First Ladies (86 page)

59
. Ben Meyerson, “Michelle Obama Salutes Lilly Ledbetter at White House,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 29, 2009,
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-namichelle-obama30–2009jan30,0,3765572.story
.

60
.
New York Times
, May 16, 2009, p. A10.

61
.
New York Times
, May 28, 2009, p. E1.

62
.
New York Times
, May 28, 2009, p. E6.

63
. See
page 263
.

64
.
New York Times
, May 28, 2009, p. E6.

65
.
USA Today
, April 24, 2009, p. 8A.

66
.
New York Times
, April 25, 2009, p. A9.

67
.
Vogue
, March 2009.

68
. Liza Mundy, Michelle Obama's biographer, complained about a lack of access well before the election. See Liza Mundy, “Michelle and Me: The Trials of Being an Obama Biographer,”
Slate
, comment posted October 14, 2008,
www.slate.com/id/2202261
.

69
. Michael Wolff, “The Power and the Story,”
Vanity Fair
, July 2009, p. 48.

70
. Wolff, “Power and the Story,” p. 48.

71
. Wolff, “Power and the Story,” p. 51.

72
. Maurine H. Beasley,
First Ladies and the Press: The Unfinished Partnership of the Media Age
(Evanston, 2005)

73
. For a fuller discussion of this subject, see earlier editions of this book and
chapter 11
, “Presidential Wives and the Press.”

74
. The
Daily Advertiser
, June 15, 1789, carried both the article published about Martha Washington in the
Gazette of the United States
on May 30 and also Pro Republica's critical observations.

75
.
Frank Leslie's Weekly
, October 10, 1863, p. 35.

76
. Stewart Mitchell, ed.,
New Letters of Abigail Adams
(Boston, 1947), p. 92.

77
. Wilbur Cross and Ann Novotny,
White House Weddings
(New York, 1967), p. 132.

78
. A Scottish tweed company used Jacqueline Kennedy's picture, implying that she endorsed their product, until the White House requested them to stop.
New York Times
, May 21, 1962, p. 37.

*Date is that of marriage to man who became President. In some cases an earlier (or later) marriage also occurred.

**Terms of First Ladies coincide with the presidential term and run from one inauguration to another except as noted. Until 1937, Presidents assumed the office March 4.

1. Actual birthdate is disputed.

2. William Henry Harrison died one month after taking office, before Anna had arrived in Washington.

3. Letitia Tyler died September 10, 1842.

4. Julia Gardiner married President John Tyler on June 26, 1844, only a few months before his presidential term ended.

5. Zachary Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850.

6. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865.

7. James Garfield died September 19, 1881 after having been shot on July 2.

8. Frances Folsom married President Grover Gleveland on June 2, 1886, after he had taken office in March, 1885. He was defeated for a second consecutive term but was reelected in 1892 and served from 1893 to 1897.

9. Caroline Harrison died in the Executive Mansion, October 25, 1892.

10. William McKinley was assassinated on September 14, 1901, just months after beginning his second term.

11. Ellen Wilson died in the White House on August 6, 1914.

12. Edith Galt married President Woodrow Wilson on December 18, 1915.

13. Warren Harding died in office on August 2, 1923.

14. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office on April 12, 1945.

15. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

16. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 9, 1974.

This poll was conducted in 1982 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Siena College, Loudonville, New York. History professors in 102 colleges were asked to rate the First Ladies. In another poll, conducted by the Siena Research Institute in 1981, political scientists and historians were asked to rank presidents on a different scale. (See results in
Appendix III
.) The list above merges the results of the two polls, with scores rounded to the nearest tenth of 1 percent. It should be emphasized that both polls were conducted early in the first Reagan administration. No explanation was given for including some of the women who served as First Lady although not married to a president, such as Mary Arthur McElroy, Chester Arthur's sister, and excluding others, such as Rose Cleveland, Grover Gleveland's sister. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for sharing this data.

* In the Tyler and Wilson administrations, the first wife of the respective presidents died and both men remarried while in office. In the Andrew Johnson presidency, both his wife and daughter served as First Lady. As a result, the total of First Ladies outnumbers that of presidents.

Results of a poll conducted in 1981 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Loudonville, New York. Political scientists and historians were asked to rank presidents on twenty different qualities or characteristics: background, party leadership, communication ability, relationship with congress, court appointments, handling of the U.S. economy, luck, ability to compromise, willingness to take risks, executive appointments, overall ability, imagination, domestic accomplishments, integrity, executive ability, foreign policy accomplishments, leadership ability, intelligence, avoidance of crucial mistakes, ranker's overall view. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for permission to cite these results here.

This is only one of many rankings of United States Presidents. For a review of literature on the subject, see David C. Nice, “The Influence of War and Party System Aging on the Ranking of Presidents,”
Western Political Quarterly
, vol. 37 (September 1984), pp. 443–455.

Results of poll conducted in 1982 by Professors Thomas Kelly and Douglas Lonnstrom, Directors of the Siena Research Institute, Siena College, Loudonville, New York. History professors in 102 colleges were asked to rate First Ladies. The professors came from 57 northern colleges and 45 southern colleges. It should be emphasized that the poll was conducted early in the first Reagan administration. The author is grateful to the Siena Research Institute for sharing this data.