black panther or having a tattoo. the pelican bay is not alone in this. around the country, you can land in solitary for or your friends. like i go around with a sketchbook, and i draw, and that is not to show the finished drawing but to build rapport with people. very often when you have a camera, there is distance between people. you are taking images. they cannot see what they are taking. it is pretty empiric. whereas when you draw, it is a vulnerable thing. they can see exactly what you are doing. if you suck, they can tell you so. most people have not been drawn before, and they are delighted to be drawn. and i liked you, and i like talking to people as i draw. announcer: tonight on "q&a."

announcer: american history tv was live on saturday from marion, ohio, for a modern symposium on first ladies, from florence harding to michelle obama. that was the theme of the annual warren g. harding symposium at ohio state university at mary and it is about four hours. host: and now entitled paving the way, we you please welcome the two rector of special events at the national first lady library, lucinda fraley. lucinda: thank you. and thank you, everyone, who was involved in the symposium. you have absolutely no how thrilled we are to be here. anytime we get a chance to present first ladies, we always

look forward to it. our mission, really good, which is to educate the public about the lives and the activities of the first ladies of this country, and believe me, they were all wonderful, and as i was talking to somebody at the reception we think all of the presidents were quite intelligent. every one of them, because they were smart enough to marry the woman who became their life partner and the first ladies of our country. we want you to be wowed. thank you. [laughter] [odd sound] lucinda: are we all right?

we want you to be wowed by the first ladies, and as we are every day, it is a privilege to work with them. so i would like to introduce friends that we know very well through the years. as a introduce each one in the order of -- of florence harding, followed by grace coolidge followed by hoover, their representatives will give a brief biography to you of how wonderful they really were. and i expect to hear oohs and aahs. first, a good friend of ours sherry holmes. of the warren g. harding presidential site. this is very unusual. sherry is a former journalist. maybe once a journalist, always a journalist, and she has worked with two newspapers. but she also was at the canton repository.

the repository in ohio. where mckinley's grandfather began that newspaper and she is a lecturer and an author. she has authored several books. would you please introduce ms. harding? sherry >> i would be happy to. :the wife was a native of marion, ohio. she and her two younger brothers were under the strict rule of their father. he got no awards for compassion. she attended the cincinnati conservatory of music, studying piano, and shocked her parents

when she a loped at the age of 19 literally with the boy next door. the marriage produced a son marshall, before imploding into divorce. she married 25-year-old warren harding, editor of the "marion daily star" newspaper. the two had met at a dance. she embraced newspapering as a family business and quickly jumped in to revamp the circulation department. she was not a woman to make housekeeping and cooking her life's focus. for whatever reason, the hardings did not have children of their own. i mention that this life-threatening malady severely impacted her quality of life and her philosophy of how to the for life. as her husband entered and 60 -- and succeeded in national republican politics, she was always his most enthusiastic

supporter. the harding's entered the white house in march of 1921 following the presidency of woodrow wilson. they spent just 29 months there. before his first term was over, president harding died of a heart attack and congestive heart failure in august of 1923. florence died just 15 months later. she died of kidney disease and heart failure in november of 1924. she was 64 years old. lucinda: cynthia is the former executive director of the calvin coolidge memorial foundation. she is a lecturer and author, as well as we found out a commentator. and you have a column of your own now and then that keeps you very active. cindy has authored the book,

"coolidge," southern star, and when i'm really excited to get a hold of. cynthia, will you please introduce -- grace? cynthia: grace was born 10 we third, 1879 in burlington, vermont. one of vermont's larger cities. you probably know vermont does not have there he many large cities. she was an only child, and since she was an only child, her parents could send her to the university of vermont for her education. she graduated in 1902 and immediately set out for northampton, massachusetts, to be trained to teach deaf children in the oral method. which is a very, very tough way of teaching. she then taught at a school for the deaf until her marriage to calvin coolidge, a young lawyer in town. her mother had wanted her to stay in burlington so she could find a nice, handsome doctor for her, but grace said you was going to northampton, the home of smith college where there weren't hardly any men. but she found the one guy in

town. they lived in a two family house in northampton and raised two sons there. she stayed at home while her husband commuted by train to boston to the legislature. when calvin was tapped to run for vice president, they relocated to the willard hotel in washington, d.c., and i think we'll hear through our discussions today what happened at the white house next. lucinda: thank you. i that dunlap, another dear friend of ours, an historian, lecturer, and author. her books, one of my favorite because she is a near and dear to my heart, the story of story of frances folsom cleveland, america's youngest first lady. she has also written a book that is very personal to her. a social history. the busy ms. dunlap here has a few books to come out very soon.

in 2016, and the other in 2017 i can't wait to get a hands-on is the business of art and -- i am sorry. i got the right title today. she is working on hoover. a woman among women. annette: thank you. she was born on march 29, 1874 in waterloo, iowa. her parents were charles and florence henry. and, yes, daddy wanted a boy. and so momma allowed her eldest daughter to be named lou. we all think that that is modern. in many ways, lou was raised as

a boy. she was touched or hunt, shoot fish, and ride a horse. her mother also made sure she learned how to sew, cook. the fact that she was brought up with those twin threads from both of her parents contributed to the quite unique woman that she did eventually become. when she was 11, her father took a banking job in california. they moved there in 1885. and lou pretty much consider ed whittier to be her home. she entered originally los angeles normal school. then when her family moved, she was at what is now ucla, and then she transferred to san jose college, where she got her teaching certificate. a three-year degree. she wanted to teach the upper grades because of her love science and because she was so young and a woman, she could not find a position in that field. she was attending lectures that

were available there in the area , monterey by the recently , opened stanford university. and she heard a series of lectures by dr. john c. brammer. on matters related to the allergy. stanford, when it was opened was coeducational and was one of the first private universities founded in this country that was not affiliated with a religious institution. it is also completely tuition free. and so, lou wrote to dr. brenner -- branner and asked if it would be possible that she, as a woman, could study geology and she was admitted and became the first woman to receive a bachelors degree in geology and that university. it was there that she met herbert hoover, whom she is actually older than, but because she had had her previous -- excuse me, teachers education, she was obviously a freshman

when he was a senior. the courtship eventually developed. bert, as he was known to friends and family, graduated and left for australia, where he found a position in mining. and the two of them continued their correspondence and lou eventually agreed to marry him. dr. branner who is tying to find her a job after she graduated from stanford, learned of the engagement and wrote them a letter saying, here i am trying desperately to find you a job and yet you have decided to get married and to leave us. and he signed it, your loving professor in law. [laughter] annette: the hoovers were married on february 10, 1899. and the left the very next day for china. where bert had a mining job. over the next several years, the couple traveled all over the world. lived in many different places. lou went into the mines with bert.

she was kind of like the -- what we see so often with many women of professional men who had the same educational background -- she was sort of the unpaid employee for these mining companies. they lived in london for a number of years. lou was very instrumental and active in helping when world war i broke out, which will get to later, and then when they return to living full-time in the united states, she was involved with many organizations here until they eventually came to the white house. lucinda thank you. : these ladies were outstanding in their own way and a time when women really were not supposed to succeed on that level, and they did. the first question i would like to pose to the lady of the day mrs. harding, this is the harding symposium, that it is also important. abigail adams, if we can go back to her for just a she wrote to second. her husband when he was in philadelphia -- remember the ladies, we have all heard this. however, she was really angry with john because he didn't

remember the ladies. he thought she was kidding when she said make sure that you make as part of the laws of this new nation because, you know, we don't have rights like to in education, really. you don't have rights to our own property. lady washington -- to give you an idea, lady washington did inherit money from an inheritance from her first husband, but lady washington really needed to get married because it had to be in the hands of a man because a woman couldn't. this was the way it was for women. so, when he called her, oh, you are so soft, she wasn't too happy. well, we, many years later to -- we come many years later to another first lady, florence harding, who is the very first first lady to cast a ballot to vote for her own husband as

president of the united states. yes, the 19th amendment has passed. and cynthia, we are going to follow it do because they were on the same ticket. and this is -- you have to forgive us. it is not about the presidents. it is always about the ladies. she was the vice president's wife yes, but she was going to succeed mrs. harding into the white house. can you please talk about the campaign a little bit and how, at a time when women were not supposed to be out in front, and they weren't, mrs. harding was it true that she rather knew that women would kind of be instrumental? is that safe to say? >> i think it is very safe to say. all three of these women were in the same administration. mrs. hoover, the wife of herbert hoover, he is the secretary of

commerce in the harding administration. so all three of them knew each other and were linked in that harding administration. mrs. harding, of course, is reluctantly put in the place of campaigning for her husband. so she says. as she is not enthused about him running for president at first but once he decides that throw his hat in the ring, she is at 110%. and she really demonstrated that through the campaign. she was comfortable with the press. because she considered herself to be a newspaper woman. she wasn't a writer for the newspaper, as her husband was, but she knew all the newspaper editors, she knew the reporters at a lot of different newspapers, she absolutely thought it was her business as much as it was her husband's.

she knew all the slang, the lingo of the newsroom. so she could talk they easily with the press. and by 1920, you really have the press stepping up. and we had news we -- reel footage, newspaper reporters are working out of the press house which was built especially for the press at the rear of the harding home. she had to suffer through a hard three-month campaign. wouldn't we like to have that today, a three-month presidential campaign? [laughter] sherry: so she gave interviews but she didn't call them interviews. she chatted, she says, with the newspaper reporters. saying she did not want to be quoted, but knowing all the time she would be. and that was ok because she knew

how to play the game. it would have been unseemly if she had gone out in front and culture own news conference. that would have been undermining her husband. so she goes around the back door a little bit. sure, i will chat with you. with her knitting in her lap florence harding knew how to play the game. she was not someone who would knit in real life. she played the game. but at other times, she could play up the other parts of her life. like all of these women, they are complicated, multilayered women. and she could talk the business game. she said i love working women because i did it. she knew what that felt like. during the time between her two marriages with her young son she did try to support herself and giving cano lessons. and it didn't work for a well. she knew about that loneliness. she knew about that heavy responsibility.

she could identify with those women and they could identify with her. and with this whole new contingent of voters, the women voters in the 1920's, she felt this a very vital role very adequately in relating to those women voters. and bringing them into the game. she thought it was important for them to know about politics and government. she is right there, front and center. lucinda thank you. :cynthia a very different, very , opposite in the way. what was her role, if any? cynthia there was no governor's : mansion in boston, so even though a friend of calvin coolidge said, i will buy you a brownstone, i will put in 32 servants, i will set to all up can you just moved to boston? and grace should be released to

entertain and help you with your will as governor. and calvin coolidge said, no that is beyond her means and we will not do that. so when it came to the vice presidency, grace did not campaign. again, she stayed home. and calvin did a little campaigning, since the harding's were on their front porch. and then when it came to calvin running in his own right, their son had just that. and i will be telling you about that a little bit later. so there was not a whole lot of campaigning, but thomas edison henry firestone, and henry ford all came to visit. i don't know how many of you have been to plymouth, vermont. it is a very small, little town and when they came to town, they talked and grace coolidge was right there talking with these folks and talking about politics. so she seems to have come into her own a little bit in this

time period, and then when they did win and went back to the white house, she had a little bit more of a role. in terms of campaigning, i would say this. william allen white said, when looking at the campaign, one flag, one country, one conscious, one wife, and never more than three words will do calvin all of his life. [laughter] cynthia and in the "washington : post" article said, mrs. coolidge's million dollar smile is the greatest political asset. lucinda there we go. :annette, correct me if i'm wrong, but of the panelists here, the hoovers were not political. they do not have a political background. is that truthful to say? but yet, these brilliant people, both, running for president. annette: well the interesting

, thing is that hoover did attempt to run for the president in 1920. and there was a campaign that was written, if my memory serves me correctly, by vernon kellogg, a friend of the hoovers, and lou oversaw the writing and editing. of that bio. so then when the selection of harding was made, being good republicans, and loyal to the party, the hoovers obviously stepped back and supported harding. but the hoovers' loyalty was named because he was named secretary of commerce and the harding administration and held that position through both the harding and the coolidge administrations. their politics was of the covert type. instead of the overt type. so they were working the relationships and the connections behind the scenes. so once coolidge announced that

he was not going to run bert rose to the top pretty quickly as the top candidate, and once the nomination was secure, as i already mentioned this was a , very well-traveled couple and very comfortable traveling. so they hopped a train. and many times, it would stop and bert and lou would come out of the back and wave to people. lou would say a few words, birds -- and bert would give his speech, and they would go on. she was an advisor, monitoring with the press was saying about him and keeping the two sons abreast of what was going on. so she was active and likely more active than her two immediate predecessors. i would just piggyback on what we have said about florence harding being the first -- first lady to be able to cast a vote. we have to realize we are just

now to the third election. where women are given the opportunity to vote. and we are just beginning to see changes in the role that women are playing in candidate selection and being delegates to the national convention. so there is a lot going on under the radar that we sort of need to keep in mind when we look at the political involvement of these women. >> they really are paving the way. ok, ladies, we have to talk about it. fashion. let me get right now to the campaign because actually and truthfully, let's be honest, the first impression we sometimes get of a candidate's wife is at the convention or on the campaign trail and it kind of sets the tone for the white house years. mrs. kennedy once said, in private, referring to her

gorgeous ensembles as her state clothes. it was much more casual in private life than anyone ever realize. it these ladies had to have -- and these ladies had to have it. i think i'm going to start with cynthia because mrs. coolidge, she was younger, 40 some years old, a fashion plate. just a beautiful woman. and was a wonderful -- kind of like dolly madison. two james madison, who was quite retiring. she was the foil for calvin. how much did that physiology play for her? cynthia well, the fashions of : the day were quite something. this is the warring -- roaring 1920's, folks. we have lepers and shorter skirts -- flappers and shorter skirts, and your arms show. i know we are all hearing about michelle obama letting her arms show, but grace did a little bit

of that. but she still had to keep some to corn, because her husband was very concerned. lucinda: her official portrait is sleeveless, right? cynthia that is right. : and i have just been back to plymouth vermont and looked at , some of her gowns and some of her purses and so on. and i did know from reading her letters that she made her own dresses at the white house. she made her own things, but calvin did not like this. he said they are just too frumpy. you have to look better, and as grace said, i think it is the happy secret to married life dressing to please one's and she did want to look good, and the social secretary said i have never known any man more interested in his wife's clothes than mr. coolidge. and the hans zimmer, --

handsomer and the more elaborate her dresses were, the better he liked it. so, i have just seen to magnificent gowns. one is all gold. and these were ordered from garfinkel's. stern's department store. of course, stern was a great friend. maybe he gave them a discount. and then she had a beautiful coat and on the back of it was a peacock in gold and blue, all the way down the back. so these are very, very nice. but she didn't worry too much about her clothing. but since she didn't give interviews, they did take a lot of pictures of her. she was happy to pose and that is how the nation knew a lot about her. and calvin wanted her to wear something different every day. i don't know how they could do that, but he said that is what -- where we are going to spend our money.

lucinda i like that kind of guy. : [laughter] lucinda: well, fortunately or unfortunately, this photograph of lou in her girl scout uniform, there is a quote by someone unattributed that says that this is the only way he has ever remembered lou, and that is she always wore her girl scout uniform. and that is fortunate in one respect because it was great promotion for the girl scouts. not so great because he was quite a fashion plate. if any of you, particularly you women have ever noticed "vogue" magazine. you will notice there was always a cover of a first lady at least in all of our lifetimes. the first lady to be photographed for "vogue" magazine was lou hoover. so she was actually quite fashion conscious. she designed a lot of her own clothing. she loved color, she loved

florals, she loved chiffon fabric. there are some gorgeous gowns that are in storage at the hoover library with gold metallic and silver metallic threads woven in to bouquets and -- broke a -- broquets and other very expensive fabrics. and i contacted a fashion historian and asked about that, and she said these were highly fashionable garments and designs at the time. lou wore a lot of velvet for the gowns that she wore for state dinners.brocade for the gowns she wore for state dinners, but when the price of cotton dropped in 1931, she ordered a gallon of calico, which is cotton, made for a state dinner by the officials from the department of agriculture and the department of labor in 1932 to do her best

to promote the cotton industry and she was roundly criticized for not wearing velvet or saturn -- satin. >> florets comes into the white house at age 62. she dresses appropriate to her age. she wears a lot of greys li lacs. and when war and was in the senate she spent quite a bit of money on clothes. but there is a contradiction here. she knows she means to dress like a first lady, and she says in letters to her daughter-in-law the public expects her to change clothes

several times a day or she will get criticism if she has the same thing on in the morning that she did at a function late in the afternoon. social she has to have this wardrobe. by this time though, her kidney disease makes it hard for her to change clothes several times a day. difficult for her. so those clothes do not have as much meaning for her and the white house as they did during the senate years. she was asked by a woman journalist she like to give preference to what is your opinion on the length of skirts? because, of course, they were creeping up. they wanted to know specifically, what would you tell these young girls across the country who have them almost up to their knees. and she said, i am not even going to utter a comment about

that. that is for their mothers. which i thought, i thought that was pretty smart. her links tended to be just a few inches above the tops of her shoes. because she was mindful of her age and she has will ankles because of her kidney disease. now when she goes into the white house, there is all of this fuss made about harding blue. there is all of this description about how it is not quite the royal blue. what shade of blue was it? it is in between electric blue -- i do not know. there is a florence harding lavender.

and closer being made in these colors. dad had a great sheet made, a veil in black. so you could dress like the first lady. a big fuss made about this. she is going to cover her arms usually. she does get a little bit of criticism from the society pages about being on the front beside but by and large, women across america, she is dressed just fine. >> it was like. it was popular very popular. lucinda: ladies, i want to take this in another direction. this has to do with the press

the public and private persona of each and how each coped that way, which kind of goes into their partnerships somewhat with their husbands on how they supported them and policies, with how did world politics -- or how did world events shape what happened? i would like to start with you because we were talking about this. >> yeah. lucinda: i mean, lou hoover is just mind blowing. really. i'm not kidding. this is a woman who spoke mandarin chinese. she was, at the time of the boxer rebellion, she had no fear. the chinese were hiding out in a little commie in -- commune where they were staying and lou is the one going out and getting the supplies and her tires being rated with bullets on her

bicycle. >> and then she writes to a friend and says you missed all the excitement. [laughter] >> she has traveled to country after country. she is an organizer in london, you mentioned this. if anybody should have succeeded, it should have been these self-made couples. they were wealthy and generous to a fault. here we have the press going along with how they are using the press or not being used. the public is seeing them, not seeing them. not seeing them. and world events, or maybe something else interfering and changing the road that the couples took. can you start that off? i know that is a lot to go on, what it is kind of tied in. >> the hoovers inherited an extremely booming economy, which will hear about when we talk about florence and grace. the roaring 1920's were also a time of enormous prosperity.

and when herbert hoover comes into office in 1929, part of what he says in his inaugural speech is that he has great optimism for the country. and there is just no hint, at least in the hoover horizon, that -- the waters underneath may be a little bit troubled. so there was a bit of a stock market crash on october 23rd or 24th. and it is giving an inkling that there is going to be some problems. then the day that we now refer to as black tuesday, october 29, 1929 hits, and the stock market tanks. and you have to understand that after coming out of these years after met his prosperity, it is really difficult, at first, to determine whether or not this is just a blip on the economic radar screen, or if this is the beginning of a problem. of course, as we know, as we had

the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it was the beginning of a very severe problem. it becomes very clear in the 1930's that the economy is in very dire straits, with the depression that probably hadn't been experienced in most of the lifetimes of those people. probably the last time there had been a depression of that's a very would have been -- that severity would have been doing the harassment, cleveland years. right before william mckinley took office. so the white house was scrambling on how they were going to deal with this. and hoover is dealing with the very uncooperative congress. there were several different reasons for that lack of cooperation. he is tying to get them to pass a variety of release measures. hoover was not a republican, in the sense that we think of many republicans today where as you want to reduce the amount of

government involvement in what is going on, hoover was very much someone who said find ways for government to be beneficial and let's facilitate that. he had a lot of enemies in congress for a lot of different reasons. and there was not that support. he formed what was called the president's emergency committee for employment, which got this acronym peace. if any of you ever read the story -- i forget it's now, but it is about the dozen children some of you may remember that. "cheaper by the dozen." lillian was the mother of that dozen. she was an engineer. and a close friend of lou's. and lou recruited lillian to try and find employment for women. lou used her relationship with the girl scouts because she had been national president of the girl scouts. she got on the radio and she encouraged girl scouts to look for ways that they could help and volunteer in their communities. lou used the radio to try encourage volunteerism amongst communities, for people to help

one another and support one another during this difficult time. and what is lesser known about her and really wasn't known until after her papers became opened was that she was privately supporting people who would come to her attention. as my colleagues appear are well -- my colleagues up here are well aware from looking at the correspondence every single first lady gets letters from the public asking for assistance. and lou was no exception. she had enough of a radar to figure out what was legitimate and what needed to be passed on to a staff member to handle. she got a particularly interesting letter she thought had some merit. she had a network of people all across the country and should pass that led to somebody in that geographical area. and basically she was asking them, would you look this person up? and do it anonymously, but let me know if this is legitimate. lou was privately sending money

to a variety of people particularly women across the country, anonymously through these conduits to give support including a lot of african-american women to help them fund college educations. and much of this about lou did not come into the public arena until after her papers were opened up in 1984. to get to the press question that is really the downfall of both hoovers. their press secretary bags most -- begged both of them to go public with many of their private philanthropic acts because bert had been an orphan and he would periodically invite children to the white house and just let his hair down, so to speak, and play ball with them and entertain them and allow them to have meals and enjoy themselves in the white house. he was not doing it as the president. he was doing it as a little orphan boy who is now in a position to assist with that.

and particularly when the 1932 campaign started to get really heated, there was just pressure on the part of their press secretary, let us to some photographs, hold some press conferences, let people see this human side of you because people perceive both of you of being -- as being very stiff and stuck up and rich and not caring. the press secretary knew the whole other side. and both of them said no. bert had been raised a quaker, lou had taken on a lot of the quaker teachings and they both said, no, we are not doing this for press. we are doing it because it is the right thing and we don't want to exploit the people we have given assistance to. in the end, their decision not to play to the demands of the press played a pretty significant role in the public 's perception and thus their loss of the election in 1932. lucinda: thank you.

we are working backwards. grace coolidge? >> basically, when the college's came in to the white house -- coolidges came into the white house, warren harding had just died. there was a period of mourning for 90 days. remember, this is an interwar time period between world war i and world war ii. so they were cutting back on the budget, scaling back the navy. it was not time to engage the world. it was isolationism. grace carried on florence's devotion to the veterans and having musicals with them as guests and visiting walter beat -- walter reed hospital visiting the veterans there. she wanted to highlight american music, but i notice she had

rachmaninoff to the white house four times. she followed florence's lead on having wonderful music of the white house. but say coolidges didn't really stick with the times. she and her husband were in an -- thrifty in an age of excess. quiet in a time of verbose city. she was warm and gracious, and that was very important. that gave stability to the nation. when the flood of 1927 came, it did devastate vermont and she and her husband toured the state afterwards. they waved at people and their train stopped many times. at one time, calvin coolidge went out and said, vermont is the state i love. and gave a wonderful homily of what he loved vermont because it is where he got his bride, grace. because she was born in burlington and so on. and grace turned to the newspaperman and said, did you get that? that is really good. and she was right. she also devoted herself to deaf children, since she had taught deaf children.

she hosted helen keller at the white house. she and her husband of the thrill of meeting charles lindbergh. calvin sent a destroyer to pick them up. i thought that was kind of wonderful. and also the coolidges had introduced the morrows and the lindberghs and so we know what came out of that was a marriage of charles lindbergh and anne. and they were very happy about that. in terms of the press, grace did not try to cultivate any kind of press relation. but she allowed herself to be photographed. she did say to the press, leave my boys alone. the children of the first family, and we have seen that i think continually, should be left alone. but she was happy to pose at about 12:00 noon on the steps, take questions, and pose with

people who wanted to visit her. she said she was a national hugger. she wanted to hug everybody. just as calvin would take his jokes and be a little bit more remote, she wanted to be the warm one. that came across. her radiance came across. and i think the nation did appreciate that. lucinda: what about the first lady herself? >> [laughter] >> well, i think we have to start with the time period that the hard things arrived at the white house. old or one, still very fresh on everybody's mind. -- world war i, still very fresh on everybody's mind. nearly everything in the hiding -- harding administration relates to that. as far as policy and everything that they are doing. some kind of a reaction to the experience of the soldiers or the women in this country during the war. and think of the wilson administration, particularly at the end when, you know, the public didn't know how ill he was. but the white house is silent during the last couple of years of the wilson administration.

the gates are closed. there is no entertaining. and a lot of that is due to wartime, but it is also due to president wilson's health. so, one of the things that i think florence was most proud of is saying, you know, and she said this very early after the election, even to close friends, was, i really want to open the gates of the white house as soon as i get there. it is time for the people to be allowed back in. and she believed that fervently. as did warren, too, that it was the people's house. and the president's first order of business was issuing that proclamation that, yes, the gates are to be open and people can come on the lawn. a lot of the white house staff thought that was really out of line. and they said, well, the blinds

are open. and florence famously said, let them look in. it is their house. she had the marine corps band play concerts every saturday afternoon. and as a member of the public, you could just come on the grounds and spread a blanket and listen to them. she thought that that was her job. as first lady, coming out of that were experienced, coming -- war experience coming out of , the wilson years, that was her way of bringing back normalcy. florence working on the policies, bringing back at -- to restore normalcy, florence is bringing that normalcy back to the american people. and that meant bringing life back to the white house. she immediately has 60 vases of flowers filled every day. flowers is her communication device. there are no cell phones then. she uses a bouquet of flowers.

and she used the white house -- greenhouses more than anybody had to that point at least, and because of her love for flowers, she says, well that is going to bring color in the white house. that is the way for me to express my care for your. -- for you. if she sent to a box of flowers, and she did to just ordinary people -- sometimes people, as cindy was saying, people would write to her with their problems, sometimes there would be a message bringing a box of white house flowers to the door. and a whole neighborhood would say, wait a minute, you got something from the white house because she knew that would make someone feel special. she did that quite a lot. more than anybody realized. and, as far as the press, she was an open door policy, really. she, you know, she was in summer

-- in some ways, more open with the public then she was in revealing her own life. her private life. and, again, she thought this was her duty to do this. she would often, when the public was taking a tour of the rooms she would come down the stairs to the shock of everybody, and say, i will guide you through. how thrilled these people were when that happened. of course, her famous handshaking. when she and the president would stand in line, sometimes for hours, shaking hands. she would have her gloves on but sometimes her hand would become so swollen, she said, forgive me, i'm going to shake with my left hand. and then have to switch gloves sometimes because her hands were so swollen they would have to cut the gloves off. and this is a woman, again, that kidney disease who should not be standing on her feet for that long anyway. but she says, i don't want to disappoint anybody.

i am going to say until that last person in line comes through. it is not a token gesture for her. it is not, i will put in my appearance for five minutes and then i'm out of here. she is going to stay until that last person comes through. and she is not going to just shake their hand, she is quick to say something meaningful to you. she is going to ask, how are you? and she waits until you respond. i think that does come through and i don't think she is given enough credit for that. the president, everyone knows he has that very outgoing personality. where what you saw was what you got. but florence often is -- is given the impression that she is aloof. that she is rather shrewish, and she is not. she is different from her husband, but she engages with

people in different ways. >> i have always thought she was fabulous. i never thought -- what i read about her -- >> i didn't, either. >> i want to combine two more, if you don't mind. before we get to the questions which i hope you have. because i know that we are wowing you with these ladies. we should be. if we are not, we have to step it up, ladies. we have been talking here, there are stresses involved, certainly, in being locked out of normal life into a next -- extraordinary position. we are normal americans, as are these ladies. the stress level has to be terrible. i want to go to how they relieved their stress, but also, if you would preface it, so we could lighten it up a little, we know they had pets, some of them loved sports, we already talked about florence and her music. she adored it, as did all three.

is it true that mrs. harding i'm sorry, mrs. hoover played the piano in the private quarters? is that a true thing? >> i don't remember, but she was definitely a lover -- and, to your reason why rachmaninoff was there four times, there was a gentleman who worked with, i believe, the steinway company who is responsible -- had insinuated himself into the various administrations of the white house to secure the performers for white house social event. and that is likely why he was therefore times because -- there four times because this gentleman locked horns with lou. lou wanted american musicians. and he was not always willing to promote american musicians and would write her letters explaining why that particular person she wanted wasn't that the same caliber as perhaps a

not american born virtuoso that he was attempting to promote. >> that had to be stress for her. >> one of the visitors to the white house said, he looks like a convict. but plays like an angel. [laughter] >> well, you could lighten it up with all these other things that certainly they used. i want to go to each of them did have on the public stage, tragedy in their life. awful for them. i will let anyone of you start that sad affair that wants to take it on first. and then go right to stress release, if you will. >> i will take it on because it has happened so rarely in white house history. the loss of your child. and calvin and grace had this happen during their time at the white house.

the two boys, john and calvin junior, played tennis and he loves tennis with the assistant white house position, and i think a person from the secret service. after that, young calvin, had been wearing socks, had a blister and he really didn't tell anybody about it. it seemed to move into an infection. by the time the white house physicians saw him, it was too late. and already, the infection had moved up his leg and moved into septicemia. within just a few days, calvin junior dies at the white house. and both the parents were absolutely devastated. and so was his brother. i interviewed the brother because john coolidge, the surviving son, lived quite a long time, into his 90's. but the whole family was extremely upset. grace carried it this off with

great decorum. she reminds me of jackie kennedy's behavior after the assassination of her husband. even though that was radically different. grace coolidge and her husband have people come to the white house to express condolences and have a service in north hampton. then the 16-year-old is buried in plymouth, vermont. and grace had to move on because the campaign was coming and, with her faith, she was very religious, and with her joy in life, she carries on. i really think the president , calvin coolidge, could not have carried on without this a very strong woman. so it is very important to note the role of a first lady when tragedy strikes of this nature. >> is this when her interest in baseball really began? >> yes, her interest start. she did enjoy her baseball. she listened on the radio.

she had her own booth -- when the senators played in washington and when she eventually went to boston with the red sox. some people called her the first lady of baseball because of her interest in it and also how much the players adored her. >> and we see right behind her she has her dark with her. she dressed her dogs up. >> more than that, she and her husband had many pets. they were given a raccoon for thanksgiving dinner. and they did not wish to eat rebecca. >> [laughter] >> so they trained her to cope with life at the white house. this is the only time i have really read in my studies that the staff was not happy. rebecca crawled the curtains. rebecca jumped in the tub and

threw the soap out. rebecca was difficult, so they got ruben tuesday stay with rebecca, another raccoon. that was even worse. [laughter] >> then he sits down and draws an outside house for them to live in. that doesn't work, either. eventually, rebecca has to be given to israel. -- to a zoo. so that was so cute because rebecca was brought to the easter egg rolling and then grace would take the dogs and make little easter bonnets for them. >> could we go to the loss of a husband? the first ladies without -- sherry: i like to start with the relaxation part. and then we will pull the bottom out. florence had a lot of different

interests, she played the piano beautifully and she would often play the end of a perfect day, she was known for that signature song. she loved tennis, sports, very interested in history and political affairs herself. she always had been. she loved to use the white house yacht, the mayflower. she found that very relaxing. again, i don't like to keep going back to the kidney disease, but on days when she felt good, that was a good place to entertain close friends and relax a little bit. she also, i think, relaxed a lot because she invited different people to the white house read -- to the white house. she was very interested in hearing their views. this was in the days when he was still leave a calling card. she would pick one at random and invite them for to you that -- for tv -- for tea that

afternoon. it could be anybody. she is described as always listening to people very intently. she always said she looked in their eyes to see their soul. that was her way of knowing if you were being genuine with her. she would always class per hands -- clasp her hands around her knees and lean forward and intently pay attention to what you are saying. that was even a form of relaxation for her. she likes mah-jongg, should like -- she liked to play bridge, she loves to go horseback riding as a younger woman, but didn't get to in the white house. she loved to ride in automobiles and like to go as fast as possible. liked to go motoring, as they called it. her tragedy, we saw a reputed -- repeated again with the kennedys, is her husband dies in office. the ironic part always is that her health was always considered to be much worse than his.

they didn't publicly know then that their president suffered from congestive heart failure before he took a very famous trip across the country to the western states in alaska. she had nephritis, kidney disease. she had a couple of scares during the trip, but it amazed me that she even endeavored to take the trip. i think a lot of us if we had a chronic condition like that would say i think i will stay close to home. she says we are going to alaska, let's go. she loved to travel. she had a sense of adventure and that feeling that i know i have bad health, but i'm going to cram as much as i can into my life. she exemplified that. her husband dies in san francisco of a heart attack, is reported to the press earlier that day that he died that he might be coming out of the woods

and of course, he dies. much like grace, much like jackie kennedy, she is stoic. the newspaper reporter who got on the trip, they are reporting now that this horrible change of events as they go back east on the train, and they say she is never breaking down. they are worried. she's not crying. and she says i'm not going to. she knows she has this responsibility of setting the stage for the country. she takes that very seriously. privately, she is devastated. this is her whole world. you have no children to rely on, her one son from a first marriage already has died, he died in 1915. it's her. we can only imagine how lonely and afraid she felt.

lucinda: annette, hoover. annette: we will do the light stuff first. she was very avid horsewoman she loved to ride. she liked to motor also. not while she was first lady but shortly after lose mother passed away, after they left the white house, she gets in the car with her father, before they get into the white house, she gets into the car with her father in california they drive all the way across the country. it's a trip for him but also a trip for her. they have large dogs. norwegian held counts. it was either a german shepherd -- norwegian elk pounds -- norwegian elk hounds and either a german shepherd or a belgian

dog, no one knows for sure. they had a couple of cats, either persian or siamese, the siamese eventually was in the hoover's apartment in the waldorf-astoria in new york in their later years. somebody had given her an irish wolfhound named patrick. he was very close to her during the white house years. they have a lot of dogs particularly and some cats. the tragedy for the hoover's was not death of a child or death of a spouse, but the older of their two sons, herbert hoover junior who to be known as pete by the family, contracted tuberculosis as an adult, married man with two children. this was in the 1930's, first of all, no cure. second of all, we lost track of how severe and prevalent that alyssa was in a lot of different

parts of the country. lou, in her typical take charge, i've got this sort of frame of mind, collects information on all the different potential sanitarium swear pete king convalesce, he gets -- once it get made public, they get all kinds of letters telling him how tuberculosis can be cured, quack medicine is alive and well it hasn't changed very much. she eventually settles on a sanitarium in asheville, north carolina. they arrange for pete to go there, they thought about having him convalesce at the camp that lou and birds had built in the shenandoah mountains, but they decided it was very inaccessible. they decided that he needed to be first of all where there was more attentive care and also that was easily accessible. so that is where he convalesce.

-- that is where he convalesce. pete's wife and two children moved into the white house for the duration, but lou in her very typical strong management style, take charge style, it was just part of life to her. her mother had been a semi-invalid, she was accustomed to dealing with a parent whose health was up and down, it was not anything new in her life. she took charge like she needed to and then carried on. lucinda: i want to leave some time for the audience, and then come back to let the ladies have -- the first ladies themselves have the last word. what did they do -- very quickly, after the post-white house years? can you address that a bit? sherry: florence lived 18 months -- 15 months after war in -- af

ter warren died. she didn't have much of a life after that. she was adamant she didn't want to come back to her house. she never came back to her house. it was not the same place for her without her husband. she wanted to stay in washington. she liked life there, she has spent five years there as a senate wife before the white house. she wanted to travel in europe. she had been there three times and wanted to write her memoirs. but she didn't do any of that because again, her health failed, pretty rapidly after warren's health. her doctor, who would been here and in the white house, dr. charles sawyer, ran a sanitary and outside of town, he busily her to come back to marion where he could keep an eye on her. and she agreed, finally -- not happily -- to live in a cottage on the sanitarium grounds.

so the doctor was accessible to her. she ended her life in the sanitarium. the doc, in addition to being her doctor, was a close friend he died of a heart attack. that seemed to take the life out of her. it was one of her last very close comrades. she died in november, had an extremely serious bout of nephritis, they were tinkering with the idea of having surgery, she slips into a coma and she dies. she didn't get to accomplish what she wanted to afterwards. i wish she had had that opportunity. i think he would've seen the real florence really take on her own life. lucinda: thank you. i do think we did see mrs. coolidge. cynthia: she did write several articles, she wrote his

autobiography. they both had a writing adventure. also, he has syndicated column. they moved back to northampton they go into their two-family house. you tell me how you are going to take all the gifts from the white house that you're given in those days you are allowed to keep them and for the -- and fit them into a two-family house. i read a lot of the letters were she says could you please take this? could you please take that? and also the dogs weren't too happy. so they eventually moved to the beaches, a larger estate in northampton. they are both happier. calvin does not live to long -- live too long after the white house, he dies in 1933. and grace says well, i've got to , move along an figure something out. their son had married at 29, he

and his wife had two daughters. she could take joy in them and also, as we all know, the run up to world war ii. and most people do not know this story. grace coolidge was part of the northampton committee to rescue jewish children in germany. this was in 1939. and she, very bravely -- this is a woman who didn't get into politics, she very bravely sent a telegram to the state house to encourage them to let the northampton committee adopt 25 jewish children. here's a first lady who would have had children, but unfortunately, her theory was rolled into the wagner-rogers bill, an attempt to rescue 20,000 jewish children, children like anne frank. by the way, anne frank did right and didn't want to leave germany. this was not approved by congress, it did not get through.

and so we now have that story. they didn't know the horrible holocaust was coming, but still it was not done and then grace does throw herself and helping get ready for world war ii and then during world war ii was a real volunteer, spotter in northampton and that kind of thing. she did take a more active role in her post-white house years. and even though you have rationing, she doesn't get to plymouth so much during the war. she does keep the homestead going in plymouth has an interest in the homestead. her husband grew up there, and she decides to donate it to the state of vermont, if they will buy the birthplace. she was quite active as a preservationist, like to see it that way. she lived until 1957, she did accomplish many of her goals. after being first lady. and she did get, i would say, rather brave.

coming out with active stance. lucinda: i will have to ask gary, we've got to get to lou what her story after the white house? annette: she got back where she left off. she took another stint to the national president of the girl scouts of america. she moved back to a home she'd built in palo alto at the stanford campus, and there became involved with the friends of music to bring musical concerts and quality music to that part of the country. she was selected to be on innumerable college boards, the list is very long but to very quickly -- mills college which is a women's college and whittier college, the alma matterer of a subsequent president richard nixon. she served on the board of that. she was active in the american association of university women and eventually at some point she decided she was going to have to

start declining requests because she served on quite a number of boards, including the red cross and she also maintained her motoring fund, her camping out , sleeping on the hard ground, took her granddaughters on a camping trip where they rode horses into the remote part of the desert southwest at the early age of the 60's and she said i don't eat a sleeping bag or a tense. i'm looking forward to sleeping on the hard ground. she continued to have a very vibrant and active life. lucinda: thank you. and we have hit time. do we have time to do two questions? gary: i think we can take one or two. lucinda: thank you. >> as a florence harding, i wondered if sherry would have any comments about mrs. harding's being involved with mediums, which came up later in all this. mediums, which came up later in all this. she got involved in i don't is a

spiritualism, but she had a medium she consulted. sherry: she was interested in spiritualism is a lot of people were doing the time in which she lived. famously, they always made a big thing of she consulted madame marcy in washington, d.c., all of washington society were going to matter mercy. madame marcy later claimed that she predicted doom for the president, which is really easy to do after the fact. [laughter] it was done as a recreation. it was something had a fun to do, like going in somewhere and it was just a fun thing to do for a lot of women in society. kind of -- lucinda: kind of a thing of the times.

it really was. another question? >> one more. >> [indiscernible] did that sway anything with women voting? sherry: we investigated the cox campaign and the harding campaign. and we asked a couple of political scientist, did women vote for him because he was a good-looking guy? is that while the women swarmed to him? they found there was no justification for that. there was no big swell of women to the republican party, they tended to vote as their husbands did. so a lot of women, even though , many could vote in the 1920 election, some could not particularly in the south because of the registration requirements. often they said you have to register six months before the

election. they didn't get the vote until august. that wasn't going to work. there's no real evidence that the women particularly made the difference in that election. they certainly added to the vote totals. that makes sense. gary: thank you, very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> american history tv was live saturday from ohio state university in marion for a conference on modern first ladies. more of our coverage from the symposium. the first ladies library and

ohio state university cohosted this event. >> it is my honor to present the director, the tricia crider. [applause] much, i'm very happy to be here, and on behalf of the first lady's historic site, we are thrilled to be part of the symposium. my job here this afternoon is to talk to you about some of the first ladies that followed lawrence and grace and lou those first ladies who started paving the way for future things to come. i'm going to be talking about eleanor roosevelt through in. the evolution of the role of first lady has never taken a straight upward path.

it has always been kind of two steps forward, one step back. the reason for that is because not al ladies there is no defined role. they can do with the role whatever they choose, which is a good thing, because they can do whatever fits their personality, whatever fits their interests. you have to remember, first ladies come from very, very different backgrounds, very different lifestyles. they come from all over the country, and so they don't all have the same interests and they don't all have the same causes and they don't all have the same way of doing the role. some first ladies serve much longer than others. we have eleanor roosevelt who served a little over 12 years, . she had a lot of time to do a lot of things. we have other first ladies who

get not even four years. when we look at first ladies, we have to remember that we are only seeing a small snippet of their lives. generally, 4-8 years. that's what everyone focuses on when many of these women had an active role before they become first lady and then after. what i'm going to do is i'm going to give you some brief facts on each of the first ladies i'm going to talk about before i start getting into their history. eleanor roosevelt -- anna eleanor roosevelt roosevelt -- was born in new york city. she was born of wealthy parents. they died within two years of each other when eleanor was just under 10 years old and eleanor was raised by her maternal grandmother. theodore roosevelt was her uncle. as for education she had

private tutors. she went to a convent school. she went to a girls academy in london. but she had no college, and having no college was a regret she had her entire life. she married her fifth cousin. franklin roosevelt at age 20. she had one daughter and five sons, one son died less than one-year-old. she became first lady at 48 years old. and she served, like i mentioned, a little more than 12 years. unprecedented, never happened before, will never happen again. and she died at age 78, she is buried in hyde park, new york. eleanor roosevelt was a phenomenal woman, and very difficult for any first lady to live up to eleanor's accomplishments. she was the eyes, ears, and legs of fdr. she took full advantage of the way that was paved by florence and by grace and my lou.

-- by lou. and what most people don't realize is that the social activism of eleanor started well before she married fdr. because of her position in life, she had the ability to be a volunteer, to be involved in activities. when she was a young woman, she volunteered at settlement houses in new york city. she was involved in various organizations, she became an inspector and she would go into the homes of the garment workers to see with their living conditions were. she promoted exercise for particularly the women in the garment industry because they lived in cramped quarters, they worked in cramped quarters and so she put together programs of dance and calisthenics so they could get some exercise, she -- get some exercise. she supported unions at that time because they helped with bettering the working conditions and the living conditions, particularly of the workers in

the garment industry. in 1920, when fdr was the vice presidential candidate, eleanor went on a 1920's whistle stop campaign tour with him. interestingly enough, she never made any speeches at that time. it is women are just getting the 1920. right to vote. she consider this to be a social boundary not yet be crossed. by the 1940's, all of this had changed. eleanor was out there, she was a tireless campaigner, she was everywhere doing everything. 1940 she becomes the first first lady to address a national convention, when fdr is nominated for his third term. elinor supported so many causes, just innumerable number of causes.

she didn't go into the white house saying this is going to be my cause. she went into the white house and she said i'm going to do as many things as possible by work -- by word and by deed. she was involved with the red cross, both during world war i and world war ii. she became active in democratic party politics. she was involved with a lot of women's organizations. the women's union trades league and the league of women voters. organizations that encourage women to become interested in an -- and involved in politics, to kind of know what was going on politically. she was an early champion for civil rights, for african-americans and she was always an advocate for women. she was always an advocate for american workers, for poor and young people. she supported government-funded programs for artists and

writers. and she encouraged her husband to put more women in federal positions. she was always interested in global peace. during world war ii, she worked extensively in the war effort, she continued her work with the red cross. she wanted to bring european refugees to the united states. she promoted issues that were helpful to the american troops. she encouraged volunteerism on the home front. and she championed women who were employed in the defense industry. eleanor -- she took advantage of all of the media that was available out there. she was a writer, she was a public speaker, she was a media

figure. she held press conferences, she had 348 press conferences in total. and she was have -- she would have press comforts is women reporters only. the effect of this was that the newspapers and radio stations, and the magazines who wanted to cover her press conferences were forced to continue to employ women reporters, and eleanor actually was instrumental in pushing that role of women reporters to the professional level. she was a magazine columnist. she did many, many weekly and monthly magazine columns. she was a radio host. the evening of december 7, 1941, the attack on pearl harbor, she went on the radio and she made a personal call of support for all

the mothers like herself who had children who could now be called into active service. she was a lecturer and a public speaker. in her 12 years of first lady, she gave an estimated 1400 speeches. no other first lady published more books while first lady that eleanor roosevelt. she permitted all of her public appearances to be filmed by newsreel companies. and she got tons and tons and tons of public correspondence, and surprisingly, she answered personally a lot of those. and those that she couldn't answer she had outlived by which she would transfer those, so those people would get some kind of personal response. her activism continued after -- sorry. her activism continued after fdr

died. she was appointed by president truman for position at the united nations, she was the only women amongst the five american delegates. she continued to be very active in the democratic party, but she resisted all efforts to get her to run for herself. and she continued to be a very very strong supporter of civil rights. our next first lady is beth truman. poor beth has to follow eleanor. beth isn't born in new york city, she's born in independence, missouri. her father dies when bess is 18, her mother's family was wealthy by independence, missouri standards. she attended high school and finishing school. bess married harry at age 34

they had one daughter, margaret. she was a worker. she worked in harry's business she worked in his senate office, she became first lady at 50 -- 60 years old and then she died at age 97. she is to date the first lady who has lived the longest. she is buried at the truman presidential library in independence. beth truman did not want to be first lady. when harry accepted the nomination on the vice president ticket, she asked him, she said what are you going to do if the president dies? then you will be president she was not happy, he accepted the nomination without consulting her. she doesn't look real happy. she couldn't compete with eleanor roosevelt, and she didn't want to. when she becomes first lady, she

asks to a have to give press conferences? when she found out she didn't have to, she canceled the one that was already scheduled, and she never gave one. she never gave a press conference, no interviews, she would answer written questions and sometimes, when she was asked spontaneously a question she would answer that. again, she is a very different woman that eleanor roosevelt. even though she kind of has a wealthy family, she is a working woman. her husband has a haberdashery in independence before he goes into politics. and she works there unpaid. she is the accountant. she is the manager. she is sales clerk when she needs to be. she didn't really have the luxury of volunteering for causes. when harry is in the senate, she

actually works in his office. she is a clerk and she answers mail and she answers the phone. she is a clerk and she answers mail and she answers the phone. she had its committee reports, she's very active in that way. finally, during the seven years, -- the senate years, she starts becoming in some organizations like the congressional club, and then during world war ii, should becomes very, very involved with the uso. she doesn't want this to just be an honorary membership, she is there at the uso working in washington, d.c. very, very frequently. family meant everything to beth. bess and harry and margaret were known as the three musketeers, they were always together. barbara bush, in a quote at one point in time talking about first lady's and the roles had bess took care of harry.

people will say that bess truman didn't do anything as first lady, and that wasn't true, she just took a more traditional role. she reinstituted the white house formal social committee that had been interrupted during the war. and she helps in planning all of the social events from state receptions to musicals. she was very, very interested in the history of the white house. she was the honorary president or chairwoman or member in many, many organizations like the girl scouts, the women's national democratic club, the washington animal rescue league, she was also the honorary chairman of the american red cross. she also continued fundraising efforts that had been started by the roosevelts for the march of dimes. she would willingly greet leaders of all different organizations and posed for

photos, and let those photos be published. she would attend a charity luncheons because she knew that her presence would increase ticket sales. the end of world war ii, she signed a housewives pledge of voluntary food rationing for the white house, and she did as an example of americans, do the same so the food donations can be sent to europe, where they were so short, of simple staples. bess, somewhat unwillingly accompanied truman on his whistle stop sure -- tour. no speeches, but she would waive by his side. in 1948, it was found the white house was in bad shape structurally unsound to the point that something had to be done.

there were a lot of supporters that said that the white house should be torn down and then a replica should be rebuilt. bess strongly believed that at least the four original outer walls should be saved and then that could be used as the shell for rebuilding the white house. and that's what happened. during the time of truman's lived at the blair house just across the street from the white house. bess was visibly thrilled to leave the white house. and return to missouri. jonathan daniels, the former press secretary to president roosevelt, said beth truman is a lady unchanged by the white house. and determined to remain always what she is. next we have maybe eisenhower. she was born in boone iowa, her father was a successful

businessman, he moved around a lot. her mother was a housewife. the family moved frequently just because of her dad's business. she had a high school and finishing school education. she married ike eisenhower when she was 19, he was already in the service, the couple moved 33 times in 37 years. they had two sons, one died under age four. she was 56 years old when she became first lady. she was first lady for about eight years. she died at age 82, and she is buried in abilene, kansas. mamie wasn't interested in politics, but she would do anything to help her husband get elected. and so if the politics and the party people said mamie, would you post? she would pose.

she was always very willing. she loved the thrills in the trials of the campaign. she always went along with ike on his campaign trips. she would wear the ike jewelry. happily. she was energetic and enthusiastic. on the campaign trips. i could finish his speeches by saying, how would you like to meet my mamie? and that was her cue to come out and smile and wave. mamie viewed her role as first lady as being the wife of the president and hostess of the white house. she was very, very popular. she had firsthand knowledge of women's struggles during the war. she was a military wife.

in the 1950's, she represented what most middle-aged, middle-class women liked. home, family, entertaining, a good personal appearance. mamie was a very good organizer. she had all those years as a military wife. she had all of those moves she had choreographed. and so she looked at the household of the white house she took control of that and managed and she approved white house operations. and she said, of course, being mistress of the white house is a terrific responsibility. and i am truly grateful for my army wife training. she knew how to manage it large staff and she could be very demanding, but she kept a real friendly approach and treated everyone like family. mamie loved to entertain at the

white house. the eisenhower's entertained a record number of heads of a. -- of state. but even the president had to get her approval if you wanted to use any of the rooms of the mansion because she controlled the schedule. mamie posted the first white house performance of musical theater music, selections from hit shows that on broadway. that was one of her favorites. and then there was another side of mamie. when the president had a heart attack in 1955, she took charge. she took over the flow of work to the president. everything had to go through her to be reviewed. visitors, meetings, she limited his schedule. based on medical advice. she strictly managed his diet. she played a similar role when he had an operation in 1956, and

in 1957, he had a mild stroke. he was supposed to attend a state dinner, and she wouldn't let him do it. she convinced vice president in that he had to attend in his place. because of the president's health issues and heart issues mamie became very aware of heart disease, and she became very ethically involved in the american heart association should begin at chairman on a local and national level. she remained involved for a number of years. she was credited by the head of the american heart association with drastically increasing the money as they came into that organization, and also drastically increasing the number of volunteers that they had. because of her years with the military, she understood all the problems that they had, and she like to help with causes related to the military.

she worked with hundreds and hundreds of army wives across the country. to raise funds for military retirement community in washington, d.c. originally it was called the army dispatch home, and it was dedicated in 1962, it was called knollwood. jackie kennedy. jackie was born in southampton new york. society parents who are divorced, she had a wealthy stepfather, shoot a very good education. in addition to her high school she went to college, vassar, she went to france, she went to george washington university and she got a ba in french literature. before marriage, she was the washington times herald camera girl. she was the first first lady to

be born in a hospital. she married jfk at age 24, her second marriage to aristotle onassis, at age 39, she had one daughter and two sons, one son died at two days old. she was 31 years old when she became first lady. she was first lady less than three years. she died at age 64, and she's the only first lady to date that is buried in religion national cemetery. -- jackie kennedy really wasn't appreciated for the things that she did. and maybe that's because of her age. 31 years old, she was much younger than any of the first lady is that we have talked about so far today. those first lady's became first lady's at mid-forties, late 40's, 50's, 60's. jackie was 31 years old. she was young, she was

beautiful. she was raising and bearing children, what could she possibly know? but she was very well-educated and very intelligent. she spoke spanish, italian french fluently. she wasn't really interested in politics, but she was willing to help with the campaign. what people need to realize is that when the campaign of 1960 was going on, she was pregnant and it made her active role kind of limited. but she did make calls for kennedy, and she did give speeches in spanish and italian. and she recorded campaign spots in spanish, encouraging votes for jfk. there's jackie doing some speeches in spanish. about the 1960 election, jackie said i cast only one vote for jack. it is a rare thing to be able to vote for one's husband for

president, and i didn't want to diluted by voting for anyone else. she went on many foreign trips some with jfk, some by yourself. she was always very, very popular. when she went with jfk to france, jfk said i'm the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris. she dazzled degalle with her knowledge of french history, literature, and art. and to call later said i now have more confidence in your country. she met kruchev in vienna along with jfk. in the press wanted him to shake jfk's hand. he said i want to take -- i want to shake her hand first. [laughter] patricia: on her own she went on goodwill ambassador trips to pakistan and india. the prime minister there was captivated by jackie.

he broke protocol actually went to the airport to meet her. the president of pakistan -- gave her a gelding. and on the motorcade over 100 thousand people lined the streets waving american flags and showering the cars with rose petals. one of her biggest projects was the white house renovation project. she wanted to redecorate the family room. she also wanted to restore the public rooms. after the huge renovation during the truman's 'time, bess truman did not do a lot to redecorate the white house. they were on their way out and she said, i will leave that up to someone else. jackie kennedy took this on. and she went all over washington and all the government warehouses trying to find pieces

of furniture that had been stuck there over the years, because each family could decorate the way they wanted. they needed to raise funds because there was no government funds for this. and so, she came up with the idea of a guidebook that was sold. it was very successful to raise funds for this redecoration. she solicited all over the nation for people to donate historical furniture and artistic items. then she worked to make sure there was a law passed that does -- thatos items became a permanent part of the collection. she succeeded in getting a new position created -- the white house greater. -- curator. she used the white house to showcase the arts. she posted performances -- hosted performances, opera ballet, shakespeare, and modern

jazz performed by american performers. as she was very instrumental in the creation of what was the national cultural center which is now the kennedy center for the performing arts. and, of course, the whole country watched and warned after the assassination. she impressed the nation with the way she held up after that assassination. president johnson said "i shall never forget her bravery her nobility, and her dignity." lady bird johnson, bordnn cla udia, was born in karnack texas. her father was a wealthy land owner. her mother died when she was six. she had a high school education. she also went to the university of texas at austin nand has a b.a. in history and a b.a. in

journalism. she married lyndon johnson at the age of 21 and had two daughter purchase ran his congressional office. she actually purchased and managed an austin radio station. and she owned and managed large ranching properties. lady bird became first lady when she was 50 years old. she was first lady for a little over six years. she died at age 94, and she is buried at the lbj ranch in texas. lbj went into the navy, 1941-19 42, during world war ii, and while he was in the navy, lady bird ran his congressional office. she answered correspondence, coped with political problems

and gave special attention to any of his constituents who visited washington and visited his offices. lady bird johnson was -- had an inheritance from her mother and purchased a small radio station in austin, texas. this radio station was in terrible financial condition. close to bankruptcy. she took over that station, she hired all new on-air staff. she found commercial sponsors. she kept the financial accounts. she even cleaned up the building itself. she served as the manager then. she was the chairman this later became a media conglomerate, a huge media -- organization. by the time the family sold it in the 1980's, it was so huge and i provided the family with substantial earnings. tthen mrs. johnson took some of

those investments and she invested into large ranching operations. she also manage those. she was an early civil rights advocate. and she was so strongly in support of the civil rights act that she was there when lbj signed the bill, she was the only woman in the room in 1964 when he signed that. she also was very strongly interested and an advocate of women seeking higher education. move ahead here. most known for the beautification programs. but the beautification program was not just planting flowers. the beautification program was very encompassing. it was taking care of urban blight.

it was taking care of cleaning up the highways. there were environmental and links. there were pollution control elements. there was national park conservation elements to what she did. part of the beautification program, first of all, the committee for a more beautiful capital. they started and washington, d.c. and started with cleaning up urban blight and cleaning up around the national mall and making it a nicer place for people to visit. then there was the highway beautification act which was very difficult, because part of that was to get rid of billboards along the highway. and there were organizations that were very strongly in support of those billboards. so she really had a fight on her hands. and then she took discover america chips to national parks to raise awareness of national parks and help clean them up and get that it -- get visitors to

go to national parks. she also was involved in project head start. that was part of lbj's war on poverty. it was programs to help preschool underprivileged children, give them the tools they would need to be prepared to go to school with their peers. this was a very successful program. she was approached to be an honorary chair of the program and she said, i will work on head start but i do not want to just be an honorary chair. i want to actually work on it. very successful program, like i mentioned. it just celebrated its 40th year in business or since it's established in 2005. in 1964, lady bird johnson went

on this -- the first solo organize campaign trip by a first lady. and she went on what they called "the lady bird special." this was a very, very organized train trip that took four days went through 47 states. -- 40 southern states. they had all kinds of different things printed. postcards, whistles, matches banners, menus train hats. she was not always well received. again, she is doing this train trip through the southern states who are not happy about the civil rights act. and she wants to get support for lbj, so he can be reelected. at some of these steps, she is heckled. so she is quoted as saying "now

you have had your say. may i have mine?" because of her warmth, she was able to win over a lot of people to herself and her husband. and when the train trip ended in new orleans, lbj joined her and gave her a lot of credit for helping him win those very difficult southern states. and then we have pat nixon. [atpat nixon is probably the first lady who was born into the poorest circumstances. born in ely, nevada. her father had numerous different occupations. sailor miner farmhand, truck driver. he died when pat was 19. her mom when she was 14 to she had a high school education. her parents at already died but what she did is she worked her

way through school. and she went to junior college. she went to usc. and she eventually got a specialist degree in merchandising. she also got a certificate which was the equivalent of a masters degree at usc to teach high school. and so she is actually the first first lady to have a graduate degree. she married richard nixon at age 28. like i mentioned, she had a wide friday of jobs. pat nixon would do anything to earn the money to pay her way through college. she was a janitor. she helped the family at farming before her parents died. she was a bookkeeper. she was in a pharmacy manager. and then eventually she was a high school business teacher. and then she continued to work after her marriage. she had two daughters. she was 56 years old when she

became first lady, and she was first lady for 5.5 years. she died at age 81, and she is buried at the nixon presidential library in your linda. pat nixon very unappreciated. was the most traveled first lady up until hillary clinton. she visited over 80 countries. and when she went on these trips, she was not content to just go to receptions and -- she would do those things. but she also wanted to meet the people pitch you wanted to go to schools and hospitals. she wanted to go to orphanages. she wanted to talk to the people in the outlying villages. one on one meet them and find out what their concerns were. she was at ease no matter what the agenda was.

she could discuss human rights issues in south africa. she actually recommended to yugoslavian officials their parliament could use more women members. it was not just fluff. she was there to work and it did work. she took a good will trip to the economic and july, 1969. and that made her the second first lady, only the first second first lady to enter a combat zone or the first is eleanor roosevelt. bear in vietnam again, she visited hospitals orphanages, military hospitals and later on, she said personal letters to the families of each one of the injured soldiers she talked to and that. -- and met. when peurru was hit by a devastating earthquake in 1970 within one week, pat nixon was on her way to peru with 9 tons of food privately donated to she

went into the worst areas of the disaster with the peruvian first lady. they spent the entire day walking through the rubble. and talking to the citizens there and listening to what their problems and what their concerns were. months later the president of peru was thanking all countries but singled out pat nixon for coming and thanking you for her help with this terrible ordeal. later, he awarded her the grand cross of the order of the sun, the oldest decoration in the americas. pat nixon was a tireless campaigner. richard nixon had many, many, many campaigns over his years in politics. and she went on all of them could she was happy to do it.

she liked being on the campaign trail. when he ran for president against jfk in 1960, there was an entire ad campaign that was based on the slogan of pat for first lady. and so there were buttons and their woere car antennas and manicure kits and things handed out. pat nixon spoke at the 1972 republican national convention. and that made her the first republican first lady to speak at a convention for her husband. but pat had other interests and causes. you do not really sure much about this. she publicly advocated that women should become more involved in the political process. she was the first incumbent first lady to endorse the civil rights amendment.

she was the first incumbent first lady to disclose publicly her pro-choice views. and she publicly called for the appointment of a woman on the supreme court, even before she started lobbying her husband. to do so. in conclusion, first ladies continue to break areas. the continue to forge ay roles and do it in their own way. and there is nothing wrong with that. they can use their special voice to get messages out to draw attention to causes. rosalyn carter once said that sh e felt she was in a special position, and that it was her duty to use that role to promote causes. thank you. [applause] >> american history tv was live

saturday from ohio state university at marianne for a conference on modern first ladies. next more of our coverage from the symposium. ohio state university at marion and the national first lady's library cohosted this event. gary: thank you. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. i'm well and how about you? the white house that i served for 37 years is a unique part of our 239 years of american history. i was honored and privileged to serve seven presidents and first families. from 1970 through 2007. the presidential history that i have seen is remarkable.

a president resign from office and appointed vice president became an unelected president. a one-term president who became more prominent for his activities after he left the white house. a two-term president who faced down the evil empire. a president who won the war and lost his reelection bid. a president impeached and remained in office. and one of th emoste most closely contested presidential elections in our nations history. that permitted me to serve the son of a president that i had previously served. the chief usher is appointed by and works for the president of the united states, and is head of the staff of the executive residence at the white house. i was accountable to the president and the first lady for the activities that took place

in the white house and on its grounds. my primary charge was to carry out their desires as they relate to three main functions. first and foremost, the executive residence is the home of the president and his family and as such is a place where their privacy is guarded with bigger b-- with vigor. second it is the site of ceremonial activities of the presidency, both in the house and on its grounds. and finally, the residence its grounds, are a museum of our american history. for those of you who may not have had the opportunity to visit the white house, this historical site, this is a place that is visited by over one million visitors each year. and this is a cutaway of