Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Where does the title “first lady” come from?
The title of first lady probably evolved from the time of Martha Washington – she was referred to as Lady Washington by the soldiers fighting under her husband General George Washington. She took such an active interest in their well-being and was so revered for her benevolence that the revolutionaries ironically took it upon themselves to title her. That was resumed once Washington became president. Nobody knew what to call her so they called her Lady Washington.
John Adams’s wife, Abigail Adams, and James Madison’s wife, Dolly Madison, were also called Lady Adams and Lady Madison. So in some sense there was a title from the very beginning. But we know definitively that the title “first lady” was in use from 1860 on. It was first used in print on 31 March of that year to refer to Harriet Lane, the niece and hostess for the bachelor president James Buchanan.
How has the role of presidential spouse evolved over the years?
The role of first lady has evolved to reflect the changing role of women in America, the growing trend toward gender equality in American society. And it has also evolved as a result of women in the role responding to crises during their tenure.
The role of women up until the 1840s was largely confined to the home. Women were seen as having great influence and power in society, but through their roles as wives, mothers and homemakers. First ladies from Washington through the time of President Polk were seen as the symbolic homemakers of the nation.
That became more complicated in the run-up to the Civil War, when first ladies began being targeted and emerging as people with opinions of their own. The Civil War had a wrenching effect on society. Many women were active in supporting the war effort. It suddenly was accepted that women had a civic duty outside the home. Some women became active in the abolition movement. In the post-Civil War era you began to see first ladies involved in charities and other compassionate causes.
By the turn of the 20th century, all women were expected to have opinions on suffrage and prohibition. Those movements really drew women across the country, including women in the White House, into politics. Those issues dominated the first two decades. By the mid-20th century you saw Eleanor Roosevelt active during the Great Depression. You saw Jacqueline Kennedy interested in historic preservation. You saw Lady Bird Johnson advocating for environmental preservation. You saw Rosalynn Carter working on mental health reform legislation.
So really it’s a two-part thing – the evolving role of women in society and how the women in the White House grew the role of first lady by responding to the issues of their times.
How did you become interested in the lives of first ladies?
I had been interested, as a kid, in presidents. What attracted me to studying first ladies was that, until I did my work, few historians had subjected the activities of first ladies to serious analytical study. Long before Eleanor Roosevelt, first ladies had a real impact on national and even world affairs. Yet nobody had done a real chronicling of that. Most of the women who have been called first lady were far more educated, opinionated and involved than they were given credit or blame for being.
Your first choice – And Tyler Too by Robert Seager – is a tandem biography of one of America’s most obscure presidents and his sensational second wife. John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, was the first to succeed to that office from the vice-presidency, upon the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. What should we know about Julia Tyler and why is Seager’s work the right place to turn?
She really doesn’t fit the Martha Washington model of first lady. She had scandalised her high society family by posing for a lithograph advertisement as a young debutante. Then she scandalised the nation by suddenly marrying the recently widowed President Tyler, who was 30 years her senior. He had kids from his first marriage who were older than she was at the time. His first wife had died in the White House just 16 months before they married. She was 24 when she became first lady. She was witty, well travelled, well educated and an accomplished, international flirt.
She put her formidable abilities to work during her short time in the White House – she was only first lady for eight months. And she had tremendous influence in helping Tyler initiate the annexation of Texas, which was his signature achievement. She personally went to the Capitol Galleries to watch the debate. She applied her charm to curry favour with members of the House and Senate.
She exulted in her public role?
As Seager’s book uncovers in great detail, she worked very closely with a reporter from the New York Herald who gave her endless glowing press and turned her into an American celebrity. She threw fantastic parties and became so associated with dancing that the “Julia Waltzes” were written in her honour. They sold out so rapidly that she couldn’t get a hold of the sheet music herself. After he left office, her husband sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, so she was viewed as a turncoat by most of the Northern part of the country. But she methodically worked her way back into favour. She remained widely written about and fixed in the public imagination throughout the 19th century.
Her life was a saga worthy of William Makepeace Thackeray. Seager’s book is written well, with humour and with a wise eye for human nature. It’s a forgotten book about now forgotten figures.
Your next choice is a biography of the wife of one of America’s most beloved presidents – a woman who is remembered but usually portrayed in a negative light.
Carl Sferrazza Anthony has written a dozen books about presidential families, including a two-volume survey, First Ladies. A former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan, he wrote the introduction to Hillary Clinton’s An Invitation to the White House. He has also interviewed almost every first lady of the last half-century. Anthony is historian of the National First Ladies Library
www.carlanthonyonline.com
www.firstladies.org
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