First Ladies (73 page)

Uncapitalized in the beginning, “first lady” had made its way slowly into the nation's lexicon. In the 1880s, Laura Holloway's book
Ladies of the White House
helped focus attention on the subjects, and in 1911, a hit play began to popularize the title. Charles Nirdlinger's “First Lady of the Land” took considerable liberty with history and had nothing to do with the wife of a president, but anyone unfamiliar with its plot could easily make the mistake of thinking it did. Subtitled, “When Mrs. Todd Kept a Boarding House,” the play has as its heroine, Dolley Todd, who consents to marry James Madison only at the end of the fourth act—when Thomas Jefferson is still president. Ironically, it is not presiding over the White House that wins Dolley her “first lady” appellation but
rather her down-to-earth casualness and her success in outwitting the snobbish wife of the British minister.

Another play, “First Lady,” by Katharine Dayton and George S. Kaufman, appeared in 1935, and its plot involved competition among Washington women to make their husbands president. In exposing an unsavory side of the political process, this play (later movie) dealt more with human foibles than with life in the White House, but it helped move “first lady” into common usage.

8
. George Reedy,
New York Times Book Review,
January 20, 1985, p. 1.

9
. Peter Collier and David Horowitz,
The Kennedys: An American Drama
(New York, 1984), p. 353, report that Jackie Kennedy pronounced the title more appropriate to a “saddle horse.” Collier and Horowitz gave no source for this comment, and Jackie Kennedy did not grant interviews. Her White House social secretary, Letitia Baldrige, told the author that after a few months, Jackie Kennedy “gave up” on trying to stop her staff from using the term.

10
. Hunter College Conference on Eleanor Roosevelt, New York, December 4, 1982, hereafter referred to as Hunter College Conference.

11
. Hunter College Conference.

12
.
New York Times,
December 12, 1974, section vi, p. 36.

13
.
New York Times,
November 22, 1985, p. A14. Raisa Gorbachev also received considerable attention from foreign reporters covering the summit but, unlike Nancy Reagan, she remained a “photo opportunity” for “export only.” Reporters in Moscow ignored her appearance at the summit.

14
. Briggs,
Olivia Letters,
p. 211.

15
. Donald Young,
American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency
(New York, 1965), p. 5. Unless the president dies, resigns, or is unable to carry on the duties of his office, the vice president remains a distant second in power, and political scientists continue to debate just what the job includes. Except for presiding over the Senate (and casting a vote in case of a tie), the vice president is assigned no other duties in the Constitution, and although he stands “one heart beat away from the presidency,” by tradition he is not likely to be one of those who monitors the beating. During James Garfield's slow death in the summer of 1881, Vice President Chester Arthur was reluctant to show his face near the sickroom. He feared his concern might be interpreted as premature seizing of power, especially since the assassin had boasted of acting in the vice president's cause. A century later, George Bush, cognizant of the fact that taking an activist role could be interpreted in various ways, kept a low visibility during Ronald Reagan's surgery for wounds sustained in the attempted assassination in March 1981 and during the president's cancer surgery in July 1985.

Responsibility for defining the vice president's role lies partly with the chief executives, many of whom were reluctant to act, often for obvious reasons. In the nineteenth century, not every vice president established a year-round Washington residence, and most, therefore, were not on hand to participate in important discussions. Some lacked experience and ability, having acquired their jobs because of party efforts to balance the ticket. Others were very old and showed little vitality. Potential for rivalry between the chief executive and his second-in-command dictated prudence in assigning tasks.

The vice presidency became the subject of renewed discussion after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 just as the United States was preparing to conclude World War II by using the atomic bomb. Harry S. Truman, having served as vice president for only a few weeks, had not been privy to all the discussions of the power of the bomb or to other relevant information, and his predicament led to new efforts to define the job of presidential understudy. Eventually each president worked out his own arrangements,
often—but not always—putting in writing just what he expected of his vice president if he himself had to undergo surgery or temporarily remove himself from the decision-making process. The twenty-fifth amendment to the Constitution (which became effective in February 1967) further clarified just how the vice president could become acting president.

16
. Young,
American Roulette
, p. 5. Paul C. Light,
Vice Presidential Power
(Baltimore, 1984), shows how some vice presidents emphasized the potential power in the office.

17
. Young,
American Roulette
, p. 134.

18
.
New York Times
, July 13, 1986, p. E7.

19
. Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
The Republican Court
(New York, 1854), p. 178.

20
.
New York Times
, July 16, 1985, p. A11.

21
. Allan Nevins, ed.,
The Diary of John Quincy Adams
(New York, 1951), p. 337.

22
.
Time
(August 28, 1964), p. 20.

23
. At the 1986 convention of the Organization of American Historians, an entire session centered on a discussion of what is being called “women's political culture.” Readers interested in following the arguments should consider the work of Kathryn Kish Sklar, Susan Ware, Mary Beth Norton, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, J. Stanley Lemons, Mary Ryan, and Mari Jo Buhle, among others. They have considered the wide variety of women's political participation, whether separate from men's or not. The same historians have also looked at the American political process and American attitudes to see how they set the stage for women's leadership and effectiveness.

24
. Mary Hoyt, speaking at conference, “Modern First Ladies: Private Lives and Public Duties,” Gerald R. Ford Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 18–20, 1984, hereafter referred to as the Grand Rapids Conference.

1
. Stephen Decatur,
Private Affairs of George Washington
(Boston, 1933), p. 2.

2
.
New York Times,
February 28, 1982, section 3, p. 19.

3
. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,
Writings of George Washington,
39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1939–1944), vol. 30, p. 363.

4
. Douglas Southall Freeman,
George Washington,
7 vols. (New York, 1948–1957), vol. 6. p. 186.

5
. Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 6, p. 398.

6
. Doris Kearns, speaking at 92nd Street Y, New York, October 16, 1984.

7
. For a full discussion of the problem, see
chapter 11
, “Presidential Wives and the Press,” within earlier editions of this book.

8
. Henry Cabot Lodge, ed.,
The Works of Alexander Hamilton,
9 vols. (New York, 1885–1886), vol. 8, pp. 83–95.

9
. Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 6, p. 207.

10
. Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 6, p. 187.

11
. Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 6, p. 207.

12
. Decatur,
Private Affairs,
p. 44.

13
. For reports of Martha Washington's first days in New York, see
Gazette of the United States,
May 30, 1789, p. 3;
Daily Advertiser,
June 15, 1789, p. 2.

14
. Rufus Wilmot Griswold,
The Republican Court
(New York, 1854), p. 164.

15
. Anne Hollingsworth Wharton,
Martha Washington
(New York, 1897), p. 197.

16
. A major controversy has developed among historians concerning the fluidity of sex roles in colonial America. Mary Beth Norton argues forcefully in
Liberty's Daughters
(Boston, 1980) that earlier historians had exaggerated in describing an overlap between men's and women's tasks. George Washington's interest in household management is
one example, however, that had led Norton's predecessors to emphasize how much men and women exchanged tasks in the eighteenth century. See
George Washington as a Housekeeper,
ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (New York, 1924).

17
.
Gazette of the United States,
May 6, 1789, p. 3, cited in Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 6, p. 199.

18
. Decatur,
Private Affairs,
p. 194.

19
. Stewart Mitchell, ed.,
New Letters of Abigail Adams
(Boston, 1947), pp. 19–20.

20
. Mitchell,
New Letters,
p. 20.

21
. Decatur,
Private Affairs,
p. 117.

22
. Freeman,
George Washington,
vol. 7, ed. John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth, p. 106.

23
. James Thomas Flexner,
George Washington and the New Nation
(Boston, 1969), p. 208.

24
. L. H. Butterfield, ed.,
Book of Abigail and John
(Cambridge, 1975), p. 17.

25
. Henry Adams,
Life of Albert Gallatin
(Philadelphia, 1879), p. 185.

26
. Page Smith,
John Adams,
2 vols. (Garden City, 1962–1963), vol. 2, p. 908.

27
. Mitchell,
New Letters,
p. 161.

28
. Smith,
John Adams,
vol. 2, p. 937.

29
. Janet Whitney,
Abigail Adams
(Boston, 1947), p. 289.

30
. Bradford Perkins, “A Diplomat's Wife in Philadelphia: Letters of Henrietta Liston, 1796–1800,”
William and Mary Quarterly,
vol. 11 (October 1954), p. 593.

31
. See Mitchell,
New Letters,
pp. 118–119, on Darby and Joan ballad. The text of the ballad is in
Gentleman's Magazine
, vol. 5 (1735), p. 153:

Old Darby with Joan by his side

You've often regarded wi' wonder

He's dropsical, she is sore-ey' d

Yet they're ever uneasy asunder

Together they totter about

Or sit in the sun at the door

And at night when old Darby's pot's out

His Joan will not smoak a whiff more….

32
. Smith,
John Adams,
vol. 2, p. 939.

33
. Charles W. Akers,
Abigail Adams: An American Woman
(Boston, 1980), p. 145.

34
. Mitchell,
New Letters,
p. 91.

35
. Mitchell,
New Letters,
p. 257.

36
. Abigail Adams,
Letters of Mrs. Adams
(Cambridge, 1840), p. 434.

37
. Smith,
John Adams,
vol. 2, p. 1052.

38
. Bess Furman,
White House Profile
(New York, 1951), p. 36.

39
. Katharine Anthony,
Dolly Madison: Her Life and Times
(Garden City, 1949), p. 82.

40
. Irving Brant,
James Madison,
6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1941–1961), vol. 3, p. 406.

41
. Margaret Bayard Smith,
The First Forty Years of Washington Society
(New York, 1906), p. 58.

42
. Gaillard Hunt, “The First Inaugural Ball,”
Century,
vol. 64 (March 1905), p. 754.

43
. Hunt, “First Inaugural Ball,” p. 757.

44
. Allan Nevins, ed.,
The Diary of John Quincy Adams
(New York, 1951), p. 58.

45
. Nobel E. Cunningham, “The Diary of Frances Few, 1805–09,”
Journal of Southern History,
vol. 29, no. 3 (1969), p. 349.

46
. Gaillard Hunt, “Mrs. Madison's First Drawing Room,”
Harper's Monthly Magazine,
vol. 121 (June 1910), p. 143.

47
. Hunt, “Mrs. Madison's First Drawing Room,” p. 143.

48
. Allen C. Clark,
Life and Letters of Dolly Madison
(Washington, D.C., 1914), p. 114.

49
. Josephine Seaton,
William Winston Seaton of the National Intelligencer
(Boston, 1871), p. 84.

50
. Clark,
Life and Letters,
p. 143, quotes Elizabeth Fries Ellet,
Court Circles of the Republic
(Hartford, 1869).

51
. Patricia Bell, “Dolly Madison: A Personality Profile,”
American History Illustrated,
vol. 4 (1969), p. 17.

52
. Cunningham, “Diary of Frances Few,” pp. 351–352.

53
. Cunningham, “Diary of Frances Few,” p. 352.

54
. Maud Wilder Goodwin,
Dolly Madison
(New York, 1896), p. 120.

55
. Irving Brant,
James Madison,
vol. 5, p. 288.

56
. Clark,
Life and Letters,
p. 124.

57
. Dolly Madison,
Memoirs and Letters
(Boston, 1886), pp. 76ff.

58
. Clark,
Life and Letters,
p. 147.

59
. Seaton,
William Winston Seaton,
p. 84.

60
. Elijah Mills, “Letters of Elijah Hunt Mills,”
Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings,
1st series, vol. 19 (1881–1882), p. 18.