lillian Parks, My 30 Years Backstairs at the White House (New York, 1961), p. 311.

  116. Parks and Leighton, It Was Fun, p. 139.

  117. Liz Carpenter at Modern First Ladies conference, Gerald R. Ford Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 18–20, 1984.

  118. Robbins, Bess and Harry, p. 2.

  119. Means, “What 3 Presidents Say,” p. 182.

  120. New York Times, October 30, 1946, p. 29.

  121. New York Times, July 16, 1946, p. 26.

  122. Jonathan Daniels, “The Lady from Independence,” McCall’s (April 1949), p. 86.

  123. Time (March 23, 1953), p. 19.

  124. Parks, My 30 Years, p. 312.

  125. New York Times, November 2, 1979, p. 1.

  126. Collier’s (October 4, 1952), p. 48.

  127. Lenore Hailparn, “What Is She Like? Our New First Lady?” Independent Woman (January 1953), p. 2.

  128. New York Times, October 17, 1945, p. 44.

  129. Kay Summersby Morgan, Past Forgetting (New York, 1976), p. 201.

  130. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letters to Mamie, ed. John S. D. Eisenhower (Garden City, 1978).

  131. Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (New York, 1973), pp. 339–340.

  132. Morgan, Past Forgetting, p. 14.

  133. Steve Neal, The Eisenhowers: Reluctant Dynasty (New York, 1978), p. 177.

  134. Lester and Irene David, Ike and Mamie (New York, 1981), pp. 125–128.

  135. Ruth Montgomery, “An Intimate Portrait of Our Vivacious First Lady After One Year in the White House,” Look (February 23, 1954), p. 31.

  136. Time (March 23, 1953), p. 19.

  137. U. S. News and World Report (August 21, 1953), p. 52.

  138. Montgomery, “An Intimate Portrait,” p. 31.

  139. Time (March 23, 1953), p. 19. See also Marilyn Irvin Holt, Mamie Doud Eisenhower: The General’s First Lady (Lawrence, 2007).

  140. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change (Garden City, 1963), p. 264.

  141. Letter of Mrs. Edward J. Birmingham, February 1954, in Chicago Historical Society.

 
; 142. Life (October 20, 1958), p. 60.

  143. Means, “What 3 Presidents Say,” p. 193.

  144. Parks and Leighton, It Was Fun, p. 174.

  145. Parks, My 30 Years, p. 33.

  146. West, Upstairs at the White House, pp. 130–131.

  147. Alden Hatch, Red Carpet for Mamie (New York, 1954), p. 251.

  148. Helen Worden, “The American Story of Mrs. Eisenhower,” Coronet (August 1951), pp. 56–62.

  149. Nanette Kutner, “The Story of Mamie,” Woman’s Home Companion (July 1953). p. 25.

  150. Photographs appear in Life (January 26, 1953) pp. 77–78.

  151. New York Times, December 17, 1952, p. 38.

  152. New York Times, November 22, 1952, p. 20.

  153. David, Ike and Mamie, p. 211.

  154. Helen Worden Erskine, “Call Me Mamie,” Collier’s (October 4, 1952), p. 46.

  155. Photograph in Life (October 20, 1958), p. 60.

  156. “They Love Mamie in Augusta,” McCall’s (September 1953), p. 32.

  157. Kutner, “Story of Mamie,” p. 46.

  158. New York Times, November 9, 1952, p. 64.

  159. Helen Worden, “The American Story of Mrs. Eisenhower,” Coronet (August 1951), p. 56.

  160. New York Times, March 15, 1959, p. 62.

  161. “How Would You Raise a First Lady?” Better Homes and Gardens (June 1955). p. 1.

  162. Obituary of Mrs. John S. Doud, New York Times, September 30, 1960, p. 27.

  163. “How Would You Raise a First Lady?” p. 178.

  164. West, Upstairs at the White House, pp. 129–130.

  165. Parks, My Thirty Years, p. 321.

  166. New York Times, November 2, 1979, p. 1.

  167. Lauris Norstad Interview, cited in Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, 2 vols. (New York, 1983), vol. 1, p. 532.

  168. David, Ike and Mamie, p. 264.

  169. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1, pp. 74–75. For photographs of Mamie and her first-born, see Dwight D. Eisenhower, In Review: Pictures I’ve Kept (Garden City, 1969).

  170. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1, p. 104.

  171. Ambrose, Eisenhower, vol. 1, p. 439.

  172. New York Times, March 9, 1955, p. 17.

  173. New York Times, March 11, 1955, p. 6.

  174. “White House Duties Putting Strain on Mamie’s Health,” U.S. News and World Report (March 25, 1955), p. 40.