First Ladies
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106. Myra Greenberg Gutin first put forth this categorization in her doctoral dissertation, “The President’s Partner: The First Lady as Public Communicator, 1920–1976” (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1983). Her book The President’s Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century (Westport, 1989) drew on this dissertation. Later she published “Using All Available Means of Persuasion: The Twentieth-Century First Lady as Public Communicator,” Social Science Journal (2000), pp. 563–75.
107. Hillary Clinton, United Nations International Women’s Day Speech on Women’s Rights, March 4, 1999, http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/
generalspeeches,/19990304.html.
108. “Mrs. Laura Bush’s Leadership: First Lady’s Work Advances President Bush’s Agenda at Home and Abroad,” fact sheet from Laura Bush’s office.
109. Carlotta Gall, “Laura Bush Carries Pet Causes to Afghans,” New York Times, March 31, 2005, p. A10.
110. “Mrs. Laura Bush’s Leadership” fact sheet.
111. Stolbert, “First Lady Raising Her Profile,” p. 1.
112. “Mrs. Laura Bush’s Leadership” fact sheet.
113. Emily Eakin, “Mrs. Bush, It’s Not about Fashion,” New York Times, January 20, 2001, p. B9.
114. Kelly Wallace, “First Lady Shakes Up White House Staff,” www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/16/
first.lady/index.html. Also see Elisabeth Bumiller, “All Quiet in the West Wing, but More Change in the East,” New York Times, March 27, 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/politics/27letter.html?.
115. Bumiller, “All Quiet in the West Wing.”
116. Katha Pollitt, “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen? Ask Laura Bush,” The Nation, February 6, 2003, www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/pollitt.
117. www.cnn.com/2005/Politics/06/27/bush.poll/index.html.
118. www.cnn.com/2008/Politics/05/01/bush.poll/.
119. Elisabeth Bumiller, “A First Lady Fiercely Loyal and Quietly Effective,” New York Times, February 7, 2004, p. A9.
120. www.gallup.com/poll/21370/Laura-Bush-Approval-Ratings-Among-Best-First-Ladies.aspx?version=print.
121. “Talk of the Town,” New Yorker, June 6, 2005, p. 31.
122. Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife: A Novel (New York, 2008).
123. Curtis Sittenfeld, “The Compassionate Conservative,” New York Times, November 2, 2008, Sunday Opinion, p. 11.
124. The author is indebted to Prof. Douglas Lonnstrom for sharing early results of this survey. For more details, see Appendix VI and www.siena.edu/sri/surveys.asp.
125. Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, “I Didn’t Realize the Impact the First Lady Can Have,” People, January 19, 2009, p. 66.
Chapter 11
1. Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis, Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling (New York, 2000), p. 17.
2. For information on all women who served in Congress from 1917 to 2001, see www.gpoaccess.gov/serial set/cdocuments’hd108–223/hd108–223.pdf. For specifics on the 111th Congress, see Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, “Women in the U.S. Congress, 2009.”
3. Only eleven of the then forty-eight states permitted women to vote on the same basis as men, but other states permitted them to vote in some elections. See Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote (New York, 2000), Tables A19 and A20.
4. See page 63.
5. Mychal Massie, “Michelle Obama: Angry Black Harridan,” WorldNet Daily Exclusive, February 26, 2008, www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=57312.
6. Robert P. Watson and Ann Gordon, eds., Anticipating Madam President (Boulder, 2003), p. 146. Gallup polls taken over four decades had not been consistent. In 1957 and 1968, Americans indicated they were more likely to vote for a woman than for an African-American man. In the 1978 poll, the African American had a slight advantage, which was wiped out in 1987 but reappeared in 1997.
7. A Gallup poll in February 2007 found that 88 percent of Americans said they would vote for a well-qualified woman. In 1969, that figure had been 53 percent. See www.pewreswearch.org/pubs/474/female-president. For a discussion of earlier polls on the viability of a woman’s candidacy for president, see Clift and Brazaitis, Madam President, pp. 15–31.
8. Jill Norgren, Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would Be President (New York, 2007).
9. Belva Lockwood, “How I Ran for the Presidency,” National Magazine (March 1903), pp. 728–33.
10. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, “Presidential Watch,” www.cawp.rutgers.edu.
11. Shirley Chisholm, The Good Fight (New York, 1973), pp. 161–62.
12. In 1972, Patsy Mink, a congresswoman from Hawaii, collected 2 percent of the vote in Oregon when she ran as an antiwar Democrat. On Ellen McCormack, see Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University, “Presidential Watch,” www.cawp.rutgers.edu.
13. Clift and Brazaitis, Madam President, p. 18.
14. Pat Schroeder, 24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess (Kansas City, 1998), p. 41.
15. Schroeder, 24 Years of House Work, p. 179.
16. Schroeder, 24 Years of House Work, p. 186.
17. Robert P. Watson, “Elizabeth Dole,” in Watson and Gordon, eds., Anticipating Madam President, p. 201.
18. Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President (New York, 2009), pp. 3–4.
19. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “The Discursive Performance of Femininity: Hating Hillary,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs (1998), pp. 1–2.
20. Campbell, “Discursive Performance,” p. 4.
21. John Heilemann, “The Fall and Rise of Hillary Clinton,” New York, June 23, 2008, p. 89.
22. Wolffe, Renegade, p. 245.
23. Bradley H. Patterson, The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond (Washington, D.C., 2000), p. 281.
24. Patterson, White House Staff, p. 289.
25. See page 310.
26. Karen O’Connor, Bernadette Nye, and Laura Van Assendelft, “Wives in the White House: The Political Influence of First Ladies,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (1996), p. 835.
27. O’Connor, Nye, and Van Assendelft, “Wives in the White House,” p. 835.
28. Clift and Brazaitis, Madam President, pp. 46–47.
29. Gil Troy, Mr. and Mrs. President: Trumans to Clintons (Lawrence, 2001), p. 223. A slightly different version of this book, Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the Presidential Couple Since World War II, was published in 1997. Troy explained that the first title no longer seemed appropriate after the Clinton/Lewinsky revelations.
30. Troy, Mr. and Mrs. President, pp. 225–26.
31. For the view that Eleanor’s influence has been exaggerated, see Troy, Mr. and Mrs. President, p. 9.
32. See Appendix.
33. Wolffe, Renegade, p. 313.
34. William Kristol, “Let Palin Be Palin,” The Weekly Standard, September 8, 2008, www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Pulic
/Articles/000/000/015/500wrhjq.asp.
35. Ariel Levy, “The Lonesome Trail: Cindy McCain’s Nontraditional Campaign,” New Yorker, September 15, 2008, p. 56.
36. Catherine Allgore, Parlor Politics (Charlottesville, 2000).
37. Susan Milligan, “Activists Expect Clinton to Propel Women’s Rights,” Boston Globe, December 1, 2008, www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/12/01/
activists_expect_clinton _to_propel_women’s_rights/.
38. The previous day, January 16, President Johnson had accused two senators of working in tandem to stall any action at all on civil rights. See Michael Beschloss, ed., Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York, 1997), p. 164.
39. Biographical information on Michelle Robinson Obama comes from a variety of sources, including Liza Mundy, Michelle: A Biography (New York, 2008).
40. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” http://obamaprincetont
hesis.wordpress.com.
41. Mundy , Michelle: A Biography, p. 65.
42. Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” p. 2.
43. Robinson, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” p. 2.
44. Wolffe, Renegade, pp. 35–36.
45. Wolffe, Renegade, p. 52.
46. Wolffe, Renegade, p. 60.
47. Rebecca Johnson, “The Natural,” Vanity Fair, September 2007, p. 781.
48. Wolffe, Renegade, p. 52.
49. Johnson “Natural,” p. 777.
50. Johnson, “Natural,” p. 781.
51. New York Times, November 6, 2008, p. P6.
52. National Review, April 2008.
53. Jeff Zeleny, “Book Sales Lifted Obamas’ Income in 2007 to a Total of $4.2 Million,” New York Times, April 17, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/us/politics/17obama.html.
54. Gardiner Harris, “The Underside of the Welcome Mat,” New York Times, November 11, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/weekinreview/09harris.html. Also see William Seale, The President’s House (Washington, D.C., 2 vols., 1986), vol. 1, 68.
55. Nathan Miller, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (New York, 1992), 362.
56. See page 186 for an earlier account of this incident. For additional details that came to light when Lou Hoover’s papers were opened at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, see David S. Day, “A New Perspective on the ‘DePriest Tea’ Historiographic Controversy,” Journal of Negro History (1990), pp. 120–24.
57. Nancy Beck Young, Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady (Lawrence, 2004), 69.
58. “Blacks Who Slept at the White House,” Ebony, September 1988, p. 66.
59. Ben Meyerson, “Michelle Obama Salutes Lilly Ledbetter at White House,” Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2009, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-namichelle-obama30–2009jan30,0,3765572.story.
60. New York Times, May 16, 2009, p. A10.
61. New York Times, May 28, 2009, p. E1.
62. New York Times, May 28, 2009, p. E6.
63. See page 263.
64. New York Times, May 28, 2009, p. E6.
65. USA Today, April 24, 2009, p. 8A.
66. New York Times, April 25, 2009, p. A9.
67. Vogue, March 2009.
68. Liza Mundy, Michelle Obama’s biographer, complained about a lack of access well before the election. See Liza Mundy, “Michelle and Me: The Trials of Being an Obama Biographer,” Slate, comment posted October 14, 2008, www.slate.com/id/2202261.
69. Michael Wolff, “The Power and the Story,” Vanity Fair, July 2009, p. 48.
70. Wolff, “Power and the Story,” p. 48.
71. Wolff, “Power and the Story,” p. 51.
72. Maurine H. Beasley, First Ladies and the Press: The Unfinished Partnership of the Media Age (Evanston, 2005)
73. For a fuller discussion of this subject, see earlier editions of this book and chapter 11, “Presidential Wives and the Press.”
74. The Daily Advertiser, June 15, 1789, carried both the article published about Martha Washington in the Gazette of the United States on May 30 and also Pro Republica’s critical observations.
75. Frank Leslie’s Weekly, October 10, 1863, p. 35.
76. Stewart Mitchell, ed., New Letters of Abigail Adams (Boston, 1947), p. 92.
77. Wilbur Cross and Ann Novotny, White House Weddings (New York, 1967), p. 132.
78. A Scottish tweed company used Jacqueline Kennedy’s picture, implying that she endorsed their product, until the White House requested them to stop. New York Times, May 21, 1962, p. 37.
Appendices
I. Presidents’ Wives Who Served as First Lady
*Date is that of marriage to man who became President. In some cases an earlier (or later) marriage also occurred.
**Terms of First Ladies coincide with the presidential term and run from one inauguration to another except as noted. Until 1937, Presidents assumed the office March 4.
1. Actual birthdate is disputed.
2. William Henry Harrison died one month after taking office, before Anna had arrived in Washington.
3. Letitia Tyler died September 10, 1842.
4. Julia Gardiner married President John Tyler on June 26, 1844, only a few months before his presidential term ended.
5. Zachary Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850.
6. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865.
7. James Garfield died September 19, 1881 after having been shot on July 2.
8. Frances Folsom married President Grover Gleveland on June 2, 1886, after he had taken office in March, 1885. He was defeated for a second consecutive term but was reelected in 1892 and served from 1893 to 1897.
9. Caroline Harrison died in the Executive Mansion, October 25, 1892.
10. William McKinley was assassinated on September 14, 1901, just months after beginning his second term.
11. Ellen Wilson died in the White House on August 6, 1914.
12. Edith Galt married President Woodrow Wilson on December 18, 1915.
13. Warren Harding died in office on August 2, 1923.
14. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office on April 12, 1945.
15. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.
16. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974.
II. Historians’ Ranking of First Ladies in 1982
This poll was conducted in 1982 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Siena College, Loudonville, New York. History professors in 102 colleges were asked to rate the First Ladies. In another poll, conducted by the Siena Research Institute in 1981, political scientists and historians were asked to rank presidents on a different scale. (See results in Appendix III.) The list above merges the results of the two polls, with scores rounded to the nearest tenth of 1 percent. It should be emphasized that both polls were conducted early in the first Reagan administration. No explanation was given for including some of the women who served as First Lady although not married to a president, such as Mary Arthur McElroy, Chester Arthur’s sister, and excluding others, such as Rose Cleveland, Grover Gleveland’s sister. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for sharing this data.
* In the Tyler and Wilson administrations, the first wife of the respective presidents died and both men remarried while in office. In the Andrew Johnson presidency, both his wife and daughter served as First Lady. As a result, the total of First Ladies outnumbers that of presidents.
III. Professors’ Ranking of Presidents in 1981
Results of a poll conducted in 1981 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Loudonville, New York. Political scientists and historians were asked to rank presidents on twenty different qualities or characteristics: background, party leadership, communication ability, relationship with congress, court appointments, handling of the U.S. economy, luck, ability to compromise, willingness to take risks, executive appointments, overall ability, imagination, domestic accomplishments, integrity, executive ability, foreign policy accomplishments, leadership ability, intelligence, avoidance of crucial mistakes, ranker’s overall view. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for permission to cite these results here.
This is only one of many rankings of United States Presidents. For a review of literature on the subject, see David C. Nice, “The Influence of War and Party System Aging on the Ranking of Presidents,” Western Political Quarterly, vol. 37 (September 1984), pp. 443–455.
IV. Historians’ Ranking of Twentieth-Century First Ladies in 1982
Results of poll conducted in 1982 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Siena College, Loudonville, New York. History professors in 102 colleges were asked to rate First Ladies. The professors came from 57 northern colleges and 45 southern colleges. It should be emphasized that the poll was conducted early in the first Reagan admi
nistration. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for sharing this data.
V. Good Housekeeping’s Ranking of Twentieth-Century First Ladies (1980)
Good Housekeeping editors evaluated the records of fifteen twentieth-century First Ladies and published the results in the July 1980 issue, p. 120. It should be noted that this ranking occurred before Ronald Reagan was elected, so Nancy Reagan is not included. Ida McKinley, whose husband was assassinated in September 1901, is also excluded, although technically she was a twentieth-century First Lady.
Although the Good Housekeeping overall ranking does not differ greatly from the historians’ ranking (see Appendix IV), the characteristics on which the women were judged are quite different and sometimes contradictory (e.g., traditionalist and feminist). Good Housekeeping editors pointed out that their evaluations were not intended to pit the record of one woman against that of another but merely to “call attention to the manner in which each has responded to the challenge of her unpaid job.”
VI. Historians’ Ranking of First Ladies in 2008
Omitted from this list are presidents who served without a First Lady: widowers Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren, and Arthur; bachelor Buchanan. Woodrow Wilson’s first wife, Ellen, died in 1914 and he married Edith in 1915. John Tyler’s first wife, Letitia, died in 1842 and he married Julia in 1844. William Henry Harrison’s wife had not yet arrived in the capital city when her husband died so she is omitted from the rankings.
This Siena Institute ranking for presidents was done in 2001; and it was done for First Ladies in 2008. Therefore, Laura Bush’s ranking was done at the end of eight years while her husband’s was after only one year, before his popularity dropped.
The author is grateful to Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Siena College, Loudonville, New York, for sharing this information. For more information, please see www.siena.edu/sri/surveys.asp.