Lou Henry Hoover and Eleanor Roosevelt

LOU HENRY HOOVER 

Birth:
 
29 March 1874
Waterloo, Iowa 

Marriage:
 
24 years old, to Herbert Clark Hoover (born 10 August 1874, West Branch, Iowa,  died 26 October 1964, New York, New York) geologist, mining engineer and executive, on 10 February 1899 at the Monterey, California home of her parents.
 
During her first year at Stanford, Lou Henry was introduced to Herbert Hoover by her professor, J.C. Branner, to his assistant, a senior. They not only shared an Iowa origin but a love of geology and fishing. After graduating, Hoover went to Australia as a gold miner for a British mining company. Beginning with that position, Hoover earned increasingly larger salaries, becoming a millionaire at a young age. It was from Australian that he sent Lou Henry a telegram asking her to marry him, an offer which she accepted. With neither a Quaker nor Episcopalian minister available to perform their marriage, the Hoovers were married in a civil ceremony by Roman Catholic priest, Father Ramon Mestres, of the San Carlos Borromeo Mission. Following her graduation, in the interim, Hoover accepted the offer of the young Chinese Emperor to be Director General of the Department of Mines of the Chinese Government. Later in the day, they took the train to San Francisco. The following day, 11 February 1899, they sailed for China.  

Campaign and Inauguration:
 
Despite her experience as a professional speaker to large audiences who addressed public issues, Lou Hoover assumed no such role in her husband’s 1928 and 1932 presidential campaigns. She joined him in a post-election, pre-inauguration goodwill trip to Honduras, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Latin America. Immediately preceding the 1929 swearing-in ceremony of her husband as President in the U.S. Capitol Building, Lou Hoover and the outgoing First Lady Grace Coolidge were not escorted and lost their way in the labyrinth of hallways that led to the West Front, where the ceremonies were to take place; their delay inadvertently delayed the ceremony. Following the tradition since the 1913 Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, there was no Inaugural Ball.
 
First Lady:
 
54 years old
4 March 1929 – 4 March 1933
 
Despite her enormous record of activism, public speaking, fundraising, and professionalism in all that she did, Lou Hoover decided to restrict the degree of her activism once she assumed what she believed to a be a public duty which required a more subdued traditionalism.
 
Nevertheless, she made one immediate innovation that set a precedent which her successors followed or were criticized for not doing: she continued to deliver speeches not only in auditoriums but to also give public addresses over the radio. Just over a month after becoming First Lady, her brief 19 April 1929 speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution was carried on the radio. Others soon followed: 22 June 1929 to the 4-H Clubs; 23 March 1931 as a representative of the Women’s Division of the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment; 6 May 1931 to the New York Maternity Center Association – along with former First Lady Edith Roosevelt making her first public remarks to be recorded – on the subject of infant and new-mother mortality in America; 7 November 1931, again to the 4-H Clubs; 27 November 1932 on behalf of the  National Women’s Committee of the Welfare and Relief Mobilization of 1932, on the topic of “The Woman’s Place in the Present Emergency.” She took her “talkie voice” seriously enough that she had a recording system set up in the White House enabling her to replay her recordings and test the pitch, tone and pacing of her voice. With a great interest in the popular films of her era, Lou Hoover had equipment placed in the oval room of the family quarters to screen sound motion pictures for her guests, the equipment and installation donated by a Hollywood studio.  She also used her own silent movie camera in her private life. On another, more tragic aspect of her era’s popular culture, the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby son, Lou Hoover kept in close touch with the child’s mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a personal friend.
 
Unfortunately, Lou Hoover’s radio addresses were the extent of her use of the modern media. Following a traditional tact of First Ladies, she refused to grant any formal interviews to print or broadcast journalists during her tenure, though she would answer to impromptu questions that reporters might be able to pose to her. Despite her long life in the public eye, she had a growing mistrust of the media, especially as the Great Depression worsened and she read accounts involving the President which she felt had been distorted and thus failed to serve the public with truth

ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ROOSEVELT

Birth: 11 October 1884
New York City, New York

Marriage and Husband:20 years old on 17 March 1905, adjoining homes of her maternal aunts, New York City, New York, to Franklin Delano Roosevelt [“FDR”], 22 years old, Harvard University undergraduate student (born 30 January 1882, Hyde Park, New York; died 12 April, 1945, Warm Springs, Georgia)

*President Theodore Roosevelt attended his orphaned niece down the aisle during her wedding ceremony, having previously been scheduled to be in New York City to participate in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade

The genealogical relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR is fifth cousin, once removed. They share a mutual ancestor in Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt (the translation of which means son of Marten of the rose field), who immigrated to America from Holland to the then-named New Amsterdam colony [New York] in approximately 1649. His son Nicholas Roosevelt (1658-1742) is the last common ancestor of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. FDR’s great-great-great grandfather (Jacobus Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) and Eleanor Roosevelt’s great-great-great-great grandfather (Johannes Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) were brothers.

Under the Woodrow Wilson Administration, FDR was appointed Assistant Navy Secretary (1913-1920). Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled the social obligations then incumbent upon officials’ spouses, including the making and hosting of social calls among each other on specified days at specified times. She also joined some spouses in accepting the invitation of First Lady Ellen Wilson to tour the so-called alley dwellings of deplorable housing conditions of the capital city’s largely African-American underclass, the intention of which, to demolish the dangerous and unsanitary living spaces, was achieved by a congressional bill. Efforts to relocate the displaced individuals into permanent housing were usurped by US entry into World War I

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:

Having known personally the constrictions placed on her aunt Edith Roosevelt, when she became First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt had a tremendous ambivalence throughout the course of FDR’s first presidential campaign. She believed he was the ideal leader to guide the nation through the Great Depression, but feared the loss of her own independent life. Nevertheless, in 1931, in anticipation of the campaign, she organized the women’s division of “Friends For Roosevelt,” the exploratory committee that would launch his candidacy, and also wrote and edited much of the literature about him. As far as public campaigning, however, Eleanor Roosevelt was more visible on behalf of Herbert Lehman, the Democrat hoping to succeed her husband as New York Governor. She continued her role as intermediary between Farley and Howe, and reviewed the publicity of the National Democratic Committee’s Women’s Division, which were printed on colored-paper "rainbow fliers" – which were intended to appeal to women’s femininity. She attended the 1932 convention which nominated FDR, and also become the fourth woman in history to successfully vote for her husband’s election as president.

First Lady:

48 years old
4 March 1933 - 12 April 1945

No presidential wife served as First Lady for a period longer than did Eleanor Roosevelt – twelve years, one month, one week and one day. No First Lady served through two nationally traumatic events such as did Eleanor Roosevelt, presiding at the White House during the Great Depression and World War II. Unique to her tenure was the fact that the President was physically limited by his then-hidden condition of polio. Thus apart from finding a way to integrate her own professional interests and experiences into the public role of First Lady and assume the traditional management of the mansion’s functioning as a political-social arena, Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with the President and his staff as an unofficial Administration representative and on policy-related issues. Despite this being an outgrowth of her own progressive reform work, it was now conducted within a public realm, making both her, personally, and the Administration, generally, vulnerable to political attack and criticism, the charge being that she was neither elected nor appointed to carry out such tasks as it related to the American people. Generally, Eleanor Roosevelt ignored the frequent criticism to help achieve her goals or those Administration objectives with which she concurred.

Unlike her three immediate predecessors (Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, Lou Hoover), Eleanor Roosevelt did not enter into the role of First Lady with specific plans to continue previous support for a constituency (Harding and animal rights and WWI veterans, Coolidge and the hearing-impaired, Hoover and the Girl Scouts). All she knew for certain was that she would be active in word and deed, especially in light of the devastation the Great Depression was continuing to have on the lives of millions of Americans.. Her extraordinary history of experience and work in progressive advocacy policy, the media, education, and women’s issues, however, greatly informed her as she found her direction, established her agenda and relied on professional contacts. In terms of her life experiences and her evolving vision as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was unprecedented in comparison to others who had or would assume the role.

Ellen Wilson and Grace Coolidge

Ellen Louise Axson Wilson

Born: May 15, 1860 in Savannah, Georgia

Died: August 6, 1914 in Washington, D.C., in the White House

Courtship and Marriage:  In the summer of 1883, Ellen met Thomas Woodrow Wilson at her father’s church and fell in love. Both were highly principled, motivated and widely read people who had deeply passionate and romantic hearts.  Both Woodrow and Ellen were religious, she more open minded than he and both were to be deeply dependent on one another.  Their early courtship was made more difficult due to Rev. Axson’s collapse and later commitment to an insane asylum, which was a drain on Ellen’s emotions and physical strength.  Axson’s death on May 28, 1884, a probable suicide, saddened Ellen and made her question her desirability as a wife, but Woodrow overcame her fears.  Using some of the money left to her by her father, Ellen returned to New York to study art at the Art Student’s League and on Sunday afternoons she taught African-American children at the city mission.  She and Woodrow wrote each other of their hopes, dreams, and when he was offered a teaching position at Bryn Mawr College, they were able to marry.  They married at her grandparents’ home in Savannah, the ceremony being conducted by her minister grandfather and father-in-law on June 24, 1885.

Age at Marriage: 25 years, 40 days

 First Lady:  March 4, 1913- August 6, 1914.  Ellen Wilson had but a year and five months in the White House. The second Mrs. Wilson would soon overshadow the public’s memory of Ellen, which is unfortunate because Ellen made her own contributions while First Lady.  Her gentle manner and soft Southern drawl made the staff call her “the Angel in the White House.”  She would be aided by all three of her daughters and her cousin Helen Bones, who served as her personal secretary. She also hired Belle Hagnar as her social secretary.  She averaged over 41 receptions with 600 guests at each that spring and found time to redecorate the family quarters of the White House, including artwork from the Appalachians Hills.  Ellen also oversaw the creation of the Rose Garden, bringing her gardener from Princeton to the White House.  It was in the area of reform that Ellen Wilson made her greatest impact. On March 22, 1913, she listened as the head of the women’s department of the National Civic Federation told her of the plight of Black citizens in Washington.  Two days later, Mrs. Wilson toured the city and saw first hand the slums of the nation’s capital.  She also saw the working conditions of women in the Post Office, where they didn’t have sanitary facilities.  Mrs. Wilson had difficulty in getting the attention of the President’s advisor, Colonel Edward House, until she pointedly asked him questions at a White House dinner in a loud enough voice to gain everyone’s attention.  The situation was soon corrected, at least for women in the Post Office.  Ellen Wilson joined a committee of 50 to campaign for the passing of an bill that would destroy the slums and create better housing for Washington’s poor.  She became interested in child labor laws, the enforcement of school attendance laws, and the use of schools as recreation centers.  In the summer of 1913, Ellen went to join an art colony in Cornish, New Hampshire.  The letters between husband and wife showed how much Wilson needed and depended on Ellen.  Jessie’s wedding on November 25, 1913 in the White House was a moment of great joy but for Ellen, it depleted her small reserve of strength.  In March 1914, Ellen fell in her bedroom which shook her already weakened body.  The doctors by then knew she had Bright’s Disease, but she was not told for a long while.  She begged her husband to see her bill passed and shortly before she died, she was told that the Alley Dwelling Bill had passed.  

Even though Ellen was not at the white house long due to her death she played a big part in her position as first lady.   She was key to a bill passing called Alley Dwelling Bill that was past just before her death.  Though she did not have a big key in the publics eye. 

Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge

Born: January 3, 1879 Burlington, Vermont
Died: July 7, 1957

In the spring of 1905, she met Calvin Coolidge.

Husband: (John) Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933)

Courtship and Marriage: Grace and Calvin has a whirlwind romance. They met in the spring of 1905 and were married that fall. The biggest obstacle in their romance was Grace’s mother, Lemira Goodhue. Lemira thought very little of her daughter’s choice for a husband. Calvin’s father, Colonel John Coolidge, on the other hand, thought the world of Grace. Coolidge was a quiet, shy, silent man who shared with Grace a love of family, a quiet faith and an impish sense of humor. Over Lemira Goodhue’s objections, Grace and Calvin were married on October 4, 1905 at her parent’s home in Burlington, Vermont.
Age at Marriage: 26 years, 274 days

 At no point did Coolidge ever consult Grace about his political decisions.


First Lady: August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929: A telephone call alerted the Coolidges early on the morning of August 3, 1923 that President Harding had died in San Francisco. Grace Coolidge watched as her husband was sworn is as President by his father, Colonel John Coolidge, a notary public. (It was later discovered that a notary public could not swear in a president and the oath had to be re-administered). Grace thought to herself, "This is me and yet not me." She already began to feel the distance created by becoming First Lady.
The Coolidges were sympathetic to Mrs. Harding and did not push her to leave the White House. When she did on August 16th, the Coolidges waited another week before moving in.
President Coolidge made all the decisions on White House functions, including when, where, and who was to be invited and even kept a tight control on the kitchen. Grace’s only role was to appear ready, pretty, well dressed and charming. When she questioned her husband about the evening receptions and who was invited, he was not forthcoming with information. It took every ounce of her charm, sunny disposition and humor to offset his taciturn and sour disposition. It was Mrs. Coolidge who fostered stories of her husband’s dry wit and who used her own sense of humor to lighten what could have been a dull White House.
 

Edith Roosevelt and Helen Taft

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt 

Born: August 6, 1861, in Norwich, Connecticut

 Courtship and Marriage: Edith met Theodore and his family at the age of four and grew up with the Roosevelt children; she was friends with Roosevelt's sister, Corrine. By the time she was sixteen, Theodore Roosevelt had taken notice of her. He proposed many times but at some point in 1878, they quarreled and coolness grew between them. (The quarrel may have had to do with Theodore’s father’s warning about Charles Carow.) Edie was heartbroken at the news of Theodore’s engagement to Alice Hathaway Lee but hid it well. She bragged about dancing at their wedding in October of 1880. Her father died in 1883 and her mother moved to Europe (where she resided with Edith’s sister Emily for the rest of her life, much to Edith’s relief), while Edie remained in the U.S. She attended Alice Hathaway Roosevelt’s funeral in February 1884 but made it a point to avoid her old flame. Nevertheless, in September 1885, the romance rekindled.
Theodore proposed and Edith accepted on November 17, 1885. Edith sailed early the next year to help her mother settle in Italy, and Theodore agreed to join her in Europe. They were married on December 2, 1886 at St. George’s Church in London and honeymooned in France. They returned to America early in 1887.
Age at Marriage: 25 years, 118 days 

 rst Lady: September 14, 1901-March 4 1909. After the departure of Ida McKinley for Ohio following William McKinley’s assassination, Edith and her family waited a few days before moving into the White House. She found it cramped and stuffy and made immediate plans to make the second floor inaccessible to the public. She wanted her children to have as normal a life as possible. She would study Caroline Harrison’s plans for an enlarged White House and make plans of her own for the 1902 renovation. She ran the White House herself, and officially changed the name from the Executive Mansion to the White House. She would study newspapers and articles she felt her husband should be aware of. Edith also underscored her husband’s tendency to talk too long by tapping the table with her finger, causing his flow of words to cease. She recognized the importance of the role the First Lady and established a First Ladies’ Gallery on the ground level. She also followed up on Caroline Harrison’s interest in the White House china by creating a China Room. Most importantly, she hired a social secretary, Belle Hagner, who was added to the official White House payroll. The Office of the First Lady was created. Edith had little interest in clothes (unlike Ida McKinley) and as one reporter snidely said, "Looks like she dresses on a yearly budget of $3000," which Edith took as a compliment. She found the White House antiquated and in 1902, she had the firm of the McKim, Mead and White draw up house prints to restore the White House to its 18th century style.  The Roosevelts moved out for six months.  Eith kept abreast of the changes from Sagamore Hill. A west wing was added, the front foyer improved and the East Wing was restored to its Federal style appearance.  She also  added a tennis court and found time to approve a new china pattern.  After Theodore's election in 1904, Edith Roosevelt continued to imp;rove the White House.   Edith allowed her office to be used by the State Department for secret letters  to be passed between the President and Cecil Spring-Rice, a close personal friend and the English ambassador to Russia. This secret correspondence helped in creating a peace treaty between Japan and Russia in 1905.  Eith's help and silence were paramount in this situation.  Two decisions he made she particularly deplored: his decision not to run again in 1908 and his friendship with William Howard Taft, whom she considered weak. Her two greatest social occasions were the reception of the Kaiser's brother, jPrince Henry of Prussia and the marriage in 1906 of her stepdaughter, "Princess" Alice.  She disliked the public eye and controlled the press by making photos, taken by a photographer she hired, available to them.  She barely missed the White House when she left in 1909.

HELEN LOUISE "NELLIE" HERRON TAFT

Birth: 2 June, 1861
Cincinnati, Ohio

Marriage:
25 years old, 19 June, 1886, the Herron home, Pike Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, to William Howard Taft (born 15 September 1857, Cincinnati, Ohio), lawyer (died 8 March 1930, Washington, D.C.)

Campaign and Inauguration:
Nellie Taft was more thoroughly involved in the political elements of her husband's 1908 campaign than she was at any other point in his career.. In dozens of letters, she advised him on how to position himself, sometimes down to what words to use, so that he would be seen as supporting some of Roosevelt's popular policies yet also standing on his own, apart from Roosevelt. Her role was largely hidden from the public, conducted instead through private correspondence or in closed-door meetings. There were, however, occasional newspaper references to her active political role and she appeared as a caricature in a political cartoon illustrating the "Valentine's Day gift" of the Minnesota primary being won by Taft, she being depicted in cap and snowshoes giving him a heart-shaped card.
Throughout the Republican Convention in June of 1908, Nellie Taft and her husband kept in close contact with their representatives there; she was certain a stampede for Roosevelt would lead to his spontaneous nomination, instead of it coming to Taft. While Nellie Taft was in attendance at the large "Notification Day" ceremony at the Cincinnati mansion of Taft's brother Charles, when her husband was officially notified of his nomination. However,  she only appeared with him for one leg of his whistlestop campaign, in the autumn of 1908.
Nellie Taft made a permanent mark in history by becoming the first First Lady to ride in the Inaugural Parade with her husband, following the swearing-in ceremony. Many newspapers at the time considered it a symbol of what they assumed to be her support of full suffrage for women. Against the advice of traditionalists, she had decided she would make the ride several days earlier when she learned that outgoing President Roosevelt was opting out of the tradition to accompany his successor back to the White House.


First Lady:
47 years old
4 March 1909 - 4 March 1913
Nellie Taft made immediate and drastic changes to the running of the White House, many of which were intended as much to be politically symbolic as practical. The most obvious change she made was seen at the time as a positive one for African-Americans. As First Lady, she replaced the all-white male ushers who greeted visitors at the White House with African-American ushers in uniform. Even though "usher" was a position on the domestic staff, it was considered highly prestigious. The white backlash to the move feared by the President's military aide Archie Butt never happened; instead, a New York Times editorial praised her for it. In contrast to the social codes of Edith Roosevelt, Nellie Taft widened the chances for different people to attend White House events. She lifted the ban on divorced individuals. Instead of strictly society figures, she invited all members of Congress, as well as their family members, and all ranks of the military stationed in the area. She enlarged the social schedule of dinners to include a season of musical concerts, enabling her to invite even more different individuals. She also refused to hold events on Sundays, encouraging public figures to stay home and enjoy their families. At the large New Year's Day Reception and Easter Egg Roll, she provided refreshments, seats, rest areas, first aid and other services for the thousands of members of the general public who attended.

From this I see that Nellie was more involved in the election than past first ladies have been.  It seems that as time goes each one has a little bit of difference on how they are involved and to what extent this involvement is.

Rachel Jackson and Mary Lincoln

RACHEL DONELSON ROBARDS JACKSON

Born:
Born near the Banister River, about ten miles from present-day Chatham, Virginia, Pittsylvania County, in 1767; the exact date of her birth was not recorded at the time, but has been invariably attributed to the month of June, with some sources designating the date as 15 June

Marriage:

First marriage:

18 years old to Lewis Robards (born 1758, Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky; died, 15, April, 1814, Harrodsburg, Kentucky), land owner, speculator, on 1 March, 1785, at Lincoln County, Kentucky. Lewis and Rachel Robards lived in Harrodsburg with his elderly mother for over three years, until the late summer or early fall of 1788.
Divorce: The ultimate divorce of Rachel Jackson from her first husband would come to shatter all precedent in presidential history. It was the first time that such a deeply personal event would be used against a presidential candidate in a campaign and it was also the first large public consideration of the conceptual ideal of what kind of personal background a First Lady should ideally possess. It thus unwittingly played one of the first and important public debates in the history of First Ladies. Lewis Robards and his defenders would claim that his former wife had shamelessly flirted and that he asked her brother to remove Rachel from her marital home, but that he later sought reconciliation. Upon his return to Nashville, they claimed he found her in an inappropriately close relationship with Andrew Jackson, a circuit lawyer boarding with the Donelsons who then eloped with her in Natchez, Mississippi in an illegal marriage. This resulted in his seeking and gaining a divorce. In contrast, the Donelsons and Jacksons claimed that Robards had physically abused Rachel and that she ran first to her mother's home and then - when word came that Robards was coming to take her back to their Kentucky home - fled for fear of her life to Natchez with friends, a married couple, all of them guided and protected by Jackson. They further claim that when Jackson returned to Nashville alone that he was told that Robards had boasted that he had successfully processed a divorce from Rachel, thus leaving her open to marry Jackson. The Jackson defenders would suggest that Robards had purposely misled them so that if Andrew and Rachel Jackson did marry and live together that it would make the union an adulterous one that was all the proof needed for Robards to then gain a divorce. The Jackson evidence was weakened by the fact that no legal marriage of theirs could be legitimized in then-Spanish-ruled Mississippi because they were Protestant and only Catholic wedding ceremonies were recognized as legal unions. Robards did follow the law by first obtaining a required legislative grant to file a divorce. He then did so based on the fact that Rachel had openly committed adultery, and the divorce was granted on TK to him, she found to be guilty of abandonment as well. The Jacksons remarried legally in Tennessee, but the incident had made Rachel Jackson a bigamist and adulterer.
*Rachel Robards Jackson was the first of three First Ladies who marriages previous to that of a President had ended in divorce.
Second marriage:
26 years old, to Andrew Jackson (born March 15, 1767 in Waxhaws, North Carolina - died June 08, 1845, at the "Hermitage," in Davidson, Tennessee) on January 7, 1794, Nashville, Tennessee at the Donelson home. For the three years following their "Natchez" wedding, Andrew Jackson and Rachel Robards had lived with her mother and the Donelson clan in Nashville. They continued to make their home there until TK, when they began construction of what would be the first building to later comprise their famous Hermitage plantation.

 Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Early in the 1828 presidential race, the story of Rachel Jackson's former status as an adulterer, bigamist and divorcee was used against her husband by the press supporting his rival for the presidency, John Quincy Adams. These included an anti-Jackson pamphlet called Truth's Advocate, printed in Cincinnati, and articles in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, National Banner and Nashville Whig. One editorial asked, "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?" Many of Jackson's detractors claimed he was not fit for the presidency based partially on his professional and personal behavior stemming from the circumstances of the Robard's divorce and his marriage.

MARY ANNE TODD LINCOLN

 

Born:  
Place: Lexington, Kentucky
Date: 1818, December 13 

 Marriage:
23 years old, married 1842, November 4 to Abraham Lincoln, lawyer (1809-1865), in the front parlor of the home of Mary Todd's sister Elizabeth and her husband Ninian Edwards, Springfield, Illinois. On 1841, January 1, Abraham Lincoln broke his initial engagement to Mary Todd several months after she had accepted. For the first two years of their marriage, they lived at the Globe Tavern in Springfield. In 1844, they purchased their first and only home at Eight and Jackson Streets in Springfield. 

 Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:Legend claims that as a young woman Mary Todd had announced to friends that the man she married would someday become President of the United States. Her vigorous defense and support of Lincoln's presidential candidacy in 1860, willingness to speak with reporters who came to Springfield to cover Lincoln's campaign, as well as her "speeches," (as a New York Times article termed her overt discussion of political issues), during the transition period between election and inauguration days prove her eagerness to assume a prominent public role in her husband's presidency. Due to the sectional strife and imminent secession of South Carolina, however, Lincoln's 1861 inaugural was overshadowed by threats on his life. Many of the wealthy southern families who had dominated the social-political life of the capital were leaving and those remaining social leaders, including the outgoing First Lady Harriet Lane had pre-judged the "western" Mrs. Lincoln with a regional bias as unsuited to assume a social leadership role. In the 1865 campaign there was a threat that Democratic operatives were planning to make Mrs. Lincoln and her "crockery," meaning the expensive state china she had purchased, an issue; it never materialized. After the 1865 inaugural ceremony at the Capitol, Mrs. Lincoln hosted a large reception in the White House. 

 First Lady:
1861, March 4 - 1865, April 14
42 years old
 
With the difficulty of making medical conclusions about Mrs. Lincoln long after she lived, precise assessment of what mental and physical problems she may have suffered is impossible. She did manifest behavior that suggests severe depression, anxiety and paranoia, migraine headaches, even possibly diabetes. Certainly all of her ills were exacerbated by a series of tragic circumstances during her White House tenure: the trauma of Civil War, including the allegiance of much of her family to the Confederacy and their death or injury in battle; an 1863 accident which threw her from a carriage and knocked her unconscious; the accusations by northerners that she was sympathetic to the Confederacy and the ostracizing of her as a "traitor" by southerners; the sudden death of her son Willie in 1862; and, of course, the worst incident of all, the assassination of her husband as she sat beside him in the Ford's Theater.
 
Mary Lincoln viewed her expensive 1861 White House redecoration and her extravagant clothing purchases (the former over-running a federal appropriation of $20,000 by $6,000, and the latter driving her family into great debt) as a necessary effort to create an image of the stability that would command respect not only for the President but the Union. She felt this most keenly in light of the uncertain neutrality of France and England. Public and press reaction, however, was ridicule and anger. She instead conveyed the image of a selfish and indulgent woman inconsiderate of the suffering that most of the nation's families were enduring as a result of the war her husband was managing. In time, she would even press Republican appointees to pay her debts, since they owed their positions to her husband.
  

Louisa Adams and Abigail Adams

Louisa Adams

Born:  

12 February, 1775

London, England

Marriage:

22 years old to John Quincy Adams (11 July, 1767 - 23 February, 1848), on 26 July, 1797, London, England; shortly after their wedding, the Adamses had planned to sail to Lisbon, Portugal where he was to assume a new diplomatic mission. At the time of his marriage, Adams had served as the secretary to the U.S. Minister to Russia (1781), and to the Minister to the Netherlands (1794). Instead, he was re-assigned by his father (who had at that point been President of the United States for four months) to serve as Minister to Prussia. The wedding of the President's son to a British-born subject attracted national press back in the United States, the Boston Independent Chronicle's14 September, 1797 edition noting that, "Young John Adams' Negotiations have terminated in a Marriage Treaty with an English lady…" 

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:

Despite her frequent expressions of dislike for political life, Louisa Adams believed strongly in her own husband's ability to be President, and often seemed to do more, at least publicly, than he did in pursuing that goal. With her weekly open house reception and regular attendance at legislative sessions, Louisa Adams curried favor with Congressmen, who were to serve as the final electors in the campaign of 1824. 

First Lady:

4 March 1825 - 4 March 1829

52 years old

 

Perhaps there was no more genuinely depressing period as a political wife for Louisa Adams than her tenure as First Lady. Acrimony stemming from the bitter election results - and many charges that Adams had gained his office by immorally manipulating a backroom political deal - overshadowed the Administration. While she remained loyal to her husband, Louisa Adams was also deeply disappointed in him for the deal he had made to get the presidency. She also was discouraged by the increasing factionalism of the nation's political system, believing that voters made decisions based on emotions and not rational decisions. A diplomatic mission would have been better for her and her husband than the presidency, she concluded. 

Abigail Adams-

Born:
Place: Weymouth, Massachusetts
Date: 1744, November 11 

Marriage:
19 years old, married 1764, October 25 to John Adams, lawyer (1735-1826), in Smith family home, Weymouth, Massachusetts, wed in matrimony by her father, the Reverend Smith. After the ceremony, they drove in a horse and carriage to a cottage that stood beside the one where John Adams had been born and raised. This became their first home. They moved to Boston in a series of rented homes before buying a large farm, "Peacefield," in 1787, while John Adams was Minister to Great Britain.

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
As much of her political role was conducted in correspondence, so too was Abigail Adams's active interest in her husband's two presidential campaigns, in 1796 and 1800, when his primary challenger was their close friend, anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson. Caring for her husband's dying mother; Abigail Adams was unable to attend his March 4, 1797 inaugural ceremony in Philadelphia. She was highly conscious, however, of how their lives would change that day, with "a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it."


 First Lady:
1797, March 4 - 1801, March 4
52 years old

Of the four years her husband served as President, Abigail Adams was actually present in the temporary capital of Philadelphia and then, finally, the permanent "Federal City," of Washington, D.C. for a total of only eighteen months. She nonetheless made a strong impression on the press and public. She was unofficially titled "Lady Adams," and encouraged such recognition by assuming a visible ceremonial role. After touring a New Jersey Army encampment, she reviewed the troops stationed there as "proxy" for the President. Often mentioned in the press, her opinions were even quoted at a New England town hall meeting. A highly partisan Federalist, Mrs. Adams helped forward the interests of the Administration by writing editorial letters to family and acquaintances, encouraging the publication of the information and viewpoint presented in them. She was sarcastically attacked in the opposition press, her influence over presidential appointments questioned and there were printed suggestions that she was too aged to understand questions of the day. One anti-Federalist derided her as "Mrs. President" for her partisanship. Indeed, Abigail Adams supported the sentiment behind her husband's Alien and Sedition Acts as a legal means of imprisoning those who criticized the President in public print. Fearful of French revolutionary influence on the fledgling United States, she was unsuccessful in her urging the President to declare war with France. She remained an adamant advocate of equal public education for women and emancipation of African-American slaves.

 

Dolley Madison and Elizabeth Monroe

Dolley Madison

Born:  
Place: Guilford County, North Carolina
Date: 1768, May 20 

Education:
No record exists of any formal education; although Philadelphia's Pine Street Meeting, to which the Paynes belonged, did offer class instructions for girls as well as boys, Dolley Payne was 15 years old at the time she moved to Philadelphia and was past the usual age for school.

Marriage:
First:
21 years old, married 1790, January 7 at Pine Street Meeting House, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to John Todd, lawyer (1763-1793); they lived in a modest three-story brick house at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets; Todd died in a yellow fever epidemic, 1793, October 14
 
Second:
26 years old, married 1794, September 15, "Harewood" estate, Charles Town, West Virginia to James Madison (1751-1836), planter, U.S. Congressman (Virginia); following their wedding, lived in Madison's elegant three-story Spruce Street brick house until his retirement in 1797, when they moved to the Madison family plantation, "Montpelier," in Orange, Virginia.  

Occupation after Marriage:
Although she assumed the traditional role of wife and housekeeper following her first marriage, Dolley Todd also had the assistance of her younger sister Anna, who lived with her and there is suggestion that she was of help to John Todd in his legal work. Following her second marriage and then her 1797 move to Madison's Virginia estate, Dolley Madison assumed not only household management of the plantation and slaves, but also cared for her elderly mother-in-law who lived there.
 
James Madison served as Secretary of State in the Administration of his friend, President Thomas Jefferson, from 1801 to 1809, and the Madisons moved to Washington, D.C.

At those receptions and dinners which the widowed President felt necessitated a female co-host, he asked Dolley Madison to aide him. While she was not a presidential wife or in any way given an official designation, her exposure to the political and diplomatic figures who were guests of the President, as well as to the general public who came to meet him, provided her with a lengthy experience as a White House hostess. Notably, she also took a large public role in the fundraising effort that supported the exploration of the Louisiana Territory by explorers Lewis and Clark. These eight years of fore-knowledge and opportunity to consciously create her own public persona were the crucial factor that enabled her to shape what was only a marital relationship to the President into a genuine public role that was soon called "Presidentress" by some chroniclers.
 
Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Dolley Madison's popularity as a hostess in Washington added greatly to the recognition of her husband by those members of congress whose electoral votes then chose the winner of presidential races. During the 1808 election, however, there was an attempt by Federalist newspapers in Baltimore and Boston that implied Mrs. Madison had been intimate with President Jefferson as a way of attacking her character. Her popularity prevailed during the 1812 election. In preparation for the inaugural ceremonies of James Madison on March 4, 1809, Captain Tom Tingey, commandant of the Washington Navy Yard, had requested Dolley Madison's permission and sponsorship of a dance and dinner, and she readily agreed; thus, the first presidential "inaugural ball" took place that evening. Held at Long's Hotel, on Capitol Hill, there were four hundred guests in attendance. The event began at 7 p.m., opening with the playing of "Jefferson's March," followed by the entrance of the former President. Next, "Madison's March," was played and the new president and his wife entered. Dressed in a buff-colored velvet gown, wearing pearls and large plumes in a turban, Mrs. Madison made a dramatic impression. Although she did not join in the dancing, her sister Anna Cutts "opened" that portion of the program. A formal dinner followed, and Dolley Madison took her place at the crescent-shaped table, seated between the French Minister, General Louis-Marie Turreau de Garambouville and the British Minister, David Montagu Erskine

First Lady:1809, March 4 - 1817, March 3
40 years old  

Dolley Madison was the first First Lady to formally associate herself with a specific public project; as a fundraiser, supporter and board member, she helped to found a Washington, D.C. home for young orphaned girls. She also befriended nuns from a local Catholic school and began a lifelong association with the organization.

Elizabeth Monroe

Birth:
1768, June 30
New York City, New York

Marriage:
17 years old, to James Monroe, (28, April 1758-4, July, 1831) Lieutenant Colonel during American Revolution, and U.S. Congressman from Virginia, on 16 February, 1786 at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York; the couple spent a honeymoon on Long Island and then lived in the first U.S. capital city of New York with her father. Upon his retirement from Congress in 1786, they returned to his native state of Virginia where James Monroe practiced law; they lived first in Fredericksburg, and then in Charlottesville to be near his close friend, Thomas Jefferson.

Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Elizabeth Monroe was not known to play any role during her husband's two campaigns for the presidency in 1816 and 1820; with the winner of a presidential election still being decided by members of Congress as electors, however, the activities of which are today considered strictly social entertaining carried some potential for improving or harming the reputation of one's spouse. In this context, it can thus be concluded that despite the backlash by other political spouses and diplomats to her protocol rules that dramatically limited White House entertaining that she recovered and sustained her status and that of the President in time for his re-election. She took a more personal if passive role during the 1817 Inauguration festivities. Since the renovations of the White House stemming from the damage the building sustained from the 1814 burning by British troops were not yet completed, the public reception following the new President's swearing-in ceremony were held in the Monroe's private home on I Street. However, Mrs. Monroe did not appear at either the swearing-in ceremony nor greet guests at the reception in her home. At the 1821 Inauguration, Elizabeth Monroe did attend the public ball, held at Brown's Hotel.

First Lady:
March 4, 1817 - March 4, 1825
48 years old

Despite the fact that she was First Lady for eight years, very little primary source material exists on Elizabeth Monroe. No correspondence between her and the President, her family and the general public has survived. The few documents in which her name appears relate almost exclusively to legal, financial and property matters.
 
It was not Elizabeth Monroe but James Monroe who took charge of the details for the furnishings that were purchased for the newly renovated White House; thus the regal look of the mansion's new state rooms were not a reflection of any monarchial notions of Mrs. Monroe, as has sometimes been suggested. Though speculative, it is likely, however, that the First Lady had some voice in the matter and that she too preferred the emphasis on French, rather than English or American furnishings. 

Martha Washington and Martha Jefferson

Martha Washington - Was the first one to be in this role of first lady.  With reading about George Washington when in school I do not ever recall being taught about his wife the first lady.  It seems that no one really knew about her or her role was not important enough to include in textbooks to teach.

From research I have found that Martha was born on June 2, 1731 at Chestnut Grove Plantation in New Kent County, Virginia, near Williamsburg. Martha had three brothers and two sisters.  She did not recieve much education as was the way for women of her time.  She received training at home on how to become a wife, cooking, cleaning and such. Later she had acquired some skills in plantation management, crop sales, homeopathic medicine, and animal husbandry which to me she had more of an education then what was normal or that she picks up things quick and soaked up information and questioned what went on around her to get what she needed to do what she did.

She was married once before George but this marriage ended when she was widowed.  She married George January 6, 1759.   But what role did she play in George's Presidency?   Well she was First lady from  April 30, 1789 - March ,1797.  I found that Martha's years as first lady was very unpleasant to her, she was not happy but she felt she had to as a duty to her husband and country.  There was rigid rules set up for the first lady.  One of these rules that shocked me was that the president and first lady were not to accept dinner invitations in private households.  She was very lonely in New york which at that time was The united States Capitol.  She established her public role by hosting dinners at the mansion they had formal dinners on Thursday and public receptions on Fridays.  I found where it says that there was no evidence that she influenced the presidents decisions.

It is stated that Martha was happy when her husbands Presidency came to an end.  She did not like being in the public eye.  She was lonely in New York and Pennsylvania as she had no real close friends.  Her only solace was her grandchildren.

I think with this I am seeing that she had no true role in the presidency or in the public eye.  She portrayed nothing to gain from her position she did not like being this person.  It is interesting to look at this and wonder what it was truly like back then. 

Martha Jefferson

Born:1748, October 19

Marriage:First husband:
18 years old, to Bathurst Skelton (June 1744 - 30 September 1768) planter, on 20, November 1766 likely at "The Forest" plantation; they lived at his Charles City County plantation for one year and ten months, the endurance of their marriage as Bathurst died in 1768.
 
Second Husband:
23 years old, to Thomas Jefferson (13, April 1743– 4, July 1826) lawyer and member of the House of Burgesses for Albemarle County (1769-1775), on 1, January, 1772 at "The Forest" plantation; they departed for a honeymoon in the cottage on the property of what would become later famously known as Monticello, though the mansion house was not yet built

  
Occupation after Marriage: 
Much as she had for her father during his periods of widowhood, Martha Jefferson ran the plantation life of Monticello. It was a considerable responsibility: reading recipes to slaves and overseeing food preparation in the kitchens; food preservation; clothing needs for the family and slaves; and managing the house slaves and their responsibilities. Among the few remaining examples of her handwriting is a precise ledger of the plantation's main cash crop, tobacco, suggesting she worked with Jefferson more as a full partner in this one aspect of life at Monticello than would be otherwise usual.
 
Numerous contemporary accounts of visitors and guests to Monticello consistently suggest that Martha Jefferson was an active hostess when she felt well; her beauty, grace and especially her musical skills were frequently commented upon; she and Jefferson read literature and poetry to each other, and played musical duets together, he on the violin.
 
For the first three years of her marriage, while Jefferson was still a member of the House of Burgesses, Martha Jefferson would likely have accompanied him to the colonial capital of Williamsburg when the burgesses was in session, and taken part in the social life there, that she had known from her own early years. Martha Jefferson was separated from her husband during his tenure as a Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia (1776), at which time he authored the Declaration of Independence. While Jefferson served as Governor of Virginia (1779-1781) during the American Revolution, however, Martha Jefferson briefly joined him in Richmond, to where he moved the capital city from Williamsburg, then more vulnerable to British attack by sea. Martha Jefferson's health began to rapidly deteriorate, the result likely of having given birth to seven children in less than fourteen years. The British invasion of Virginia under Lord Cornwallis in 1781 forced her to flee Monticello for their more isolated Bedford County home "Poplar Forest," and it weakened her16-month old daughter Lucy, who died weeks later. Jefferson shortly thereafter resigned his position as governor and promised his wife that he would refuse any more political posts. Thus Jefferson turned down an important diplomatic mission to Europe. Her final pregnancy proved more burdensome than her marital separations; she died four months after childbirth.
 
As the Governor of Virginia's wife during the Revolution, Martha Jefferson assumed one large public role, albeit more symbolic than active; in response to a request from Martha Washington, she agreed to head a list of prominent Virginia women donating necessities and financial support and making other voluntary efforts on behalf of the Continental Army.
 
Martha Jefferson, however, was also to leave an unwitting legacy to her husband on two accounts. With the death of her father in 1772, Martha Jefferson inherited substantial property, including approximately 11,000 acres of land (retaining 5,000) and slaves, including her half-siblings. By law, his wife's property became his own upon marriage, and so Jefferson came into ownership of his slave half sisters-in-law Thenia, Critta and Sally and brothers-in-law Robert and James Hemings.


 Administration Hostesses for Thomas JeffersonMarch 4, 1801-March 4, 1809
 
Thomas Jefferson took charge of the entertaining details at the White House during his presidency, particularly the food and the form of protocol and ceremony; whenever he had women dinner guests, he invited Dolley Madison (1768-1849), the wife of his highest-ranking Cabinet member, Secretary of State James Madison, as his escort, his vice president Aaron Burr also being a widower. At large open functions in the White House, Dolley Madison also assumed a public role as hostess, assisting the President in welcoming the general citizenry.
 
Patsy Randolph, eldest daughter of Thomas and Martha Jefferson, has often been incorrectly identified as the White House hostess during the eight-year Jefferson presidency. In fact, she spent almost his entire time in the White House at either Monticello or the Virginia plantation, "Edgehill" of her husband. She bore four of her twelve children during the eight-year Administration. She was not present at either of his Inaugurations, in 1801 and 1805 and made only two lengthy stays with her father in Washington, during which time she served as his White House hostess - the winter of 1802 and the winter of 1806. During her second visit, she gave birth on January 17, 1806 to her eight child, James Madison Randolph; thus he became the first child born in the White House.