Marcus A. Stadelmann, PhD - First Ladies For Dummies

Lou Hoover, who was in China during the Boxer Rebellion, carried a gun and got involved in shoot-outs. See Chapter 13.

The position of First Lady isn’t mentioned in the Constitution. However, the position soon became attached to the presidency and received some informal powers.

The position of First Lady has been defined by culture and not the Constitution. There’s no job description and no laws regulating First Lady behavior. However, changing American culture has put both limitations and opportunities on the role of First Lady. Cleary, back in the 19th century, an active First Lady campaigning for her husband and trying to impact policy making publicly wouldn’t have been tolerated. Today, the American public expects First Ladies to be educated, to campaign for their husbands, and to even run for office themselves.

For this reason, the position of First Lady has considerable power today, and the First Lady has become one of the most powerful persons in Washington, D.C. From Betty Ford (see Chapter 16) who encouraged her husband to pardon President Nixon to Hillary Clinton who was put in charge of reforming healthcare in the United States, First Ladies have shown that they matter and can impact policy making.

The Constitution provides a president with two jobs. First, there’s the head of state position; and second, there’s the head of government position. The first is ceremonial and doesn’t matter that much; therefore, presidents have given ceremonial powers to First Ladies. Martha Washington attended church on her husband’s behalf (see Chapter 3); Nancy Reagan was the president’s stand-in after the assassination attempt on her husband (see Chapter 17); and Lady Bird Johnson represented for her husband campaigning in the South (see Chapter 16).

In the first years of the republic, First Ladies were mostly concerned with their hostess role and arranging social events. They further oversaw renovations of the White House. While many dismiss these functions as irrelevant, they had very political undertones. Every teatime, soiree, and formal dinner can be used politically, as Louisa Adams showed in 1825, when during a soiree the night before Congress picked her husband as the new president, she convinced several Congressmen to vote for her husband.

Dolley Madison organized weekly Wednesday evening get-togethers where she invited Congressmen from both parties and often took the place of her husband, who can’t take sides on issues, discussing politics with her guests. Soon she became one of the most powerful political brokers in the capital.

Some First Ladies have made an imprint quietly, while others have gone public. Abigail Adams was able to discuss politics and convince her husband on issues in more than a thousand letters written to her husband. Others have used media, such as the radio or television, to make or even change policy. Both Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter went public on issues such as the equal rights amendment, abortion, and mental health.

With the New Deal and WWII, more government power became centralized in the office of the president in the 1930s and 1940s. Not surprisingly, the media began to focus more on Washington, D.C., and the office of the president. Increased focus on the president also led to more attention being paid to the First Lady. The advance of television further increased this coverage. Suddenly, people could see the First Ladies in action and listen to them speak. By 1960, half of all Americans owned a television set, and this increased coverage of the First Ladies immensely.

With Edith Roosevelt, at the turn of the 20th century, the office of the First Lady became more institutionalized (see Chapter 12). She hired highly paid and educated professional staffers, and suddenly staff weren’t just helpers in the kitchen but full-time professional advisors. These advisors attended morning briefings with the First Lady and on occasion worked closely with the president’s staff. Lady Bird Johnson then took it a step further and turned the East Wing of the White House into a business organization and ran it as such (check out Chapter 16). Rosalynn Carter completed the process of institutionalization by moving her office to the East Wing and creating a formal Office of the First Lady.

The office of First Lady, and likewise the women who fill that role, has gone through an evolution since its conception to present day. I discuss those changes in four phases in this section.

Part 2of the book covers the First Ladies of this phase. Martha Washington set the foundation for First Lady obligations. On occasion, she played the part of head of state, and she set the precedent of being a great hostess who wasn’t involved in policy making.

Martha Washington’s role as First Lady was undefined. She herself didn’t know what to expect of the position. She was surprised when she received a 13-gun salute and shouts of “Long live Lady Washington!” when she arrived in the then-capital New York City. She decided to become the perfect hostess, because the democratic spirit of the time called for the president to open the doors of the executive mansion in New York City anytime. Soon this led to problems. Too many people took advantage of the open doors and just showed up. No work could get done, and no privacy existed. So it was decided to limit open houses and receptions.

Another hostess function was to deal with callers, usually the wives of Senators, House members, and foreign diplomats, who came to the door of the White House and left their cards. It was customary that a First Lady returned their visits. Often, First Ladies would have to make up to 60 visits a week. To make matters worse, the White House was open to everybody who wanted to show up on New Year’s Day, with the exception of wartime or periods of mourning. Thousands would stop annually, and the practice wasn’t stopped until the Hoover administration in 1933.

While Abigail Adams was an opinionated woman who influenced her husband in private, publicly she mostly fulfilled her hostess function. Dolley Madison was the first to help a widower, Thomas Jefferson, and then served eight years as First Lady. She dominated the White House for a long time. She was such a superior hostess that future First Ladies would ask her advice on becoming a hostess as late as 1845, but she also managed to mix the social part of being a hostess with the political part. Not only did she start the tradition of having an inaugural ball, but she also was truly nonpartisan at her receptions and everybody loved her for it. In addition, she called upon every wife of a Congressman and invited them to the White House, creating goodwill among the spouses of all Congressmen at the time.

The country’s early First Ladies were sweet, quiet, and gracious hostesses in public and played a supportive role to their husband, which reflected the times they lived in. In private, they displayed courage, had exceptional training, spoke foreign languages, read French philosophers, and traveled abroad creating goodwill for the U.S. in Europe.

Phase II is dominated by young substitutes — either daughters, daughters-in-law, or nieces — for First Ladies. There were few mature or strong First Ladies during this period; most were youthful surrogates who didn’t impact policy making much. (Turn to Part 3for a closer look at these ladies.)