The East Wing: Expanding First Ladies’ Impact from Jacqueline Kennedy to Jill Biden

Good evening, welcome or welcome back, as the case may be, my name is Allan Price. I am the director of the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and on behalf of all of my colleagues at the library and the Foundation, many of whom are in the room or watching. online with you uh I'm glad to welcome you to the show tonight and uh let's see if we close the doors, or leave it well. I would like to acknowledge the generous subscription support of the major sponsors of the Kennedy Library Forums. Bank of America, the LEL Institute and CVS Health, as well as the Mass Cultural Council and our media are sponsoring the Boston Globe to launch.

I humbly begin with a land acknowledgment to recognize that the land we stand on was once stewarded by indigenous peoples and while land acknowledgment is not enough, it is an important way to promote indigenous visibility and serves as reminder that we are on stolen and colonized Indigenous lands, and I invite you all to contemplate how to best support Indigenous communities and learn to honor and take. care for the earth that each of us inhabits. I would like to thank you in advance for silencing your cell phones. We look forward to a robust question and answer period this afternoon.

You'll see full on-screen instructions for submitting your questions via email or comments on our YouTube page during the show, and when the Q&A begins, we'll invite those of you joining us in person to head to the microphones in the halls to ask your questions. McBride and Barbara Perry have kindly agreed to sign. copies of her books after tonight's program and our bookstore has copies available for sale if you are interested, we are very pleased to have this opportunity to reflect on the evolution of the

first

lady's role from the Kennedy administration to the present with our distinguished guests tonight.

I have been excited to host this conversation at the Kennedy Library since last fall, when they were panelists at the White House Historical Association conference in Washington DC, so I am very pleased to welcome Anita McBride to the library tonight. She is director of the

first

ladies

initiative at American University's School of Public Affairs. Her experience includes service in three US presidential administrations in the White House and the State Department and as chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush, she is co-author of the new book Remind First Ladies of the Legacies of the Women They They made history in the United States.

It is also always a pleasure to welcome Barbara Perry back to the library. She is the Gerald L. Bailiff Professor of Presidential Studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, where she co-directs the presidential oral history program. She is an author. o editor of 17 books on presidents, first

ladies

, the Kennedy family, civil rights, and Supreme Court civil liberties. She is a great friend and supporter of the Kennedy Library and Museum. It is also a pleasure to welcome Elizabeth Ross Reese back. the library this afternoon, forgive me. I should really do this with my reading glasses, but here we go. a PhD candidate in history at the University of Oxford. her thesis project investigates the development of the East Wing staff and the office of First Lady from 1961 to 1976, her scholarship and honors include Service as a White House Historical Association NextGen Leader 2023 Join me in welcoming our special guests.

Thanks great here we go this is great yeah thank you so much Alan for that wonderful introduction yeah and for giving us a tour of one of the new exhibits here at the library and I'll be back tomorrow to see them so if you haven't seen them about World War II, and not only how the Kennedy family related to that conflict, but it's also very diverse. by telling us how almost every American family was in some way connected to that conflict and sho

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us in the wonderful Atrium here photos of family members of Boston area residents who sent in these photos of their family who served and as the daughter of a veteran of the World War II really made me particularly happy and I'm talking about doing a children's book maybe aimed at high school students called Poppy and Jack about Bush 41 George HW Bush and Jack Kennedy and how they both almost lost their lives in the South Pacific, but They took heroic measures and, thank God, the president returned home and became president.

Well, with that, let me also say that it is truly a pleasure to be here with friends and colleagues. andita and Elizabeth I've known Al Anita for probably about a decade since she came to Charlottesville and did an oral history with us about her time in the Bush 43 presidency, but also Bush 41 and her husband Tim They did it too. interviews with us uh and I never dreamed that we would be serving on the board of directors of the White House historical association so it's always a pleasure and then Elizabeth is my newest colleague because we met at the Presidential Site Summit uh in Washington on last fall last September and Anita and I were on a panel and when we met up with Allan after that, he also knew Elizabeth and her interest in research on the first ladies, so he said why don't you form a panel and come?

I went to the library and I jumped at the chance because I've been here since the pandemic, so like I told everyone, it's like coming home for me, so let's think in terms of some of the great first ladies. I just finished writing a chapter on public legacies and commemorations of first ladies and started. I decided to start. I couldn't do all the first ladies, but I decided to start with Abigail Adams, but I thought I would. Please turn to Anita first because this book was written with our colleagues Nancy Keegan Smith and Diana Carlin, who are all First Ladies experts, academics and professionals, covering all First Ladies, and covering topics related to First Ladies. including the topic that Elizabeth has been working on, which is how they staff their offices, how they develop their offices and how that helped them participate in the protocols, as well as in the policy areas and portfolios of the first ladies, so I would like Anita to start. with a little overview of how we should think about first ladies and did you come away from doing this book?

I should point out that it was made like a textbook and we were talking about this along the way; It is rare, if ever, that a textbook becomes a commercial book that is so popular and so popular in its subject that it is actually sold to the general public beyond the students who will obviously also benefit from it, So, was it there where he had already worked with the first ladies and had seen them up close? personal, but what did you win and what should we know about the entire First Ladies Arc before we start digging into any individual?

Well, thank you Barbara for setting up that umbrella, you know, to be able to discuss this topic because one of the things that I found so fascinating and that really put us on the path to understanding how from the beginning of the founding of our country our first president recognized that being President was a two-person job and, as head of state and head of government, he really needed someone to help him with the ceremonial duties of the head of state and, luckily for him, Martha Washington was a very skilled hostess and was a important role and the founding of our new nation and he valued his role and contribution.

They didn't call me first. Mrs. then they called her Lady Washington or Mrs. Washington but from the beginning she valued her role in the contribution she would make and when she was received on the shores of New Jersey when the president um Washington had already been president for six weeks and she greeted Martha Washington, who had just arriving from Mount Vernon, greeted her with incredible fanfare to immediately set the tone that this role, this position, this partner to him, um, was important and we see that they know that throughout our history, I mean some presidents like times. they were changing roles for for for women um where women did not have a public voice and were not on the public stage some husbands like Calvin kulage wanted Grace kulage to stay very he was silent he wanted her to be silent too um but you know again as the country has evolved as the roles of the women involved have evolved and gained a greater voice on the public stage and, you know, involved in the public square, so has the role of the first ladies who they contribute more to policies and to our politics and to our global diplomacy, but you know, our first nine first families, I think they were slave owners, so there were no staff that slaves depended on, except for Abigail Adams, who was an abolitionist and the first professional staff member wasn't even born until 1901 with Edith Roosevelt I'm sure you'll talk a lot about that, and that has obviously involved over time, now it's a pretty large staff for a first lady, proportionate though proportional to the job what they were doing before.

We got to that in the 20th century, which will really open up this issue for the staffing of first ladies' offices and the concept that there is an office for the first lady. Two of these first ladies really stand out to me, too. to Abigail Adams so feel free to chime in if you want to say anything about her and we're very close to where she and John of course we're from outside of Boston um and one is Dolly Madison uh and the other as we get there. in the 20th century is the second Mrs. WRA Wilson because they both played such important roles uh in the presidency of her husband um Elizabeth, do you want to chime in there?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think particularly the Wilson administration is very interesting because obviously President Wilson suffers from poor health, he has a stroke and Edith really protects him and makes sure that people don't really know about this and the guy of access and control that she has around her. Know? President Wilson is quite influential, do you think? about the power that these women have, they're the second closest person you know, so she really has this extraordinary access and one of the other things that's particularly fascinating, you know, I was finishing up some of my research and I had the opportunity to go to the Library of Congress and I thought, well you know I'm going to go because I work in the '60s with my project, but I thought I'd go further back and see what the president is for previous social secretaries, so I went and I looked at the archives from Edith uh Benham Helm, who was a social secretary for a long time and has these extensive diaries that she had written by hand because she went with the Wilsons to the Paris peace conference and you just think about the access that even the staff have.

She had had it and historians haven't even talked or acknowledged much about it, um, so that's a particularly interesting thing and she actually wrote her own Memoirs, so it's something you can go and read, um, if you want to learn. more and I think also with Dolly Madison and Abigail Adams thinking about women in the Early Republic period, this social role of Hostess is not apolitical mhm, you absolutely know that social diplomacy was a very real thing and I particularly think about the work of academic Katherine Alore Paa Politics was the really influential book that she wrote and these informal spaces right where the politicking happens outside of these closed government rooms that are full of men and women are really involved in this story and the first ladies are right. at the center of that and I think it's something particularly interesting about those early women where you know it's not clear that they're involved in the policies and the agenda, but it's actually happening behind the scenes and certainly President Madison appreciated the work of Dolly Madison. political astuteness even more than him, her social graces and um, and she was an incredible unifier who brought all the parties together, kno

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how to work the room and get valuable information that was so important, uh, to her husband, she was incredibly popular and it stayed, you know. throughout her life and she really was a guide to so many first ladies who followed her, she knew how to do the job, that she sure did and yes, you mentioned Katherine, another of her books about a perfect union about the marriage of Dolly and James.

Madison and to think about those women too, as K Robert's book calls them, they are founding mothers who are there at the founding of the country and not only support their husbands but also participate in the discussions and Abigail Adams, of course, is part of his legacy. she writes to John Adams absolutely in 1776 when he is helping to fuel the Revolution and helping Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence and she knows that if we become a new country with a new constitution, she says the famous phrase: remember, ladies, that's the title of our The book comes directly from that now she was the eyes and ears of the Revolution for him she absolutely was and being here inmiddle of the war and being here in the middle of the Revolutionary War um and then with Dolly Madison as you say Anita, to really unite the first one that we have of partisanship, you know, Washington wasn't very partisan, he didn't really consider himself partisan, the Concerned founders about political parties called them factions and all factions were evil and bad as far as they were concerned, but what did they do when they left the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, after having drawn up our second Constitution, which was divided into two political parties, one in favor of the new constitution and the other, so that when Dolly became first lady she already had the The Federalists and then the Jeffersonian Republicans or Democratic Republicans, as they called them, and they were fighting each other and because she was very skilled in her social graces and Washington was a backwater that she was able to bring people together in social settings to bring us into what we call the Era of Good Feelings, which I think we would all pray for if it were like this for a long time, we have to do it.

Remember she also did it for President Jefferson, she filled this role and then for her own husband and it's extraordinary and the fact that I always say about little Jimmy, as they called him the James Madison, short and tall, but big intellect. um, but also the short about Charisma apparently, while she just oozed charisma and her clothes or made her hats that would be big, they would see her, they would see her, you could pick her out in the crowd and I think I'm right if I'm wrong, but I think the first to have an inaugural ball, so again starting from that early period, um again to the 20th century, and the second, Mrs.

Woodro Wilson, which now people are looking back on and I guess they did it even in the It's time to say she was our first female president because she controlled Congress's access to him, the Cabinet's access to him, then the vice president's access to him, and there's a photo of him once he's able to get out of bed and get dressed. and he is signing an official document because his right hand which was his main hand was not affected by the stroke and she is using her hand to hold the document so I say she is literally his left hand at that moment and, um, Rebecca, K Robert's daughter, wrote a Yes, a wonderful book published in the last few years, called Untold Power, about Edith's power in bowling, G Wilson, I think we're being very kind, it was an extraordinary overreach, well, I just hoped a female president would have to do it. work with so that's not elected but you're right um and by the way this is one of the reasons we have the 25th Amendment so that if a president becomes president we can thank her yeah I mean she unknowingly forced us to have the 25th Amendment, but it's a good thing in case the president becomes capable, we now have an official way to address it and I have to say it was Dwight Eisenhower, who suffered a terrible heart attack in 1955, who put pressure on his attorney general.

Herbert Brownell to do something along these lines, but it took until the 1960s for the 25th amendment to be ratified, but we'll thank Edith for that, but we'll say she went too far, so let's start with what is often presidential . Scholars will say it's the modern presidency and some go back to Teddy Roosevelt, but most say Franklin Roosevelt, so let's start with the first modern first lady and that would be, of course, Ellena Roosevelt. I say she is generous Suey, there is no other first. lady like her and there is unlikely to be one like her in the sense that there is no first lady and unless the 22nd Amendment is repealed who will serve for more than 12 years so I throw Roosevelt's name at them both , yeah, well, I think it's I think an interesting starting point with the Roosevelt administration is to take a step back, not from the first leadership, and think about the presidency in general, because this was a period in which the bureaucracy presidential was reorganized or reorganized in a sort of broader spectrum and the government expanded.

Right with the New Deal um and I think fitting the first lady's story into that is something that's important to do to contextualize it um and I mean, Ellena Roosevelt really was a pretty extraordinary character and she's been seen ever since. like this feminist icon, but I think in some ways you can trace a kind of history of women's benevolent work in terms of the kind of lineage that she followed in the footsteps of the right, but obviously a great supporter of civil rights and a lot. She had her own agenda parallel to Franklin, but she was often sometimes seen as too liberal right wing, which was something that caused her some problems, um and they were actually splitting on some points, but I mean one . of the things that she is, particularly, you know something that is huge in terms and I think it can't be overstated in terms of the development of the first lady's office and her staff is her relationship with the press and many scholars have talked about how this need to coordinate with the press actually drives the expansion of First Lady St because a big part of that is press operations and I think this is something that we can really see starting in the Roosevelt administration and of course Elena .

Rosevelt has his own column in the newspaper, writes My Day and also hosts press conferences on the radio, of course he is on the radio and I believe he is the first voice heard after Pearl Harbor, rather than the president's , because that's the The next day, um, but it also organizes new conferences for women of the press because the women of the press was not a situation where women reported in the same way that we do now, they had difficult access to the president, um, press. operation, they were excluded somehow and she completely took over that.

I guess I want to point out that Elizabeth is doing it too. She had all these communication skills long before she got to the White House. This is a woman who made money writing articles and speeches. You know, when she got to the White House and she was worried about being limited and her husband didn't want her to have the voice she was used to, but she found a way to completely change that position in a way that worked for her and was short-staffed. she had a social secretary, you know, a friend who helped Lena Hickcock, who really helped her with access to the women's press corps, but she really overcame the barriers that not only her husband, but her husband's advisors tried to put on her and she was his arms, ears and legs, and you know, eyes, ears and legs, sorry, so she played an incredibly important role, yeah, and that's how that relationship with them started. right when he contracted polio in 1921 and actually had three years trying to come back from that and hoping to have a political career, but also the difficulties of her marriage that had happened right before that, that she might have been willing to move on and divorced, but, um, Sarah Roosevelt, another IDE, Mrs.

Roosevelt, yes, and forced them in a sense to stay together, but she didn't want to lose her independence upon getting to the White House, um, and Elizabeth, her point too. is that sometimes he crosses paths with Franklin. It all had to do with partisanship and what the Democratic Party represented at the time, that it was a major figure in the South, that most of the top officials in Congress were Democrats, about a third at l

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of the two-party majorities. thirds he had in the House and the Senate, so when she pushed him toward civil rights, toward things like the anti-lynching bill, uh, he would just say, "I can't do that, I'll lose, I'll lose the South." , so she had to move on. her own direction, but essentially because she had no official role, she didn't have to worry about it as much and I often say she never had her name on a ballot, so she didn't have to worry about finding a middle ground or finding a compromise, but good for her, did you want to say a little bit more about her work with the press and about Lorena Hickcock and then how we got from her to Mrs.

Kennedy and her being the first to really? I will not appoint someone as press secretary as such, but within the scope of the social secretary, as a press liaison. I'll say one thing about that and then I'll pass it on to you, Elizabeth, because I found that you really know how fascinating Mrs. Kennedy is, who really understood the power of image and messaging uh and was the first to hire a relationship assistant. with the press under the social secretary's office not necessarily a press office but your guide um to um Pam Turner I think her name was Pam Turner Pamela Turner was um, give the media and the press as little as possible, but do it very well. , which I think you know every press, uh, person can appreciate.

I'm not sure we have Dara Donnie, who's here, she was Deputy Press Secretary Laura Bush in the White House, I'm not here. I'm sure we once told you to do it that way, but it's interesting that they give as little as possible because they don't like intrusion into their lives, which you can respect especially when you have small children, well, I mean, Mrs. Kennedy and the press is a fascinating thing in itself and I mean a very difficult relationship with these women, but ironically Mrs. Kennedy herself had worked in the press and was the Washington Post's inquisitive camerawoman when she was younger. before she married Jack Kennedy, and in fact I discovered that there was another one from my file.

Will finds it fresh out of the archive, so you can see, he's at the top of my mind, it's exciting to find that exciting stuff, but I was. reading the files of Bess Ferman, who again is a well-known Washington journalist and social reporter, and Jackie Kennedy had written to the best Furman saying, "You know, I dream so much of being a journalist and this seems like such a fascinating world and So when she was younger, she was really fascinated by journalism and she continued to have this career, but then when she's in the White House, the relationship is really about keeping the press at arm's length and, in fact, internally, Jackie and her staff were concerned um the Press Ladies like harpies um they didn't like them to say the l

east

um particularly Helen Thomas and uh Francis Leen from the cable um cable reporters who were there in the White House and that's why it was this kind of very difficult relationship, but. like you say try to drip feed them and try to do it in the best way possible so they don't come back to them for more um and I think about it again and I mean this could be like that, a lot of books have been written. about this about Mrs.

K and the image and sort of the curation of the image and particularly, obviously, the prime example of this is Camelot and how she's responsible for building this with her interview after President Kennedy's death, but you know this, I would say too. um, during the Kennedy administration, press operations are still under the control of the West Wing, like Pierre Salinger did a lot of reporting and in fact, he gets made a lot of fun about for reporting on Carolin's hamsters and ponies and stuff. That's pretty funny, but I would say that really in the Johnson Administration is where we have a little more separation because we have Liz Carpenter, who was obviously appointed secretary, a professional University media person who knew exactly how to set up the operation that that was.

It's definitely a turning point, so let's start with that, let's start with Lady Bird and how did she know to hire a professional journalist to be her press? Secret, she herself was a communication specialist. I mean, this is a woman who was a millionaire. I mean, she owned radio stations all over Texas, she knew the power of communication, she was a journalism student, she graduated from UT Austin, with a degree in journalism, she criticized her husband's speeches and sometimes gave them a b, at best, I was listening to these audio recordings and You think you know Lynon Johnson, who could talk to him like that.

Well, his wife could talk to him that way. She maybe she's the only person you can, that's true, but that's you now we were the closest person to the president that one would expect. it would be the spouse and you know, I call it pillow talk, but you know it could be that night after he gets back from the press conference or the speech, but yeah, in Ladybird's case, he would call her or she would call him and you. mentioned recordings as soon as recording equipment became available, Franklin Roosevelt started some Med recordings, but it really took off with President Kennedy and particularly with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and so you can understand why after Richard Nixon, presidents They were a little, uh.

I'm skeptical about doing voice recordings, but I'm sure you can go to the Lyndon Johnson Library, but also the Miller Center where I am at the University of Virginia. We have an entire unit at the Miller Center that does nothing but focus on these tapes. and we have historians who listen to them and the people who work with them edit them, annotate them, so what I'm thinking about and I'm sure you're referring to is Lady Bird saying well. lynon um, i thought your voiceit sounded a little choppy and that's what I think when she gave him the B overall, she gave him the B or the B plus and apparently she didn't get any reaction, you know, a violent reaction from him about it, um.

How did she grow up then? How did that help you say a turning point? How did she hire a secret professional press secretary and then she hire other people and who might have been the first first lady to have a slightly expanded staff? she was very good at detailing staff from other departments and agencies. I mean, that really helped her and her beautification efforts and you know, she was really our first environmental first lady and she really cared about our natural landscapes, our natural landscape, our national. Parks, so he detailed people from the Department of the Interior, he detailed people from the State Department who were protocol experts and Al dealt with um um, you know, diplomatic relations and press relations as well, so he knew how to organize the office of he.

He had a very skilled social secretary, uh, too, I mean, the three of them plan. She planned him the Ladyb Bird Express trip, you know, across the South, which, during the height of civil rights legislation, was deeply unpopular and considered one trip too many. It was dangerous for the president to continue so they sent the first lady on a train that was traveling 15 minutes ahead of him. Hers in case there was a bomb on the tracks, I mean real courage, incredible, extraordinary courage. I think you know she really I love the quote from her that she said I have a podium and I intend to use it and I think that says everything you want.

I need to know about Lady Bird Johnson, she just didn't waste a moment, well that makes me, first of all, add Elizabeth about one thing. One thing I would like to add. I think this point Anita is raising about sanding. staff from other departments and other agencies is really important because then you get a specialization and you get women who have experience, for example Sharon Francis, who is one of those women who has been brought in from Stuart's office from the inside and she is an expert in conservation so these women have experience and they're really driving this sense of this is a professional staff and this is a real office and we're actually working on policy and this actually had something of a legislative outcome with the highway um 1965 law um so really the women who work in this office and the first lady are directly involved in supporting the policy of the Administration um the other thing I would say about these women that I think is really important to remember is that um and I think that perhaps the Johnson administration could also be seen as a turning point here too: these women are partisan, they are all Johnson candidates, and they are all Democrats.

The Southern Democrats are right, and it's actually interesting in the Kennedy administration. Latisha Baldridge was known for being a Republican, um, and you know, the right after the bipartisan spirit in the entertainment in the Kennedy White House initially, so it's kind of interesting how you know that they really are kind of Johnson loyalists and I think that something that differentiates this kind of period from the '60s onwards is that these are partisan women who are also very involved, yes, very involved in the campaign. Oh, she worked for Johnon when he was vice president, so she was very Democratic through and through and obviously continued.

Having an illustrious career after campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment, so I think you know the Johnson Administration has put a lot of work into this, but the women in the Johnson Administration I think you know they've got the seeds a little bit sewn up, I think . In the Kennedy administration, this professionalization of the East Wing staff is happening, but you know, the tragedy of the assassination there is no second term and I think really in the Johnson administration we started to see this specialization, this expansion of the staff with these new women . um it brought and also women's roles changed more broadly in the 1960s exactly and that was one of the many things that I learned in Anita's book about specialization and about the details of government bureaucracy and agencies that I'm sure that in Elena Roos yes and in the case of Elena Roosevelt we know that she worked with people from all over the government.

I'm just thinking about

expanding

the core of Civilian Conservation to include women, for example, and their connection to Harold iy inside, but it would seem more official to me if, instead of the first lady dating those people, I had her bring those people in and like you say, it makes it seem more like a staff and more like an office, um, and maybe makes it more partisan, so be it. Um, let's also talk about if we could look at the part of the projects and the policies that we know, going back to Martha Washington, that we have first ladies who are involved in their husbands' administrations, but I think we tend to think of the more modern ones. approach of picking up political specialties to the point where we get used to that and expect first ladies when they take office or even before their husbands are elected to say well, if I become first lady, I'll work. in Eisenhower two very different types of women with different types of marriages with different types of views on politics, so Beess often stayed in Independence Missouri and if you read Harry Truman's letters, he talks about how sad he is of being alone in the White House and says, "I feel like something the cat dragged because you're not here with me, the best love of his life, um and then with M.

Eisenhower, who certainly knew how to support her husband during a military career of over 30 years and knew how to entertain and had. Some favorite projects I would call not so much political, but again they reflect the era of women in the post-war period and in the 1950s and, by the way, if you are interested in M, your daughter Susan Eisen, your granddaughter Susan Eisenhower has written a lovely book. uh Memoirs about her, her grandmother was called Mrs. I and I think she gives her support for the kind of work she should have done, but I really think she takes off in the contemporary space with Mrs.

Kennedy and the restoration of the White House and creating that as a symbol, particularly as I say in my book during the Cold War, it's a symbol of democracy and with her young husband and her young children and the arts and historical preservation, but let's go to Lady Bird and then move on. talk about the policies that the first ladies and maybe we can start as we are sort of dating Lady bur Johnson's staffing and her environmentalism and her beautification of America. I can remember the ads about keeping America beautiful and not being a bug and today I think of her when I drive in Virginia and the median is full of daffodils, yes, you think about thanking her for that, she, who is Lady bir Johnson, and also I'm grateful, what if I'm driving in Florida and I?

I don't see many billboards even in Tennessee Crock City. I think some of them will come back, but I'm grateful for that because it really made America beautiful, so we hope that the first ladies now have at least one project and what does that mean to you, do you know when that starts to really happen in Earnest and then they need a staff for that? Well, the staff started to grow after uh um Mrs. Johnson, of course, Mrs. Nixon, I will say you probably had the most difficult relationship trying to expand your staff because of the pushback from the West Wing, the president's advisors really had very little respect for her and her contributions even though she had done a lot in all of Richard Nixon's campaigns when he ran for Senate for vice president, uh, for president, but when he got to the White House in 1968, he brought a new team to Her surroundings, the John Ermans and Bob Hemments, had no relationship with Mrs.

Nixon and made it quite difficult, um, uh, for her, Mrs. Ford, when she arrived, she was the first to hire a speechwriter professional and was doing a lot of homework and then, of course, six weeks after becoming first lady, she makes public a very private tragedy, you know, um uh, of uh uh chest. cancer and she was very frank. She had a large staff of correspondents, as did Mrs. Nixon. This is the only way she controlled what she could do. The correspondence letters that she received. She wanted them to respond and to respond quickly. This was the only way she maintained her connection to the American people and she traveled the Tred, the most traveled first lady in our history alongside Hillary Clinton.

I think she might even be one more country above Mrs. Clinton, extraordinary, the only first lady to actually have the title of personal representative of the president when he traveled abroad, which is why President Nixon valued her, simply because the structure around the White House made it very difficult for it to operate well. I think Mrs. Nixon is particularly interesting as a representative. character and has been seen as something of a victim before, who is happily being slightly rehabilitated. You know, there have been a lot of good books published recently about Mrs. Nixon and they've given her her fair share, um rightly so, and I think what's actually quite interesting is Think further back and think about her time as second lady and Barbara .

She earlier she mentioned Eisenhower's heart attack, yes, and suddenly she knows that The Nixons are far from the presidency and, in fact, because of some kind of tension in the Eisenhower administration, Pat Nixon made a big effort. amount of travel as second lady and, in fact, she is really the first person to elevate the role of second lady to something that is actually on the public stage and is also recognized as important and that she goes out and greets people. and her taking on that role in a more professional way as well, so I think that will really serve her well when she takes over as first lady and there are a couple of women who have done that.

Lady B Johnson is another Betty for whom for a very short period of time, you know, and that's an interesting factor and you're right, Anita in terms of correspondence, this was the only thing that she really loved, really loved and cared about, I spent up to 4 hours a day. working on her correspondence and thought it was very important in terms of being in touch with the American people, but the other thing that was kind of a pet project that she championed was this idea of ​​volunteerism, kind of working with the elderly and also made visiting the White House more accessible.

She introduced Braille and a kind of sensory tours. Ramps, yes, and ramps so that everyone could come and enjoy the White House properly. So she really did a lot of really good things that I think we can. everyone agrees, it's good, but she had this, as you say, a very difficult relationship with the staff and Gwendaline King, who was the Director of Correspondence, in her oral history interview left some really interesting comments in which she said : "You know, one day I walked into the office." and Holdman was like looking at everyone's desks and trying to read their newspapers and they told me I had to start briefing them um and then the West Wing was obviously what had happened because they had realized how powerful the first lady is in on the world stage and how important she is and they were trying to just take control and really leverage the operations in the East Wing for their own benefit and have a little more control over what the picture was and what was happening if someone from The West Wing Passage in the East exactly there.

I mean, that's good, we have to take it west before we do it. We know that Mrs. Carter is also an INF, a real game-changer, not just because of who she was and what. She did, but there's actually a law that gets signed about the office and it turns out that it has a section about the first lady's office, so yeah, this is what I find most interesting about how Mrs. Carter was able to expand the personal and professionalize. now another way because there's actually a budget allocated to the first lady's office White House staff Personnel Authorization Act of 1978 but this, you read her memoirs, you say this is where she and her husband had their biggest arguments. , when he campaigned to cut the size of the White House dab and she wants to expand it because of all the work she's involved in, I mean, he serves on the mental health commission, uh, to chair, she had to become honorary president because you really couldn't, you couldn't. appoint your spouse as president to lead an initiative, so things had to change, but she is doing, she is doing that, she is also traveling like crazy around the world representing him, South America, she makes that big turn through six countries and no one believed she would succeed there and, in fact, even State Department whistleblowers and congressional whistleblowers before she leftThey just said this: these are sexist countries, they're not going to listen to you, and yet she opened all these incredible doors for our diplomats who were serving.

There she couldn't really get access because they were countries where there was a lot of anti-Americanism, they elected leaders who were anti-American, um, so her visits there really focused on the Far East and her, and then, of course. what she does sitting at the Camp David Peace Accords, I mean, there are over 200 pages of extemporaneous notes that she took on all those deliberations that were taking place there at Camp David, I mean the human expression in real time of a kind of tension and the problems and and the relationships that her husband welcomed her to the cabinet meetings were not up to par, she went with her briefcase once a week to have lunch with them with all her papers of the things she wanted review if I go out and about talking about what is happening in my husband's administration I want to be able to speak with knowledge of the information and the first first lady who has her own office in the east wing moves her to the east wing, which is exactly what which they used to have like in their casual dressing room, yeah, working, working from home, but very nice, so, yeah, which again is one of those things where there's that kind of thing.

It's interesting to think about the White House as a space and think about how you know we're there. I have this idea of ​​the kind of public-private boundary and that doesn't really exist even though the residence is ostensibly a private space and you work in the store, yes, exactly in the store and therefore you do that work from home and then separating that from there is another one of these steps that historians consider a really important moment and then obviously it's taking it a step further when Mrs. Clinton moves her office to the west wing, which still has its east wing.

Wing off still has an office and the old executive office building that had an office there. The women's initiative at Jackson Place, where the Millennium Council had, was incredible, but real estate is power, and especially in land of the White House how many of you have been on the White House tour or worked in the White House oh my gosh look at it cool so you know it's a pretty intimate space and I think one of the first things that captivates people when they come in from the North Portico and that opening, that big opening, but it's not that big and the state rooms aren't that big, so the Oval Office, if you've been in the Oval Office, it doesn't seem that big. big as in television or movies or westerns, well, we could I don't want to skip Mrs.

Reagan, but we don't have to go completely in chronological order, we can certainly go back to her or include her, but I want to take Anita to the bushes because Anita is very close to the Bush family. the HW Bush family and the W Bush family and maybe let's talk a little bit about Barbara Bush as second lady for eight years before she became first lady, she was another extraordinarily active, uh, second lady, I mean, she spent all her, ya You know, eight years. in fact, in her Memoirs she has these incredible statistics of the thousands of events she organized for literacy and the number of dinners and lunches, the number of overnight guests, um, she didn't waste a moment of those uh eight years and She contemplated what she was going to do in 1980 when her husband ran for president lost the nomination, of course, to Ronald Reagan, you know she was Barbara Bush was running through Memorial Park in Houston thinking what project I'll work on if I become first lady and she had determined that literacy was her project and she felt that was the root of many other problems in our country and when she became first lady she launched the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy two months after becoming first lady. lady of that foundation. it's still around, it's in its 33rd year, 34th year, it's now raised hundreds of millions of dollars, it operates Pro projects in all 50 states, so it's a real legacy, the way the White House Historical Association, Jackie, the way the vital voices are, um, for Hillary Clinton, um, but what?

Do you know she was interesting when she became first lady? She gathered her staff early at the residence and told them and gave them a simple directive: I want to do something that helps people every day, that helps someone every day, that was her charge. their staff and in fact they know every chapter of our book, we have a quote from a first lady and in the chapter on Staffing in the White House, Barbara Bush's quote was that it takes a good staff to run a good first lady's office and She had a very good staff, so, you know, and in her four years, you know, she left some indelible marks.

I think about our country and I talk about someone who had supported her husband so much. Go to resume, no. only from his job in the oil business in Texas, but then, yes, a diplomat, our envoy to China, a member of Congress, the head of the Republican National Committee during Watergate, the US ambassador to the UN and later vice president for eight years, so she had a lot of experience in not only supporting but also knowing what a political wife had to do and, by the way, raising a family of five children, raising a lot of money and raising a lot of money, but also losing to Po Little Robin, um, for leukemia, and um, just. "We had such a difficult time at the beginning of your early marriage, so anything else about Barbara Bush that we want to say before we continue?

Did you discover anything in your research? I haven't gotten that far yet, you know the thesis project is very specific. I will wait for the book in a few years. I need your book and I have learned everything I know about the staff, first by talking in Washington with Elizabeth and then by reading the chapter on it And here I am doing oral history mainly of presidents not normally. we can interview the first ladies, but I would love to be able to do it and now I'll know where to go before we do it. I will say one thing about Nancy Reagan though, I'm very grateful so she was the first to have a chief of staff um because before.

Mrs. Carter had a policy director chief of staff but Mrs. Reagan actually made him chief of staff this is someone who The West Wing would never tell Mrs. Reagan what to do, she would tell him what to do but um, it was a commissioned officer, a position that in the White House hierarchy really matters and um, so she didn't want her Chief of Staff to be Chief of Staff without that honorary title and she was deputy assistant to the president. which is the second highest rank and remained so for many years until the Clinton administration elevated her to assistant to the president.

I'm very grateful to have been one too, but her chiefs of staff were all men, she didn't have a single woman. being chief of staff and it's very much a female enclave up until this point where there are several male chiefs of staff under Nancy Reagan and then, particularly in the Michelle Obama administration, there are many more men working on the staff right now and social secretary social secretary yes, yes, so the staff largely reflects gender norms or is just more representative of society, right, in many ways, like the first lady, just a mirror to see where society is.

Yes, exactly, and that's nice. There's another interesting thing when we think about Mrs. Trump, too, the first naturalized American citizen to be first lady, but not the first non-native, which is John Quincy M John Quincy Adam, yes, exactly, I'll pick first ladies for 10, yeah, um, we. I'm going to say a few words about another very generous first lady, Hillary Clinton, but I hope you're thinking about her questions or comments and getting ready to step up to the microphone, so let's leave plenty of time for that. So after we have the bushes, the Clintons come to the White House and also a different couple, the first first lady Baby Boomer and the first president as a baby boomer, Hillary Clinton with her own career outside and a professional she had met . her husband went to Yale Law School and she has been the breadwinner in that family.

He's been in Arkansas politics and is governor of Arkansas, but he doesn't make a lot of money, or at least not at the time, so she's like the rose. law firm, uh, a partner has made money for the family and they have a young daughter that they are raising, but remember what Bill Clinton famously or infamously said during the campaign. I guess, depending on one's opinion, if you vote for me, "I'll get a double offer because Hillary is basically going to be my partner in politics, so explain how she did it and what the response was.

It wasn't an easy country, you know." the country just wasn't ready for it, and there's no doubt that she was skilled, I mean completely, you know, knowledgeable, intelligent, as you say, as a lawyer, been deeply involved in child welfare issues and issues, care issues. medical, she, of course, was perfectly prepared to do the things that the president wanted her to do, let's remember that he delivered this health commission, um health care reform commission um to do it to execute it he trusted her she. could do it um Again the country just wasn't ready as you say it was a generational change uh some of the issues weren't done in a very transparent way either, which is really what hurt the initiative and when it finally failed, I mean, she really took a step back completely, reorganized the pivot now towards international work and the global empowerment of women made it very famous.

His speech in Beijing is considered one of the 100 best rhetorical speeches of the 20th century, curiously, four first ladies wrote about it in book two of Elena Roosevelt Hillary Clinton's Beijing and the one that surprises everyone is Barbara Bush's speech to Welsley , yeah, where there was such a reaction, you know, against her speaking to the students, they protested against it, she went up on stage to speak without knowing that they were broadcasting it live, I mean, it was a completely conservative change and non-feminist being and having not and achieved her status only through her husband and not through anything that completely dismissed him, you know.

Decades of work and service that she gave to the country, it was just a very complicated relationship with the feminist movement, yeah, and what her famous quote was, do you remember that? oh, the one at the end that brought the house down, do you want to say it or do you want me to say it? Okay, you're my friend by name, yeah, um, at the end of her speech, uh, uh, you know, she basically looks for the audience and says somewhere out there okay and somewhere out there uh who knows maybe one of you walk in my shoes one day and I wish you the best, which was brilliant and you can watch it if you don't want to, you can do it on YouTube.

Watch the whole speech because she talks about having careers as housewives but always keep her personal relationships and then with that big line so if you just want to see that part just show the house it's actually outside but they're in a tent. As I remember, there are only roars of approval from the AB students, it's just incredible and by the way, I can say that she called out the student who left the protest and who led the protest. It all happened, I talked to her for almost an hour on the phone at the girls' door.

There were no cell phones back then, right, this was a phone in the dorm hallway and she was just saying, I understand where you're coming from and how you feel. I want to tell you a little about my life too and my choices. the university named an award to this day, the Barbara Bush Award for Volunteerism, she talks about how to uplift students, yes, another part of her legacy, you ask, does anyone want to get up to the microphone and ask a question if they can't get up to the microphone? microphone. wave madly and talk loudly and I'll repeat the question.

Yes, can you come to the microphone, sir, right over here on the steps? That would be great, great, thank you, oh, I'm sorry, I apologize just so the people at home could hear yeah, I had a question, oh, I had a question about the future of those ladies and I don't know if your book has the appropriate title or not, given what will probably happen, it will happen, but we don't want to Forget about the women who served in history, um, and it will happen, and I also have a question, so we have it right, and let me ask you which one would you like to see?

Whatever the title of the first one, let's say non-binary or not, that was exactly the question I asked. I was going to ask well, both minds, both, exactly, what will happen when we have a man, as Barbara Bush said, a man who is first lady, but also what will happen when the person says: I want to be identified as non-binary, how do I do that? will we call? that person I think I think we'll see I have no idea what I would call the book that's a good question I'll leave it to you he'll still be a presidential spouse he'll still be a presidential spouse so regardless I would do it first person for the non-binary person and what about for the first good gentleman and we were close to that a couple of times true we almost contemplated it in 2008 we contemplated it in 2016 we havemany examples of it in our country where the Chief exe where the chief executive of the state is a woman and their spouses or husbands uh served, now we call it a second gentleman to the um uh husband of the vice president who, by the way, if you ask him which is your primary function, um, he Saying that supporting the vice president is a very traditional response and he has been given an initiative from the administration that is leading the anti-Semitism initiative, from what you are already seeing, you know the transformation and the potential of the role of a first lady who is a first gentleman and maybe because we have the first first lady to continue her professional career while we are first lady and continue to do a lot.

I want to ask Elizabeth, who represents another generation, yeah, oh, well, you think right, I mean, I really think Doug mhof. He will have set an example and I think he will largely probably follow that. I'm not sure if the role will really change too much because in terms of the policy that these figures are working on, generally speaking good initiatives that everyone can get behind and it's not necessarily, I mean, there could be an argument that a lot of these Things before have had a lot of gender. I think health and working with children is something that has been seen in the past. as a largely women's sphere of influence, but I think if we think in terms of literacy or environmentalism, mental health, right, these are completely intersecting distinctions of gender and age, so I really think that in terms of politics and fact "Like the substance of the job of what the spouse does, I don't think it's really going to change.

I think what might be interesting is what they do with this custom of displaying dresses at the SM Smithsonian after there's a suit there ". It will be a suit that will be nice because we will be able to display men's clothing. A beautiful suitcase and men's designers should get exactly what they are getting. I agree, it is very important because we were talking about Mrs. Rose in the World War II exhibition where there is a photo of her and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy to the United Kingdom, and they had received King George VI, along with Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and I said, oh, and when she, when Rose went to greet her two daughters at Buckingham Palace not long after they arrived in London, that she had her special dress that she had made a designer and she was so proud to have worn it to her son's inauguration, those 20-something years ago, and she had nine kids, so she made sure to say I don't think she needed to change it.

I hope I can do it.Look, we still have it somewhere and we see it on display here. Yes, please, your question. Hello, I am here as a representative of your online assistants. In fact, I have two questions for you. Perfect, who would you say is the most overlooked or underrated first lady? and which was the first lady who had the biggest

impact

on the presidency during her time in the White House, I want me to go first, oh God, well, I think actually that moment in the White House is where I would go wrong. with this. because I think from then on it would be Mrs.

Kennedy in terms of the way that she shapes the Kennedy legacy and the way that her husband's administration is remembered and I think that can't be overstated enough in terms of how she is really that. something that she curates, but I also want to say that her time in the White House is something of her legacy in terms of the White House Historical Association and you know, the restoration didn't want it to be called redecoration, the restoration of the White House . I think it's a huge thing and Barbara, as you mentioned, the kind of cultural diplomacy that she was doing, you know, when she went to France and she went to dinner at Versailles with Doré and the Parisians were completely captivated by her and so I think that in the global stage at that kind of point, if you think about what the

impact

of that was during the Cold War, I think it's huge, so I think she's probably one of the ones I would put there, but honestly, it's very difficult to distinguish because they all have their own rich legacies in different ways and they all play a very important role in their husbands' administrations.

I really think one of the overlooked ones is Pat Nixon, yeah I would totally agree with that, I think Elizabeth's point. There are some good books coming. There's a new one coming out this summer that I think will help shed light on the extent to which Mary Brennan's book, previously besieged by First Lady Pat Nixon, should be read. because yeah, I completely agree with that and I think you know not only is Her Image being slightly rehabilitated, but I think that in itself and these books that are coming out, you know you mentioned that Edith Wilson's book also points to an impulse. and like a public thirst to know more about these women in general, like a lot of these women were really overlooked, um and particularly, uh, before this modern period.

I'm nowhere near an expert on those years, but there are a lot of women who fall by the wayside or, you know, other women who fall through the cracks are the substitute hostess type. Yeah, we didn't include them in the book, that's a whole book that's not included, but first it's a completely different book. L, yes, because everyone has played a role, but they should have their own book, they did. Exactly, that's right, number two and we haven't had a chance to mention Laura, so we want to get back to Los Angeles Bush as well. Sure, good evening, my name is James Coughlin.

Hello James Happ, I am the nephew of Mary BR Gallagher, who were you? Maybe you know Mrs. Kennedy's name. She was Jacqueline Kennedy's secretary in the White House and was one of that senator's first four recruits. Kennedy had a next US senator from Massachusetts in 1953 and, perhaps what is not known is that Jaclyn Kennedy established a daycare in the White House. Yes, that is right on the third floor of the salarium so that Jacklin Kennedy and all the White House staff had their children would be schooled in the White House, yes, yes, and it was even more than a daycare, it was a preschool and then a kindergarten when Caroline came to that, yeah and it was integrated, uh, racially integrated, um with Andrew Hatcher. are um, because in particular social secretary Tish Baldridge was getting a lot of questions, you can imagine the questions from the public in the early '60s about school integration right after the Brown B meeting, uh, and so, for sure, it was uh and Mrs.

I. I just read this again that Mrs. Kennedy wanted to preserve her privacy so much once again that she thought that if she sent Caroline to preschool or kindergarten, the press would harass her and that wouldn't be fair to her either. his classmates. so you have a question and among those in daycare with my cousins ​​in Virginia oh Greg and Chris Gallagher oh who now live in Alexandria Virginia my aunt passed away last year at the age of 98 I saw that um yeah what great memories you must have of in the white house before the jacqulyn Kennedy era in the white house before she renovated the White House with my aunt's assistant my aunt gave us a tour of the White House.

I note that she helped Jackie with all the White House Restorations in the Kennedy Administration, Maya gave us a tour of the White House from top to bottom and excellently remembered each room that was renovated, the Madison Room, the Roosevelt Room , the treatment room without any note. She had great memories. about what each room meant and she also wrote that her aunt wrote a very beautiful memoir of her time with Jacqulyn Kennedy and I must tell you that I bought the book in B. I'm sure when I was in middle school or high school for Mi own personal Kennedy library and it became one of my mother's favorites and I still have it, but I have to hold it with a rubber band because it was a paperback and my mother read and reread it so often that The Binding broke. but she, of course, my mother had taken me and my brothers to see Senator John Kennedy in 1960 in Louisville, Kentucky, so we felt like we had a personal connection with him and so my mother felt that He had a personal connection with Mrs.

Kennedy, so he would read all the books that I brought home and then he would talk to me about her as if through your aunt, yes, he knew her, so we thank your aunt for leaving. Very welcome, she is very grateful for her service to the country, yes, one thing. about her was that my cousin Chris asked his mom to talk to my aunt Mary you were the most powerful people in the world jbk and JFK she didn't consider it an ordinary job, she considered it an ordinary job, nothing at all , no, but she was serving her country and unfortunately she was in Dallas, as I recall, on that fateful day, so thank you very much for speaking up.

I think we could have some others. My question is before the Kenny ER jock era at White. Restoration House, how did the White House appear before Jackie's renovations in '62? Well, Anita, would we have a whole chapter on this book that really tries to trace the evolution of all the Restorations? Renovations um uh to the White House because remember, of course, it was burned by the British in 1814, so it had to be rebuilt, a major renovation in 1901 with the Teddy Roosevelt administration, of course, they came in, they had five children in that time, still the president's office is the same place where the first family lived and um, they, the W, they add, they add the exe.

Right, they add the west wing, ultimately, then an oval office, um, and the east wings weren't added until the east wing, until the 45th, a bomb shelter, temporary bomb shelter and then it becomes office space , so there is and then the biggest renovation, of course, a total and ongoing reconstruction of the White House was between 1948 and 1952, three and a half years when the Trumans lived there, where the building was considered structurally unsound. falling apart from the inside out the piano was the leg It was breaking down everything that had to be done to the walls to the walls and actually the outside was preserved and then dug deep under belted steel completely renovated and actually better Truman silent better Truman , who had to follow Eleanor Roosevelt and famously said "I'm not going down any coal mine," wasn't going to be very public, but her experience of having worked as a Senate staffer for her husband, when he He was a senator from Missouri. she knew how things worked, frankly, I would consider her one of the first lobbyists because when the proposals were presented to Congress for how much it would cost to rebuild the White House, there were several proposals, the cheapest, of course, was to tear down the entire building and start again. and the most expensive one was the one that was finally made and there was a lot to do to improve Truman who actually works behind the scenes with the Senate appropriators and the spouses of those who would make the Senate appropriations decisions and basically his message was: if you do this, the American people will never forgive you for tearing down the building, so we've really heard, my God, what an icon it is.

Can you imagine democracy in our country and that we don't have mourning books? But I will say it in my chapter, restoration of the White. House I was like so many. I talked to Betty Monkman at the time, in the beginning, who was the curator about Mrs. Kennedy's restoration of the White House and she said people are so obsessed with what Mrs. Kennedy did and the tour of the White House. White House that she gave and, by the way, President Truman had given a televised tour with I think the EXA people remembered Mrs. Kennedy so much that Betty Mon said in the early 2000s that they thought nothing had changed in the White House since the Kennedys left in 1963 and, of course, that's always the case. thank God it is updated but it also has to be constantly restored how with the historical association the White House there is no government money if I can say one thing and this is the brilliance this is what you are going to say this is the brilliant I was just going to point out the sheer wear and tear that the building goes through, which is a minor point but it is one of the key reasons why we all need, yes, the funding, yes, the financial support, you know Mrs.

Kennedy. Creation in the creation of the White House Historical Association This brilliant decision, this 31-year-old woman comes to be first lady and knows that there will never be enough government money to keep protecting the White House as it should be, as a museum as a place of Excellence top to bottom and that's why the White House Historical Association really is the White House's partner in all of the restoration, the acquisition guide, the collection, the guide that she established, that you know every visitor that passed. I would pay a dollar to get this wonderful guide. It is now in its 24th or 25th edition.

Six. I think we're right up there with her, yeah, but a brilliant coup for her and you can also see it on YouTube, you can see it on the same. ending President Kennedy makes a cameo where he talks about the Cold War in a somewhat veiled way, but says that thousands of people come to this building. Boys and girlsThey learn about the presidency, they learn about civics and that we are not the oldest country. in the world, but we are the oldest democracy in the world with a presidency and it is a symbol, an icon, and he did not want her to take this initiative.

It's true, I thought it was elitist. I give you credit, thank you again, sir. We have a few more minutes left, we have a few more questions, please, yes, I have a couple more questions from our online viewers. Okay, so there's a first lady who made big mistakes and the second is how history will judge Melania Trump? Oh, in the mistakes. um category as much as we love and revere Abigail Adams and should, as a founding mother, sacrifice much of our country, she made a decision that was not helpful to her husband and she really didn't like her husband being criticized. . um in the press and um she was a big supporter of the alien Sedition Laws um those people could be arrested and imprisoned for criticizing the president um that you know was not again for someone who was so aware of what the ideals of democracy were. and freedom were in our constitution um and I was an abolitionist because I believed how could a country founded on freedom keep people in human slavery?

I mean, she certainly had every right in the instincts uh about what it meant to be a democracy. but in this case, you know, she really bad advised her husband to sign those questions. I would like to put this kind of two questions together and pick up the jacket because yeah, even though that was a mistake, it was a mistake, you know, I just don't do it. I don't care, you ask me if I care? Yeah, I don't care, yeah, I think it might have been from Zara or something, unfortunately, um, but yeah, Melania Trump wore that to visit the border, um, while this immigration crisis was going on and the kids. her parents were being separated it really wasn't good that was a mistake I think you never want to see the words I don't care and first lady in the same sentence is not a good is not a good wardrobe choice from someone who dressed beautifully every day, particularly someone who's been a little apathetic almost towards the role, you know?

She didn't name staff until February, when they would normally be named during the transition, she didn't even move into the White House until June, which largely had to do with her son being schooled in New York, but I think you know that her legacy It's particularly interesting in terms of and I was thinking about this when we were talking about Hillary Clinton earlier in terms of what the limits are. of the role are correct, but also remember that there is no kind of similar constitutional description, there is no description of the position, she has the right to withdraw and do that, but you know the power of this type of custom of these, um, these pets.

The projects that first ladies have, you know, are really ingrained in American culture and it's such an expectation that was so frowned upon that she really decided to step back, but I think this shows how the role really is yours to define. . and it's completely what you want it to be, so it's particularly interesting. I think on the fact that she won't arrive until June 2017, my opinion on that is again Your point is that you can choose how you want to deploy your influence or not as first lady because you don't get paid and I don't think the position should ever be paid because a Once that happens then you're really obligated, um, but by not coming until later, I think it made it easier for anyone who came after her who might want to do the same thing, whether for childish reasons, etc.

I think you have to look at it in the sense that someone has to break the mold and someone has to appoint a president on whatever the issue is and that is a case where she did it, and it is interesting to note that she did not choose a staff until February because what happened then was that he lost positions that had been assigned up to that point. for the first lady's office now we are eaten up by everyone else, especially in the west wing, so now she comes to hire staff and she has lost some budget and some positions, so it is difficult to recover and get that yes, another question, hello.

I'm a former history teacher turned vice principal of a great girls' high school and we're currently celebrating International Women's Month and you know, there are a lot of rumors in the building, but I've noticed that I hear a lot less about the role of first ladies. um and I think a lot about how our girls have access to so much information and consume media in different ways and maybe we did Growing Up um I don't know if they would delve into one of your books um so I'm wondering if you have any podcasts or networking resources? social media that you think would be particularly attractive to that age group.

First, through the White House Historical Association, where we have educational materials for all ages, from the youngest to those who already know. All of us here in this room have a lot of programs online, we have some really good new initiatives and things that will come up. I would love to give you that website, use it as a resource and also what we have. we have teacher training institutes where we are training middle school and high school teachers um uh history teachers social studies um teachers with a lot of interesting and interactive materials uh M that I think would be interesting to their students to the point that Barbara had mentioned that you know, Before this book there was a textbook and I gave it its college level textbook, college level textbook, but the most interesting thing was that the students were assigned chapters to read, we were testing this book before releasing it . in August, all the students, men and women, said why I never learned this before, so really, you know, we're missing the opportunity, um uh, to teach students about these remarkable women from our history, um, granted , it has to be attractive to them there is a recent podcast um uh that is already available in the first list.

It's going to be a short, limited series um uh that actually 1600 sessions is really cool in the 1600 sessions there may be a little more detail in them. but they are, but they're great and it's very easy to listen to the White House Historical Association, um, and I think Anita is absolutely right in terms of the resources that you have there, that's probably probably the best place for St to anyone, yes, I agree, thank you because we have to mention our buttons, oh I know, for each member, all three of us, Anita is a founding member of an organization called Flare First Ladies Association for research and education and our Mantra.

She's lighting the lamps of her legacy, something like that, she says she has a flame. Sorry, all our flare members are watching, they are going to be so angry, how could the founding member not remember what they say the library for? the torch has been passed, okay, but it's a wonderful organization, so our goal is for there to be as much scholarship and knowledge and interest in the first ladies and we're really trying to collaborate on a national level and shed light on all of their contributions. we have our own website, there is also a first ladies library in Ohio, they have their own website and I will also mention that there are, from Mrs.

McKinley onwards, SL books, about the first ladies, mainly about your first lady, but what they did before and after. from Kansas University Press, a great book, so if students have an interest in a particular first lady, we highly recommend it as well. I would also add maybe very briefly if they were old enough as there have been so many TV shows made recently. I think, again, it really shows how there is this public appetite to learn more about these women. I think the most recent one, which was kind of first ladies, where Elena reveled in Michelle Obama and Ford, and CNN in 2020 did six sessions, they did six episodes in the first one. different first ladies, which I think is very good, it is for a broad audience that includes young young students and an appropriate age.

Thank you very much, you're welcome, thank you for asking and for teaching. Do we have time for just one more question? Yes this. It's the last one from our online audience, okay? Did Mrs. Kennedy's devotion to privacy provide a structure for following the First Ladies as they navigated the expansion of television in America? I absolutely want to take advantage of that strengthening, thank God, because of her we didn't have social networks. media, my goodness, um, she, in my opinion, is the model for raising particularly Rel raising young children in the White House, so she kept for herself and those two lovely children, John Jor, in Caroline, uh , privacy, I didn't want them to be photographed now that the president was different. so if she were absent, he would meet with Pierre Salager and bring photographers and thank God because we have some of the most seductive ones.

Well, the photo of John Jor under the desk would never have happened if she had stopped that photo so sociá, but she uh and then Hillary Clinton contacted her because she had a little daughter who came to the White House in the years of Clinton and then they approached Mrs. Kennedy and she said, as she said in the White House, that Mrs. Kennedy did that is the most important job of a first lady with little children, the country girls, the twins were a little older and they were in college, um, it's also interesting how many daughters there have been in the White House, it's like one of those strange quirks of history, yeah, like you.

The Johnsons had like two daughters and the Nixons had two daughters, Margaret Truman, yes, and marriages in the White House, which I think is again something where you have to have consecutive administrations where you have presidential families, whether it's weddings in the White House, I think. It's kind of one of those weird quirks of history that intensifies this press operation and there's a lot of media interest and it actually forces these women to really think about how they're running their press operation in a lot more depth, yeah. but again with Mrs. Kennedy, um, and in her post-White House years, what I always say is that she maintained His image, she mentioned her image, she maintained His image and her legacy, she didn't write a memoir, she didn't continue.

Oprah kept her private until the end and I think that's a model that I don't know if first ladies again in the age of social media and 247 media can do it, but I take my hat off to my pillbox. Let's go and with that we should close our conversations, but we are here if you want to talk and thanks not only to Alan but also to Li. Thanks Al. Thank you very much. Barbara was great.