anna carlin is a professor emeritus at st. louis university and retired faculty member and administrator at the university of kansas. her research and teaching on political coming occasion with an emphasis on women in politics, first ladies, political debates in presidential rhetoric. she published book chapters and firstjo lady martha washington, lady bird johnson, barbara bush, hillary clinton and michelle obama and is completing one on julia granth grant but she taught a course on first ladies that kansas in interdisciplinary course at st. louis university and american university in the fall of 2022. sheets gave courses at ku

lectured on first ladies variety of community groups use of panels at the white house historical association symposium in the 2020 kolek we on. she is a founding member of square first ladies association for research and education and treasure. welcome back to happy hour. good evening and thank you very much samantha in the white house historical. title slide down in r left. there's a photo of the washington hands, which would have been probably either in new york or philadelphia, showing them at home with their grandchildren and up in the upper right corner. there is a servant who was one of their enslaved workers who they brought from mount vernon to their presidential home.

and this would have been a typical scene, apparently up in the upper right hand corner as eleanor roosevelt with marian anderson. and there's a very interesting story that will go with that photo to show the contrast and the change in times between the washingtons and eleanor roosevelt. and then what happened after eleanor? so let's begin with the washingtons. if you think about the history of our first ladies in civil rights, it's a checkered past. and we have to begin to look at the washington and a precedent that they set. they brought their enslaved servants to the president's home, both in new york and philadelphia when they went to philadelphia for the second capital. they had to circumvent a philadelphia law in order to keep their enslaved workers with them. there was a law that said that any enslaved person who was in the city of philadelphia for more than six months was freed.

so what washington's did was they sent their enslaved workers back and forth between mount vernon and their presidential home. and this was a way of having anyone, not having anyone there for more than six months during one of those transition periods. martha's personal oil made by these men owner, also known as on each judge, escaped. she knew when the transition was happening and she used that as an opportunity to leave slidell. there's a wonderful book that i recommend to you to find out about the washingtons and their runaways enslaved worker. it's called never caught by erica armstrong dunbar and it shows the relentless pursuit that the washington's had mainly at martha's insistence. president posted notices and papers. they sent people looking for her, but on it never was caught.

and so the story at least had an ending of freedom for her. martha's letters. a new edition has just been published by the now cutting mt. vernon and has every letter that she wrote or received from the time she was widowed with her first husband, daniel custer's. most a also accepted the inferiority of those individuals who they enslaved. when michelle obama gave a speech at the 2016 democratic national convention, she noted that she woke up every morning to in a house that was built by enslaved workers and the white house historical association took that as cue for them to do some research.

and so they had a multi-year project called slavery in the president's neighborhood. and if you haven't looked at it on the historical association website, i really encourage you to do that. these are some of the facts that they present in that section of their web page. but enslaved workers did indeed build the white house, and they rebuilt it. after the war of 1812. many of those were hired out, but there were definitely enslaved labor from quarrying. the stone all the way to the finishing touches. eight presidents after the washingtons also brought their own enslaved workers or hired them. that was jefferson madison, monroe, john quincy adams, which is going to be a surprise when we hear what is mother abigail thought about slavery. andrew jackson, martin van buren, tyler polk and taylor. 12 presidents at some time in their lives, foreign slave workers, washington, jefferson, madison wrote. jackson. van buren. harrison.

tyler polk. taylor johnson and grant and grant's probably a surprise that he married into a missouri slave owning family, and he was given some enslaved workers by his father in law that he worked side by side with them, and he did eventually give them their freedom at the white house. these enslaved workers performed a variety of jobs. they were chefs, gardeners, stable hands, maids, butlers, valets, ladies, ladies and. and did all sorts of other cleaning and other work around the white house. so we had this long history up until the lincolns of having a lot of enslaved workers in the white house itself. but things changed with first ladies, beginning with this with abigail adams, who had a very, very different opinion of slavery from her predecessor, martha washington. abigail was an abolitionist and shortly after john adams was

inaugurated, and abigail wasn't there at the time. that was not a typical first lady. martha was not there for george's inauguration either. but martha had written a letter at one point in her life to john which said that and fortunately how could they, the southerners, reconcile human bondage with the ideology of freedoms that america had fought for. and abigail hired a free african-american named james, who worked at their farm. and during the early days of the atlas administration, she wrote to her husband about a rather upsetting incident in which she was trying to get james educated. and she believed in education. she was part of a first education, first lady. and so she fought for him to attend to local school. but there was a neighbor who objected and she responds to that neighbor. and she told her husband with the question, is this the christian principle of doing to others as we would have others

do to us? abigail eventually prevailed, not surprisingly, and james was educated after abigail. the next first lady, to show any interest in civil rights and equality for african-americans was mary lincoln, who had come from a slaveholding family that some of her family fought for the south. but mary saw the horrors of slavery, and many of her family members did free their enslaved workers. mary seamstress elizabeth keckley was a free she was a free african-american and she informed mary of the plight of many of the former workers who went to the north during the civil war and they and living in poverty starving and mary personally gave hundreds of dollars of her own money to those individuals to keep them fed and clothed. she also wrote letters on behalf of some of them for government

positions. between the civil war and eleanor roosevelt in the first lady who took stances on these issues there was lucy hayes who we heard about in a recent white house history. lucy hayes was known for her tempered stance but she was an abolitionist and has been an abolitionist early on in addition to being a separatist. sheur encouraged her husband before the white house years and before the civil war.sc she personally funded the scholarship for native americans and girls and assisted an african-american woman and getting admitted to overline college. she invited the first african-american special decision murray williams to perform at the white house and

frederick douglass introduced her. nellie taft is on the bottom right hand corner developed cultural diversity when they were in the philippines and taft was thee governor general at the time. she found there was the line and filipinos were not being invited to events. she changed all ofe that. she invited them to white house open houses which had not been done before and the african-american step but she believe education was b a great

equalizer and supported the start of kindergarten classes for black children. she is best known from bringing the cherry trees to washington ursula rights activities were certainly very important. next to her in the middle of the road is allen nelson who is woodrow wilson's first wife. she was a southernerwh whose family were and she was not the most progressive first ladies in this particular area but she did do some things that were very important and something similar that we can talk about with lady bird johnson and that was there were the housing situation was for african-americans ande immigrants and she helped with the passage of a bill. she took members of congress to see that housing situation and worked very hard with members of congress to get that bill

passed. lucy hoover on the bottom right and there was and there's a wonderful history on her as well but for the first 20 century african-american congress was elected in 1929. they were not getting the usual social invitations and mrs. hoover wanted to do something about that. she worked to get a special team for a priest inviting met wives and other congressional wife that she knew to make a priest of comfortable and who agreed with her in the present about the importance of african-americans in the republican party and having their more involved in the political scene.

so she had the tee party and it was a firestorm. they receive hate mail and there's incredible criticism and newspapers and editorials about what she had done and all she had done was extend the search. he also invited the presence of the historically black colleges to the white house that this was a statement by the two of them where they hung together but they certainly did not let the system get in their way of continuing to do some work with the leaders of the black colleges and to make everyone know that this was an important part of the stance he was taking as a republican. so after that groupir of first ladies, mrs. roosevelt is known

for completely changing the whole atmosphere of what the first lady does and extending it beyond what anybody wants before. she was way ahead of her husband to every one of those leaders, she joined the naacp. she cochaired the national community to abolish the cold packs and legislation with a major problem in the earlyth 30s. she was unsuccessful with the legislation butai she certainly made her position known. she was invited to address the 1936 naacp conventions and she contained a conference of women at the white house. she not only supported having

african-american troops in the military as if she was confident of what they were doing. one other thing that's interesting about eleanor before ial talk about marian anderson s at the put a bounty of $25,000 on her head at one point. she is most noted for in the most public declaration of her support for equal rights was signing the daughters of the american revolution. marian anderson is internationally known andly wand to send their and they had a white only policy but there was public sentiment that she should be allowed however they did not back down. eleanor originally decided to invite her to the white house then she decided -- they

scheduled the a concert at the lincoln memorial and this is the picture on the top of the lincoln memorial which is broadcast on radio, 75,000 people integrated was there to see and hear marian anderson and this is a copy of the famous letter that she sent to the dar. my dear mrs. henry roberts i'm afraid i've never been a useful member of the daughters of the american revolution so it would make little difference to whether i respond. i'm in complete disagreement of the attitude taken in refusing great artists. you have said an example and seems to me unfortunate and i feel obliged to send in my t resignation. i realize many people will not agree with me and even if i do it seems to be the only proper

procedures. very sincerely yours. so that was eleanor who really opened the floodgates for later first ladies to take a very activeve position. mamie eisenhower is was not one who anyone would expect to have publicly done much and she didn't look behind-the-scenes she was very supportive and defended hersb husband's positin to send federal troops into little rocks to integrate the schools to 1953 the first year that they wereer in the white house they reinstated the east drag role which had been stopped for several years. she noticed there were only whitead children so she made it very clear that in 1954 the white house could be integrated so that happen only if few months before the amos brown vs. boardho of education decision. she also was very much involved

with thena national counsel of women and they made her an honorary member. she and her husband hosted the first state dinner of which president of the country of descent came to the state dinner. and also some very public statements that she made about equality. jackie kennedy made some statements with activities she se black activist mary mcleod. the soon she made several visits and to poverty stricken areas in washington, d.c. and she also requested that a black opera singer sing at the white house. so following some of the leads of some of her predecessors in terms of using entertainment, lady bird johnson took the next major step, and that was in 1964, after the passage of the

civil rights bill. she went on a whistle stop tour, campaigns to her tour. it was difficult for lyndon johnson to go into the south after the passage of the civil rights bill. but lady bird, who had southern roots and who had family from alabama and used to spend much of her childhood there, summers said she would take it on, and she gave some pretty dramatic speeches that made it very clear what her position was. she said in one speech, i know that many of you do not agree with the civil rights bill or the president's support of it. it would be a bottomless tragedy for our country to be racial divided. this is not a challenge only in the south. it is a national challenge. this was such a dangerous trip that they were bomb threats. they had to run an empty engine ahead of her train just because of bomb threats on the tracks. she was also heckled, but she showed great poise and grace and made it clear that they had their right to speak. but she also did.

lady bird. beautiful nation program was a lot more than billboards and cleaning up highways. she also worked as head on wilson and some of the neighborhoods in washington where minorities were living and did a great deal to improve those neighborhoods at some of the schools. so lady bird really was a definitely a champion of civil rights in a way that no other first lady had publicly gone on a campaign on her own during presidential election year and made such a serious statement. barbara bush is down in the lower left hand corner, and she and her daughter in law, laura bush, understood the link between education, poverty and the ability to move upward mobility in this country. and so they both were firmly committed to civil rights, to equal rights, especially when it came to education. and barbara bush's literacy

programs were an excellent example, barbara pushes letters he programs were an excellent exampleec especially for adults literacy to help people move on. in 2020 when the barbara bush foundation for family literacy began a new program that was for anti-bias and antiracist educational resources. even after her death her foundation and her legacy continued to work. laura bush after she graduated from college chose to work in the areas of houston and dallas and she wanted to do something to improve the lives of some of the children in these areas and she believed education was a way of doing it but she threw literacy programs to try to do what she o could to equalize the educational opportunities in this country. she did a special program on the harlem renaissance as a way of uplifting all americans and the

porton culture contributions of african-american strains and that terry of time. michelle obama at this and the workers became first lady of the united states and as i said she made us aware of watch her history was and how different it was from anyone else who lived in the white house. and the white house is indirectly a legacy of the statement she made. and she encouraged young african-american students to do their best. to reach out to goals that were not attainable just as she had been thene beneficiary of a lotf lyndon johnson's legislation.

she shows that it can be done. add the 60th anniversary celebration in topeka kansas for the brown vs. board of education decision she gave a speech to the free public high school's in topeka and she reminded them of how much work there still was to bee done. the brown vs. board was not the end but the beginning of what needed to be done not just for education but throughout tho country. so this is the past and where some of our first lady stood. some contribute to institutional racism in this country but others brought us forward made the cause for civil rights and equal rights in this country. thank you again for joining us and i'm looking forward to your questions.

thank you so much for that presentation dr. carlinn for thm sure we have heard a lot and our chat is active with reaction to the information you shared withh us. and i will move us into the q&a portion of our program today for a start asking the questions i want to remind her wonderful viewers that if you have a question for dr. carlin feel free tohe ask it in the q&a boxt the bottom of your screen. all we ask you include where you are tuning inn from. to get us started. jackie king's family included emma drexel and a catherine drel

do you have any idea what jackie would want to minimize those two great women? >> i have noin idea. this is the first i've heard about it and what's interesting and was reviewing and editing a book chapter on jackie, anita mcbride with the white house historical association. we may have to go back and find up to thank you for letting me know about that. i was not aware. >> we included a link to a "washington post" article. >> it's a good example samantha of how we haven't spread the word about the lot of what first ladies have done in some of the history of their families and how that impacted what they did

so it's probably not the only example we will hear about. >> exactly. now we have a question from steven. steven is asking what role if any did -- play in civil rights? >> it's concerned more with women's rights and that is the civil rights. pat supported the era and was interesting in terms of americans with disabilities and she did live at the white house to make it accessible. those were areas other than more positional ways in terms of -- and that was where pat nixon fit in. thank you. now we have a question from tiffany in atlanta. tiffany s. could betty ford's dedication to women's right be considered civil rights activism? >> yes, it could.

in fact i think that hillary clinton's speech and someone asked a question about hillary. do we associate with -- hillary with human right because of what she did at the u.n. that created the u.n. declarations. yes it's definitely civil rights. that's one of the frustrating things is i could talk for an hour. i'm glad you were bringing it up so we can talk about it. i also like to mention the krishna somebody noted. booker t. washington did not visit the white house with the coopers. i made a note to myself to find out about booker t. washington's connection with the coopers because when mrs. depriest was invited is the first time since booker t. washington 20 some yearsor before had died and that

was my note. i sought out at the corner of my eye. so thank you to whomever pointed that out so i could correct it in my notes. >> thank you for clarifying. and in your earlier point about havingng a timeframe if some fos getat left out we have people asking what about pat nixon nancy reagan and as you noted some people have had an impact and have done greatat work. but we don't have the time to address every detail for all of them. our next question is from debby in clarksville tennessee. debby is asking is eleanor roosevelt rejoined after she resigned her membership? >> no, she didn't. i really encourage everyone to go on line to youtube and look

at the performance. ii can't, i don't know how many times i've watched it without tears in my eyes in there so many versions of it but it was a phenomenal thing that showed a lot about eleanor and the way she of purged first ladies because her first idea resided in the white house. then she said to herself that wasn't enough so she went behind the scenes as the secretary of interior and created this whole incredible event at the lincoln memorial but she kept herself under the public eye with that and was behind-the-scenes. >> a question from chandler and virginia champ or writes allen wilson of woodrow wilson had very different views on racial equality. do we know if that caused friction between them? could you repeat that? >> absolutely. allen wilson woodrow wilson had

different views onon racial equality and did they know that caused friction between them? >> allen was not the most progressive on this issue but her bill, she did do something but she was a southern came from my family who historically have have -- so other than that particular role she wouldn't speak out on anything else and from what we know she really didn't approach him and try to get him to do anything as this about the jim crow laws. she remained silent and didn't talk about it. >> okay. so we have a question from genevieve who is actually a peace corps volunteer in belize. thanks for tuning in genevieve. how many first ladies besides mrs. obama have ancestry that includes african-american heritage to your knowledge? >> know what else to my knowledge does.

michelle obama was like i said a huge leap forward from where we were before but not only was she the first descendent of the peoplele in the south but some f her ancestors were quite. obviously she's also an example of the history of how african-american a women were sexually abused by their owners and had babies and she dissented from one of those individuals. she also has white ancestry. >> next is a question from john who's asking if you could comment on the views of ida saxton mckinley towards her african-american neighbors and service at the white house? >> that i can't do. i never did much research on ida mckinley.

>> your next question is from sally in tampa, florida. first lady hillary clinton certainly didn't portta and work towards human rights for all people and she noticed that she wasn't mentioned so i wondered if he wanted to say anything about first lady hillary clinton. >> hillary clinton certainly was a civil rights activist. if youyo go back to her early ds outside of law school in the work she did in law school as a student internship projects, she also worked for marion write adelman the children's defense fund everything she did in terms of children, health care equality. as i said everyone seems to know more about hillary and what she has done and i wanted to highlight some of the women who people don't know as much about who we haven't studied so that was why he made somee but traces i made that hillary is certainly

an individual who has supported civil rights and human right in the arenas. >> thank you. next question is from las vegas. they ask what was the name of the person that abigail adams worked with? >> his name was james and that's all we know. that was how she referred to him in the letters and this was something we discovered in looking after letters and the concern that she had but she was an outspokenen abolitionist and this is why when john quincy adams hired workers and when they hired that those workers did not get paid. any workers who were hired to work in the white house at the white house the money went to the their owners so for her son to have done that was really kind of a shocking revelation when i discovered that and there's aon reason why these

families did because congress and never gave them enough money to run the presence house in new york and in philadelphia and they also hired individuals to work in their executive houses but they didn't have enough money. sarah polk was another good example. she had a campaign promise that if she were first lady she'd stay within the budget and part of the way she did that were she got rid of young staff members at the white house and replace them with her enslaved servants. so congress has never done enough in the history of first ladies in the white house and the frustrations they had of running this house with the funds that they got from congress. this is why families did this plus they were also individuals whoey they trusted, who they had worked with for many years and had that comfort level with

them. >> thank you. in the same vein with a question from amy from. nebraska. john quincy adams hired enslaved people to work for him and in the white house. >> as i mentioneden if they practicality issue. they had limited funding and it was far less expensive than hiring a white worker who would have to be paid. it's an early issue. >> we have got got some follow-up there sounds like people are wondering more specifically about john quincy adams allen is asking could it be that if john quincy adams -- he would have faced more political controversy with the enslaved people that he hired? >> that i don't know.

i would have to look through some of the adams papers and the thing that's interesting about him was it was such a departure from his family and also later if he ever saw the movie -- john quincy adams was a ball with that slave ship situation. alas you one final question here. this question is for melissa and if you could givee us some of te research. are they going to speak with mr. emhoff about how he feels being the first white house gentleman and not a woman and she notes his take in the

future. do you have any thoughts about that? >> absolutely. and asking about the first male spouse. he's doing something similarly in the same position and he continued to have a a career. it's a male spouse and that spouse will find their way to do something that doesn't create conflicts of interest and if he does do some things with dr. biden. she did some events with michelle obama. she had that same background in terms of fulfilling that role and doing the ceremonial types of things.

he's a good good model for what we can expect.