>> it's only in recent years that a lot of scholarship has focused on the fact that their marriage was in its early phases. >> i think in the early years, james found her a bit distant and cold. as the years went by, she had a tremendous influence on him. >> they spend a lot of time on their children. i thought that education was an emancipating factor. >> mrs. garfield adored her time at the exhibition, but she was specifically interested in the latest scientific technologies of the day. after james garfield's death, citizens raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that were turned over to lucretia garfield. in today's dollars, it would equate to somewhere around $8 million. >> her character was extremely strong. she had a rectitude that was invulnerable.

host: lucretia garfield was born in ohio in 1832. her life spans antebellum america to the progressive era of the early 20th century. a supporter of women's rights and deeply interested in politics, she and president james garfield entered the white house on march 4, 1881 after a very close election. however, what plans she had as first lady were soon cut short by an assassin's bullet. good evening, and welcome to "first ladies: image and image." after the assassination, the next person to come into the white house, chester arthur, did not have a first lady. to help us understand, we have carl anthony.

he is the author of "america's first families." the circumstances of james garfield's election helped to seal the president's fate. tell us the story of where the party politics were at the time. guest: so many of the large issues that had continued in post-civil war era were really in large mode put to rest. the transcontinental railroad by this time had been completed, the troops had been removed from the south during reconstruction. a lot of focus was basically on power and money, and that struggle within the republican party for who would control the party, which meant who would control the positions that were appointed positions that were at the discretion of people at

power. it ended up being a power struggle in the party between an ohio-based party, which is james garfield's party, and rutherford hayes was not only from the same part of ohio but the same kind of thinking, and what were called the stalwarts, which were new york-based. you see certain states really emerge throughout history holding onto power within a particular party. in new york, that was headed by a man who became a united states senator. this was the struggle. you see then, of course, the person who ends up shooting president garfield, charles guiteau, probably screaming with the gun in his hand, "i am a stalwart. now arthur is president." host: garfield himself was a compromise candidate after many ballots at a republican convention. when they came to the white

house, were they accepted? guest: they were largely accepted. this is where lucretia played a vital role. a lot of it was a matter of cobbling together a cabinet where everybody would be happy, that the new york wing would be happy, that garfield now as leader of the party in the country would be satisfied. you had lucretia garfield playing a little bit of an espionage role in the postelection, pre-inauguration where she goes to new york under the alias of mrs. greenfield, and is really there to deal with this guy she doesn't like, roscoe conkling, and negotiating with members of the cabinet of who would be appointed and who wouldn't. host: lucretia garfield after winning says this -- "it is a terrible responsibility to come to him and me."

did she want to become first lady? guest: she did not want to become first lady for herself. she very strongly believed in her husband. they had really been through everything. they lost two children. they had marital problems. by the time he had run in 1880, they are very clear and very square on the same page in terms of their values. they both shared a lot of intellectual and literary pursuits.

that was a mutual passion which during the tough times kept them together, but she was, at the time she got the news that he won the nomination, she was scrubbing the floor. she did not want to pose for photographs. she was very reluctant. she did, and of course, the first images we start to see in paraphernalia during the campaign. she wrote a private letter to some friends and said, the truth is, i do not want to go to that place, but i really believe that my husband is the right man to lead the country. host: we will be taking you to the garfield's home in ohio. it is available for you to visit, run by the national parks service. if you are ever in the state near cleveland, make a point of visiting it. we will show you as much as we can. there is what it looks like. that front porch became very famous because it was the first front porch campaign. how did the front porch campaign come about? guest: i do not know 100% of the details, except at the time where they lived, it was relatively rural. groups of people really liked coming to hear the candidate speak. that is sort of the whole thing with these front porch campaigns. interestingly enough, most of them took place, all of them

took place in the midwest. lincoln's in springfield, harding's and mckinley's in ohio just like garfield. of course, lucretia garfield, what was interesting was because it was technically the property of her private home, her being seen by the voters, the people coming in on horses and buggies to hear garfield speak didn't find anything at all unusual about the presence of his wife at what was a campaign rally because it was also her home. host: we are going to learn more about the front porch campaign in this video. [video clip] >> this is the site of the nation's very first front porch campaign. james garfield would come out

here and give speeches to people who had gathered here from the front part of the property. lucretia's role was more concentrated on the inside. standing in the front hallway of the garfield home probably seems like a strange place to start talking about garfield's widely hailed front porch campaign of 1880. in fact, this was the part of the house where lucretia garfield spent a lot of her time during the 1880 campaign. james a. garfield went to chicago to nominate john sherman for president. he wasn't expecting to be a candidate. lucretia garfield had no expectation that over the next five months number between 17,000 and 20,000 people would show up at her home and her property in ohio. when these people started to show up, that many people obviously unexpected, uninvited, started to cause a lot of damage to the outside of the property. they were racing all over the property, yanking things out of the ground to take home souvenirs. lucretia garfield was very

concerned about what was on the outside of the property, not inside the family home. she spent a lot of time in this front hallway, keeping an eye on the front door, and she was the gatekeeper, making sure that no one she did not want in the house was able to get into the house. you see the front steps. james garfield's office was at the top of these steps. he would spend a lot of time in the office. at some point during the day, a lot of times he would come down the steps and go to the front door to stand out on the front porch, talk to people gathered out there, and eventually give speeches as part of his front porch campaign. i like to imagine lucretia following behind him and locking the door as he went outside because she was so adamant that people not get inside the home. they had a young family they were very concerned about. they also had just finished a major renovation of the house. lucretia had just gotten the house the way she wanted it did she did not want people coming in to cause the same kind of damage inside that she saw going on outside. we know that lucretia garfield was a very gracious host to people that did come into the

home. she very often would greet them here in the front hallway and offer them what she called standing refreshment, which meant she was very gracious. she talked to them for a few moments with a cold glass of water or lemonade, but conspicuously no chair to sit in because she did not want them to overstay their welcome. host: we have a phone line set aside for you to call in. we will get to call for a couple of minutes. you can also tweet us to use the hashtag #firstladies. here's a comment from our facebook page -- guest: really great question. we have a lot of bits of evidence that cumulatively show

us that lucretia garfield was perhaps the first first lady to really have a strong conscientiousness about being part of a historical tradition of first ladies. in her diary, to my knowledge, the only diary kept by a first lady, she records an incident where one of her guests comes in and tells her about the night of the fall of richmond and being with mary lincoln. she writes in her diary that these little sorts of stories are the kinds of things she begins to accumulate and feels that there are some ghosts of the house. we will talk more about her later life -- she has a sense of sorority with the first ladies who came after her. host: on twitter --

guest: she thought of it as her home. in fact, later on when a well was being built in the back -- i can't remember, there was another structure -- she actually studied the engineering plans, and she was just incredibly interested in so much and taught herself. she would say things like, i have built a home on my own, i have done it all, and i know what is going on, and i can get the structure out back built quicker and less expensively than is being done right now. she later on changed what was essentially a farmhouse into a victorian mansion. again, that is in the years of her widowhood. she had another beautiful home standing in pasadena,

california. host: which was very forward thinking. here is something that james garfield thought about her as they were political partners. he said, "she is unstampedable. there has not been one solitary instance of my public career when i suffered in the smallest degree for any remark she ever made." tell us a bit more about that unstampedable character. guest: you know, it did not come easy. she was one of those people who spent a lot of time thinking. she always tried to be highly rational in her opinions, when she formed them, and in her concepts of people and ideas and subjects, whatever it might be, current events, history. this was a little bit of a problem early on when they were

courting and even in their marriage because a lot of people including her husband felt that she was not emotionally expressive. but when she had given something a lot of thought, and she was clear about how she felt, then she would express herself. her letters, i might add, are beautiful. this is a real self-motivated woman who realized that education was going to be the key to not only her success but her happiness. host: one of the very first decisions she had to make was about temperance and whether or not she and the president would follow the no-alcohol policy set by the hayes. will you tell us about that decision she made, the garfields made, and how significant it was politically? host: it ended up, true to what she said, not having a significant impact politically. but the threat was made to her

by a woman who came and said, you must continue the no-alcohol policy of the hayeses. lucretia garfield said, thanks, but no thanks. i sort of feel that by my doing this one little thing, by not serving alcohol to my guests, it will take on enormous importance in the press and give it far more attention than it needs. she herself drank wine. then this woman threatens him, well, this is going to affect the republican party. mrs. garfield said politely, i don't think it really is. host: this decision and the pressure for it came around the arrival of the official portrait

of lucy hayes. we talked about this picture in the last program. there was a big to-do about the money being raised to do this portrait. guest: it was presented to the white house as a fait accompli. the white house wasn't going to deny it. nor did they think that it would be wise in terms of public relations to deny the portrait of their most immediate predecessor, the wife of their most immediate predecessor. the controversy as you know -- the percentage of money they were raising was being spent for the women's christian temperance union, other projects, so it had a slight taint of scandal.

host: kathy robinson wants to know on twitter -- guest: there was very little time for lucretia garfield to actually become popular in the sense of functioning as a first lady the way we think it. the inauguration was march 4. by the end of april, she has contracted malaria. by may, there is even a fear she might die in the white house. president garfield, just president for three months, writes of how he was unable to work with fear that this was going to be, that something would happen to his wife. it is only after he is shot in july that the press really begins to focus on lucretia garfield and she becomes, not just a national, but an

international heroine for her behavior, calmness, and control as the president is attempting recuperation. host: the first call is robert watching us in chicago. caller: good evening. i have one simple question. at the time garfield became president, his salary was $50,000. i was just wondering if mrs. garfield received the balance of the salary after he passed on. guest: yes, she did it. she also received his pension as a former member of congress, and she received, as susan mentioned, that large amount of public funds which were raised. she also received a presidential widow's pension. she had quite a bit of income

coming from several directions. host: next is a call from bill watching us in columbus, ohio. caller: i grew up in ohio where the garfield estate is. i passed it all the time, and i remember there being something on the property where he grew up. is it still there? guest: that i do not know. host: have you visited the house? caller: surprisingly, i never did. i live there. host: thanks for calling. sorry we couldn't answer your question. talking about her involvement in the selection of the cabinet, we said earlier that she was deeply involved and interested in partisan politics.

very briefly, where did she develop that keen political sense and how did she use it to advise the president? guest: she started developing that once they moved to washington, dc when he was a member of congress. they lost their first child, a girl, their last born, a little boy. they had a lot of tough times. during his service in the civil war, and when he came to washington, they were separated

again. she was not going to put up with it. they decided to build a home in washington, and when she came to washington as a congressional wife, she began attending debates on capitol hill. she was there during the 1876 election dispute commission. her husband belonged to a literary society, but this was really when her political education began, during the congressional years. she also put room aside just for herself to paint and read in the house they built washington, but politics really became -- i wouldn't say it was her primary interest, but one of several primary interests. she was interested in everything. the issue of the cabinet really circles around the controversial appointments of the secretary of state, james blaine. mrs. garfield is really the advocate for him. in fact, blaine writes that the knowledge that mrs. garfield wants in the cabinet is just as important to me as knowing that you, the president, want me in the cabinet. host: here's the quote exactly

that says something about her influence, at least on the president. guest: absolutely. i would also say partisanship and these splinter things within parties, she was not a policy person. she was not somebody who was looking at policy and saying, you should support this or not support that. she was looking at members of the cabinet who were supposed to be running the government, not from a point of partisan political loyalty. there's that saying, keep your friends close, your enemies closer. she was always looking at, how are these men going to potentially affect her husband's career? host: in the end, it seems they mixed the cabinet would have stalwarts and half the rest. guest: to a degree. i the time of cook -- by the

time of garfield's assassination, there is a sense of remorse. this guy that shot him didn't openly as a political -- out of political partisanship. it was sort of horrifying to people. it also involved vice president arthur, who was sort of representative of the wing at the assassin claimed to be associated with. host: we should be specific about this. the brief tenure of this presidency, 186 days in total. because of his lengthy decline we will tell that story later -- he was only functional for 121 days of that. this is a really brief time, not much time to establish opinions and in the public at large. david murodck is asking on twitter --

guest: absolutely. political in the sense -- we do not have a record of him coming to her with legislative decisions. host: you mentioned earlier that civil service reform was becoming an important issue. people who saw the movie "lincoln" will see how patronage jobs were used to influence the president. what was the bubbling controversy over patronage and what was the reform people wanted to employ? guest: you have this, with the garfield assassination and death, you have this man coming to the white house. everybody was like, talk about a man who benefited from political patronage. chester alan arthur was never elected to any political office.

he was the collector of the port of new york. he had a high position in new york state during the civil war, but it was all political patronage. roscoe conkling, the kingmaker of the stalwarts in new york, thanks, now the doors will open and we will get all the political funds. president arthur says, no, i'm going to change my stripes, and we are going to be honest. chester arthur is the man who initiates the first civil service reforms. host: we learned that charles guiteau was always described as a frustrated office seeker. it was also tied into his allegiance with the other faction of the gop. his example of coming to the office, to the white house, and

looking for jobs. how does that process work in the 1880s? guest: it is extraordinary to think that not even 20 years after the assassination of president lincoln that there could be such lax security at the white house. as you and many viewers know, the way the white house was set up at the time, there was the ground floor where there were no restored rooms, functioning as kitchens and places to keep china, and then there is the main floor. with the east room and green room and red room. there are three hallways -- the hallway that is at the furthest end, where the family rooms were, in the middle section, and the east, and where the presidential office is. members of the public who had some vague connection from a senator or congressman, even if they did not, would be able to go up the stairs, check in with the doorkeeper, and wait in this hallway with spittoons, filled

with cigar smoke, and hope to see the president secretary's pressing their case, usually with letters of introduction, claiming how great and wonderful they were and how they deserved some kind of minor federal position. we're not talking about people coming in there to be cabinet members or postmaster of this or paymaster of that. this is the kind of stuff a president was having to deal with while he was in his office, and the private secretaries were trying to do with it. guiteau was one of them. he never got to press his case. he took it personally. host: clearly. the garfield strauch to the white house a big and happy

family. on our next visit to their home in ohio, we will learn more about the garfield family. [video clip] >> this is the parlor. this is the way it looked during james garfield 1880 campaign. this was indeed both a formal parlor and a family room. james and lucretia spent a lot of time with their children. they had lost two children to infancy, arabella and edward. those children died before the family moved here. their five children all had the benefit of having two very intelligent parents who strongly believed in education. they felt education was an emancipating factor and that led to the key to success. we have molly's piano.

in the family parlor, you see a lot of books. their children loved to read as well. some of their favorite authors were dickens. and also william shakespeare. the family would sit by the fireplace and read to one another. that was one of their favorite activities. we are here in the family dining room. this is an interesting art piece. it won an award at the philadelphia centennial. mrs. garfield absolutely adored her time at the exhibition.

she visited all of the tents. she was interested in the latest sciences and technologies of the day. she would write pages and pages of what she saw at the site. she was very intelligent, she loved the sciences. dinnertime was a very important time of the day. it was a time for them all to get together and talk about what they were doing. the garfields would use this time to educate the children. sometimes garfield would bring a book to the table, words that were often mispronounced and quiz the children. made everything an educational

experience. >> we learned about the kind of parents they were. tell the story of how they met. >> it is really quite fascinating, so many minor chords in it. this sense of equality to it. both of them saw each other as equals. lucretia garfield was the great granddaughter of a german immigrant. her parents were very religious. they were members of the disciple of christ. her father was one of the founders of the eclectic institute. they believed in education of women. this is a fascinating phenomenon in ohio. you see this with all of the presidents' wives born and raised in ohio, equal education for women.

lucretia garfield went through grade school, went to the eclectic institute. she studied the classics, she learned how to speak greek and latin and french and german. she studied science, biology, mathematics, history, philosophy. right away, if you can think of passion coming to the world of ideas, there was a passion struck between the two of them. james garfield came from a very poor family. he never knew his father. he had been a canal boy, one of those young guys who would walk with the mules and pull the canal boats. everything they got, they greatly appreciated. she felt that education was the answer. he was her teacher at the eclectic institute. he went to williams college and they began a correspondence. that is where you begin -- it is

the world of ideas that begin to separate them and bring them together. they argueed over ideas. one of those ideas with the fact there was another woman that she met at his graduation from williams college. that became a point of contention. >> we have a sense of that with a letter that she wrote to james garfield about the relationship it was touch and go. >> what is really interesting is even though she very much loved him, she also looked out for herself.

she is going to become a teacher and she determined that she would work and earn her own salary. she did not want to be a burden on her father. if she never got married, had to depend on anyone else. she not only becomes a teacher, but an interest of art is born in her. she becomes an art teacher. this is all right before she gets married. he has another affair. he has a full-blown affair with a woman in new york. that nearly does in the marriage. >> stanley is watching us in ohio. what is your question? >> thank you for c-span.

i really do like the presidential series. i visited the home here about six days ago and was really impressed with the furnishings in the home. did mrs. garfield furnish the home and build the library herself before the president died? >> you know, yes. the interior, it was by her hand. most importantly, in answering your question, she had built onto it after his death that fireproof safe, which is part of the house, specifically to house and protect and preserve his letters and papers. she had been planning on writing a biography about him herself and she never lived to do that. later, those letters were published before being donated. i know in the show we have spoken about first ladies who burned papers. lucretia garfield had such a sense of history, she kept

papers. even the ones that might prove embarrassing or personal that related to her marriage. she had a sense of herself and her husband beyond their own lives as historical figures. >> let's hear james garfield's side of the story. he wrote to her -- they eventually do get married. the early days of their marriage, they were together for six weeks out of six years. his tenure in the civil war, followed by his election in congress.

how does this marriage get to the point where they were functioning as a couple? >> the first child died. it was a little girl. she gave birth seven times. their last child died. i believe it was her physical presence. what is fascinating about her in building this house, she created a room for herself. even though she was a devoted mother, there are a couple of letters where she says, it really gets on your nerves and it hurts your ego to think that

your whole life after this education is being spent -- i cannot remember the word she uses. these little terrors are all that occupy your time. she began to develop her passion for art and painting, reading and writing. she was quite an essayist, none of it for publication, but she had this room. they also joined the burns literary society. >> david is listening from chicago. >> president arthur burned his personal papers along with his white house papers. he got so little publicity on this action. why the difference between the two? i am looking forward to your book on mckinley this spring. >> thank you very much. president arthur, there are some

indications that it was his son who may have had more of a hand in that. arthur himself did feel very intensely about protecting his privacy. we will be talking a little bit about the arthurs. the issue was in terms of the hardings, the air of suspicion coming on the heels of the various political scandals. suggest some kind of malfeasance and that was not the case. >> back to the story of lucretia garfield, we learned how often her husband was away, leaving her with all of those children to raise on her own. she talks about the frustration

of being the one who has to make the decisions. >> my darling, i cannot conceive of any possible reason why he should be such a trial to my life. i cannot be patient with him anymore than i can submit to patience with some extreme physical torture. what he will ever become, i do not know. it is horrible to be a man, but the driving misery of being a woman is almost as bad. to be half civilized and obliged to spend the largest part of the time the victim of young barbarians keeps one in perpetual torment.

>> somehow they made it all work and brought all of those children to the white house. we have a photograph of the family in the white house. it was a brief tenure. what was family life like in the white house? >> it was healthy, funny, humorous, there was no treacly sentiment. nobody was trying to use them as examples of good living. the two older boys were to be going to college, but they were so close, they remained in the house and they studied there. there were two little boys who

were kind of terrors. and a very beautiful openhearted daughter, who kept a little diary when she was in the white house. it was a poignant document because it talks about her father's assassination. the grandmother was also there, garfield's mother. garfield's mother came to live there. she had raised her son to be president and even when mrs. garfield was ill, some

speculation about who should be able to return as hostess, there were some suggestions that old mother garfield would come to the white house and take over. there are some suggestions that that idea did not go over too well. >> a lot of first ladies have a cause of their own. >> really interesting. there is one suggestion, and it is written in a letter by one of the first people in the united states, a woman, who was both blind and deaf, who had achieved higher education and was in touch with mrs. garfield. there was some suggestion that mrs. garfield was interested in working with people who were sight impaired or hearing- impaired and developing educational outlets for them. but the one project we know about is going to the library of congress to do research on the

white house. bringing a sense of history. the people at this point, 80 years the white house has been standing, and all of the families have lived there. now you are having one and two and three generations worth of stories. she has a sense of history and the history of the house. a fascinating lists of artists and writers that she intended to invite to the white house. >> next is thomas in new york. >> hello, can you hear me? >> i am sorry, but you have to turn the tv volume down. we will move on to one quick video which talks about her artistic ability and things like the white house china.

>> here in the family dining room, we have the family china, which is the china they used at the white house. i will take one out. it has the g monogram on it. the garfields were not rich people. they brought their best stuff with them. they would have used this china at home and at the white house. this would have been their formal dinnerware. we have quite a collection here of the china that exists. it is a pretty impressive set, china painting was very popular. the very top row were hand-

painted by lucretia garfield. mrs. garfield was very up on the latest trends and style of the day and she had a very good eye for art. she taught painting for a while. around the fireplace are hand- painted tiles. she painted the two top corner tiles. james garfield said that his wife had faultless taste. she chose her furniture very carefully. >> did she have the opportunity to host any events?

>> she hosted a regular reception and it is fascinating that at one of those, a man by the name of charles, who would shoot the president two months later, met her and recorded having a very pleasant conversation with her and liking her. of course, she gets malaria. there is fear that she might die. as she is recovering, it is thought she would do better at the jersey shore. he is waiting for him at the railroad station and sees him escorting mrs. garfield and he cannot bring himself to shoot the president. >> that is in june. i want to pause for dramatic effect. >> the president is on his way to new jersey to join his wife

and he is then going to go up to massachusetts. two of the boys are back in ohio with her grandmother. the president's daughter is with her mother. and he shoots the president. right away, he sees the wife of james blaine. he tells her to wire lucretia. she is overwhelmed at first and she almost faints. she has to be held up by men on either side of her. she composes herself and says to the doctor, what will it take to make sure he is cured? and they say, a miracle. and she says, that is what will happen. >> this was july in washington, d.c. how does this affect the care?

>> they know he has a bullet. there is a rudimentary air- conditioning system up from the ground floor. >> they do that specifically. >> ideas for inventions, but all kinds of kooky recipes and potions are being sent to mrs. garfield. mrs. garfield was fantastic in that she was able to compartmentalize and had the

wherewithal to put out this word that everything was fine. this was a very important thing. she asked that everything written about him be sent to her for review. vice president arthur made no rumblings about assuming any presidential duties. he respected her. you begin to see generated first in the country and then around the world the most amazing articles about this woman's courage, this woman's intelligence, her fortitude, how it was pervading the white

house. cheering up the president. then there were the technology of the day, you saw images of mrs. garfield, her down in the kitchen preparing food for him. it was a little bit of hyperbole because it was a desperate situation. alexander graham bell offered to bring in a newfangled magnetic electromagnetic machine to find the bullet. >> he was trying to trace a metal bullet. is it true president garfield died not from the gunshot but from bacteria from dirty instruments used by the doctor? >> the bullet was dirty. he might have eventually died. it is circumstantial situation.

i will say he had one woman doctor. after the federal government paid the doctors, they paid the woman doctor half the amount and mrs. garfield wrote a letter and was outraged. the woman doctor received the same amount as the male doctors. >> thank you, c-span, for the program. during that timeframe, would they have known the rockefellers and the vanderbilts? >> chester arthur and his wife did. i would not doubt that she would've had contact with them. >> thank you. was there a big age difference between the president and mrs.

garfield? >> i do not recall. i think it was five years or less. >> the president was shot again july 2 and he lingered until september. the decision was made to move him to the jersey shore. >> the very place he had been headed to see her. that is where he dies, in her presence. she gets a letter from julia tyler. i wanted to emphasize that -- a

sorority of presidential spouses. >> the funeral. set the stage for this victorian-era funeral. >> what says it all is the way the white house looked. mrs. garfield was strong throughout. she did not break down, unlike mary lincoln, who was unable to emotionally withstand the public display of this. mrs. garfield began designing and working with the ideas of what his tomb would be like in ohio.

>> jacqueline kennedy took that model and became very much involved in the planning of the funeral process. >> the legacy. lucretia garfield, we mentioned the papers she was preserving. she approved statues. she was really hands-on whenever it had anything to do with them. >> how did the children react to their father's assassination? >> i do not remember the ages and they were not all there when

he died. two of the boys were young. there were two other boys, college-age. >> the amazing thing is that there is a fund drive for the garfield family. somewhere between $350 and $360,000 raised for the family. >> extraordinary. >> were people sending money from all over the place? >> she really captured people's imaginations. it was a brief moment in our history.

it was so different from the way people reacted to mary lincoln. because of mrs. garfield's being awarded almost immediately by congress a presidential widow's pension of $5,000 a year, that also benefited the other surviving presidential widows. true to form, mrs. lincoln's reaction was, i am sure somebody is going to put the kibosh on that and i will not ever get my money. julia tyler wrote an anonymous letter to the press, this is wonderful, but i think it should be double that amount. >> thank you for the series. we were watching cbs one morning. who was the only president

buried aboveground? they said garfield. we took the car and we drove up there. there is his monument. it has steel bars. it has the american flag draped over it. a beautiful bronze statue upstairs, it is a beautiful place. >> i do not know if he is the only president buried aboveground. thank you for the recommendation. we are trying to interest people in learning more about american history. another video. this is returning to the ohio home of the garfields.

we will learn how she began to preserve her husband's memory. >> after james garfield's death, she started to make her life and her family's life again in this house and on this property. she started to make a lot of changes to the property. she started using the upstairs bedroom a lot more frequently. she converted the downstairs kitchen into an open reception room and had the kitchen moved into the back part of the house. most significantly was the construction of the presidential library. she started to make a lot of changes to the property. i am standing in the room that he used as an office for the years that he was living here in the house.

lucretia garfield called this the general snugry. this room looks pretty much like it did when lucretia garfield came back to the home and found the room the condition it was in the day james garfield walked tout become president of the united states. she did make a few minor changes in here, "in memoriam" is carved in the wood. it does have an interesting double meaning. it was also the title of james and lucretia's favorite oem. he became a first-time member of the house of representatives. the first born child, eliza died. she was only two or three. this was very tragic and it

brought them much closer together than they have een. two weeks or so after the daughter's death, he told lucretia that he had been not reading this poem, "in memorial" by alfred lord ennyson. it should bring him as much comfort as it did to him. when lucretia garfield had it carved in the wood in his office after his death, she was of knowledge and not only his tragic death at a young age, only 49 when he was assassinated, but also the love of literature with the tennyson poem. host: later on, we will come back to the years after the white house with lucretia garfield. with the assassination of her husband in september, chester

arthur, the political opponent on the opposite side of the republican party, suddenly found himself president. he found himself without a wife nd a vice president. what was the transition ike? guest: the focus really remained for so long in september and well into october, november chester rthur lived his permanent home in new york city on lexington avenue. he, himself, was still in a state of very deep mourning, because his wife, ellen, died in january 1880.

she came from a powerful amily. she knew dolly madison when she was a little girl. they went to st. john's church on lafayette square. when she was 5-10, she knew dolly madison. her father was a very famous naval commandants who took a ship on a commercial ship that went down. it was an act of bravery because he made sure that all the passengers on board got off a first. his widow and his daughter, their only child, then living in new york city were given all orts of war armor's, a

monument to him at annapolis naval academy. alan arthur is really interesting. she does not become first lady, but she influences the administration. very similar to racial jackson the way that she was the ghost, the memory of her. chester arthur made several appointments for at least that we know of, specifically of people who had known his wife, one was a cousin. in the office of the attorney general. was made assistant attorney general. and another was treasury. but it was very controversial at he named the sort of -- what was called superintendent the naval academy for an -- appointed a friend of theirs. somebody who had been a childhood friend of his wife.

and then he kind of created a political problem with the senate which like the prerogative of appointing a role of -- sort of -- before washington, d.c., had mayors. and it was a ceremonial role that played out in the white house. but arthur insisted on making that appointment because it was somebody -- a friend of his and ellen's. so he kept her picture on the wall. fresh flowers. he had a stained glass window put in at st. john's church so he could see it from his window and his bedroom window in the white house. and there was some remorse perhaps because he had gotten very -- he was quite married to his career and his political advancement. and mrs. arthur, an accomplished singer. died of pneumonia while he was out up in albany on political business. so you have him coming without a wife, without a vice

president. his 10-year-old daughter is living with his sister, molly, up in albany. there's -- it's sort of a loose end. and the press at the time begins speculating in a series of articles who will be lady of the white house? guest: well, you look at the man. and he was wealthy. he was very stylish. he lived quite a life in new york city. and he had this tradge at this of being -- this tragedy of being a widower so you can see a storyline being developed that would be very interested. guest: it was a little unseemly. because there were a lot of wealthy women or women who wanted to be wealthy who began sort of flirtatiously appearing. wherever president arthur did. and, you know, he had no interest whatsoever in remarrying. he really became depressed. and he functioned, he basically

said i'm not going to have a first lady. nobody is going to take the role of my wife. and so he starts having these things, these social events once the social season begins again. once congress comes back into session. and it's sort of like first lady for a day kind of thing. he has these events where the cabinet wife, it's a senate wife. none of it is really quite working. and the following year, 1883, new year's day, his sister from albany comes down. part of that, somebody mentioned bright's disease. there's an indication that he knew he had a terminal illness. he wanted to be close again to his little daughter. so his daughter, nel, came down from new york. and at the time was being taken care of by her aunt, mary arthur mcelroy. host: nicknamed molly. guest: molly. host: we'll hear references to mary arther and molly and that's the same person. and beck i robinson asked did mary arthur mcelroy live in the

white house with her brother or did she keep house elsewhere in d.c.? guest: she lived in the white house with her brother. host: how protective were they of the little girl? guest: extremely protective. part of the whole reason arthur kept her away from the white house for nearly a year, making sure she lived either at her home, which was his home, in new york city, then he was having that remodeled so she went to live with her aunt. and there were two other girls, molly mcelroy's daughters, jessie and may. a little bit older than their cousin. but these girls came to live with their mother in the white house. host: chris is watching us in hartford, connecticut. what's your question? caller: hi. my question is if president garfield had been shot in recent times, with our modern medical technology, do you think he would have survived? guest: you know, not being a medical historian, i wouldn't want to say too much on that. except to just venture a guess

by saying yes. in the sense that the simple removal of a bullet, one would be today able to detect where that was in his system. host: he may have, he -- chester arthur, chet arthur, may have been severely depressed by his loss of his wife and the assassination of the president. but they entertained lavishly in the white house. nd he undertook an amazing redecoration of the white house that was done by lewis tiffany. and anybody at home who thinks after tiffany lamp with all the glass and all the colors, think of that applied to the white house as we know -- what did it look like when it was done? you know, the thing could not ignore, the elephant in the room so to speak, was this wall of tiffany glass. this wall was put up in what is the main hall, the center hall of the state floor. so you come in, from the main

entrance, the north entrance of the white house into technically the lobby, the entrance lobby. and today, you'll see white columns and those will open up and the doors to the blue room immediately, the red room, the greenroom. but in those days, the draft was so bad so people were sort of complaining about that. arthur put up this wall of garrish victorian tiffany glass. host: that's garrish by 2013 tastes. but it was high style at the time, wasn't it? guest: it was. but i looked into this. it didn't last but 20 years. teddy roosevelt's famous words were smash that wall to bits. host: and was it preserved? sgl it was not. host: it really was smashed -- guest: i don't know if it was smashed to bits but that's what roosevelt said. host: wow. guest: yeah. host: it was also a very busy time in the country this period. and we have just a couple of the highlights of the administration of some of the issues that the arthur administration was dealing

with. again, without a vice president. in office. 1882, the chinese seclusion act. then the -- then the president vetoes the so-called carriage of passengers at sea bill. there was the river in harbors act and most importantly, 1883, pendleton civil service reform act. and we talked earlier about civil service reform being the key issue of the time. so what happened with that in this administration? guest: it was a first step. sort of like social security or certain degree -- to some degree sism rights. -- civil rights. things come in increments. and so arthur's support of that and ended up being the very first major piece of legislation that started to make the first real prevention of the spoil system of basically the political system

-- remember, federal employees could be fired. people who worked in the treasury building, people who, you know, we think of today as career bureaucrats or people working as federal employees, could all be fired. and whoever was in power would then, you know, appoint -- it was -- whoever they wanted. not only unfair, but it was inefficient. and so arthur really takes the first steps. and he also puts the first efforts in in terms of building up a modern u.s. navy. and while the chinese seclusionary act was really an awful thing in terms of just an outright act of bigotry, arthur -- arthur had supported something that was far less strict than -- which passed.

there was a worse proposal out there. and so, you know, arthur i think gets a bad rap sometimes. host: a couple of quick questions. did arthur keep garfield's cabinet and who was his most important advisor? guest: i do not recall. he did initially through the new year, beginning 1882, but i can't recall specifically the -- the individual members of his cabinet that continued on. of course, when you speak of the garfield administration, you're really talking more about the arthur administration. host: rachel davidson smoir on facebook, what measures were taken to ensure the arthur family's safety after the assassination? guest: none. host: none? guest: none. there were guards at the front door. but it still had the sort of lazy -- you know, sort of old

hotel quality to it. even with arthur's restoration, i wouldn't say restoration, redecoration, it was one reason why he was very protective of his daughter. in fact, it isn't until the 1886 new year's day reception, this is two months before he leaves, that he allows his daughter to publicly appear. host: brian, watching us in ketchikan, alaska. welcome to the conversation. caller: hi. thank you very much. ness a great show. i heard something many years ago, and i don't know if it's true, that garfield had this ability to take one in the right hand and one in the left and simultaneously write the same thing in greek and latin. is this true? guest: from all i have learned, yes, that was true. host: wow. what a talent. guest: ambidextrous. and so were eleanor

mary's style as progressive as -- ellen or molly as progressive in their own style as chester? guest: certainly ellen was. ellen arthur was very fashionable. very rich. largely through the wealth of her mother. and very ambitious. there's a lot of stories about how, you know, she really got behind. she really didn't like that politics kept him away from the home so often. but on the other hand, she was a very socially ambitious and ambitious for his career. in fact, even though she was a southerner, and even though one of her very close first cuvens because she was an ponal child and was very, very close to what were double cousins. her parents' siblings had married each other. so see had double cousins.

and during the civil war, chester arthur was able to secure the release from union prisons of one of her cousins. but she went to abraham lincoln's 1865 inaugural. she attended the white house wedding of nelly grant. she knew the parents of theodore roosevelt in new york city. so she bought at the best stores. they took summers in cooperstown, new york, and newport. molly arthur was a little bit more -- i would ghot use the word pedestrian -- would not use the word pedestrian but she was not interested in being stylish. host: last question on the arthur administration. and mary arthur mcelroy, the sister, she had a very strong opinion against women suffrage. how influential was she in this nonofficial white house hostess role?

guest: a very interesting situation. because it really showed us that the country had come to expect a female presence. whether it was a wife or a sister or a daughter. and she was really walked a fine line. because she didn't -- she took -- she made public appearances. sometimes on her own. but then sometimes only with him. and so -- and i think he almost kind of was am bitch lent about how public of role she should take. her support of the anti-suffrage movement occurred, however, after she left the white house. so while there was some press coverage of it, it wasn't widely known. i will add, though, that she was also a great advocate of civil rights. and in her home in albany, she not only welcomed as a dinner guest but as an overnight guest booker t. washington. host: we have 12 minutes left. and as the arthur administration gets its sea legs and finishes out its three

years, lucretia garfield is establishing herself as a widow, enormously popular first lady. how does she do that? we've got a lot of people very curious about her move to pasadena, california. how did that all come about? guest: well, because she couldn't take the cold winters in ohio anymore. she also maintained a home in washington as a presidential widow. host: and the house in mentor, ohio, which she continued to work on? guest: right. but there were times that she leased the house or the property for -- because it was just more feasible. her brother i think was joe who was sort of the manager of the house. 1880's, rnia was 1890's an opening up as the promised land, sunshine. and a lot of california was settled by wealthy midwesterners. in e went out to pasadena

1900. and she was distantly related to these two famous architects, green and green. who sort of known for what's called the california craftsman style. architecture. she had a great interest in architecture. and so she worked very closely with them in designing this extraordinary arts and crafts, california arts and crafts mansion which is still standing, a private home. and it really became kind of a show place. and she was even in one of the -- in one of the carriages of v.i.p.'s in the early pasadena rose parade. so she had a very full life in california. host: you've said -- made the point many times that she was an -- interested in so much. one of our viewers on facebook, j.y. vared said lucretia garfield struck me as wonderfully progressive and not

just because of the air conditioning for the new jersey house, at the runwick, a silver and ebony teapot she bought and lived in a green and greenhouse in south pasadena which we just saw which was hyper modern for the time. the teapot is fantastically modern for 1881. what do you think of all this and her taste? guest: well, i'm probably not the best to ask about taste. but i would just say this. along those lines, she was also an advocate for women's suffrage. she believed completely in it. she didn't come out publicly. just like the issue of temperance and thought it would make a lot more of a controversy than need be. but her daughter also affirmed that her mother truly believed in the equality of the genders. and you also see her when former president roosevelt in 1912 is mounting a campaign against the incumbent republican president. she supports theodore roosevelt

and comes out while he makes an appearance in los angeles, she comes to that event. host: tony in pleasantville, new york. good evening. caller: hi, sues un, how are you today? guest: great, thanks. caller: one of the best books i ever read was destiny of the republic by kansas millard and in that book so many facts but the three that caught my attention tonight were abraham lincoln's son, tad, involvement in three presidential assassinations. not necessarily being involved in the assassinations but being in the area of them. and you showed an artist sketch of the railroad car that carried president garfield to the house where he passed away. i wondered if mr. anthony could tell the story of how that car got there and lastly. there's a park up in that area, bailiff it's called seven presidents park, maybe they might have to make that eight presidents now that president obama visited under different circumstances, why so many

presidents went to the jersey shore? guest: ok. well, we have very little time. so -- host: it was fashionable, thought to be recuperative. and in order to reach that house, they had to lay extra track so it went so the train ould go right up to the house. host: he mentioned all the presidents. and during the years of the arthur administration, these are the first ladies who were alive. julia tyler, sarah poke, harriet lane, mary lincoln, julia grant, lucy hayes, and of course lucretia garfield. today we see a bonding, just a -- crosses political parties among women who served in the white house. was that happening at this time? guest: you know, if we could credit good old molly mcelroy who's basically forgotten in history with anything, it's bringing them together. she invited to the white house

julia tyler and harriet lane to publicly receive with her as sort of co-hostesses. because of the pension issue, mrs. lincoln and mrs. tyler were again in the news along with mrs. garfield. and with molly mcelroy leaving the role of substitute first lady and handing it over to cleveland, who's a bachelor at the time, whose sister rose cleveland will be assuming that role, there was a lot of press about these two sisters. sort of passing it on. at the same time, in conjunction with all this, the very first book is written on the history of first ladies. and it is a collective biography. and it is called ladies of the white house. by -- and her name just escaped me. but it's a very famous book. and it came out in many editions. host: lucretia garfield outlived her husband by 37 years and we talked about how

she spent much of that time trying to catalogue and preserve her husband's history. we're going to return one last time to the house in mentor, ohio, and learn a bit more about how she did that. >> if james a. garfield were to walk into this house right now he actually would not recognize this room. because when he was alive and living here in the home, this was actually the kitchen. after his death, lucretia garfield started to make some major changes to the property. this room was converted from the kitchen into this sort of open reception room. the most significant change that she made after his death was the construction of the nation's very first presidential memorial library. and as we get to the top of the steps here before we go into the memorial library, we come first to the memorial landing. and it's here that we find one of lucretia garfield's favorite portraits of her husband. this portrait was done by carolyn ransom, a good friend of the garfields and shows james a. garfield as a major general during the american civil war. this is the room that lucretia garfield came up with in her mind as a place to memorialize her husband.

to keep his memory alive for herself. for their children. and really by extension for the country as well. all over the room you see books, these are all books that belonged to james a. garfield. this is a beautiful piece that was actually sent to mrs. garfield, completely unsolicited. by someone from -- in italy. it's a beautiful memorial piece that has an image of james garfield in the middle surrounded by flowers. this is all actually made with small stones pressed together. and it's -- one of mrs. garfield's favorite pieces. we have a very beautiful marble bust of james a. garfield. this was also sculpted by an italian sculptor and given to mrs. garfield around 1883. about two years after her husband's death. and here we have what lucretia called the memory room. this is the room that she had constructed along with the library in 1885 and 1886 in which she stored her husband's official papers and documents. so it was in this room that she had his papers organized, catalogued and then bound up and stored. really to keep them for

posterity. a lot of very interesting items in here. most significantly is the wreath i think up on the shelf there in the frame. that wreath was actually lying on garfield's casket while he was lying in state in the capitol building in washington, d.c. the wreath was sent to mrs. garfield via the british delegation from queen victoria along with a nice handwritten note of sympathy from the queen. something that's really interesting about this room is the fact that the garfields used this room a lot. it wasn't one of those sort of beautiful rooms that you can't actually go into or touch anything. you see lucretia's writing desk here. she spent a lot of time here. writing letters. you'll see here that she did use black bordered stationary. she actually used that for rest of her life, to denote lifelong mourning for her husband. here in front of the large windows on a happier note, two of the garfield children actually got married in 1888.

a double wedding ceremony where harry garfield the oldest garfield son and molly garfield, the only surviving garfield daughter, both married their respective fiances in a double wedding ceremony right here in front of the -- in front of the windows in the library. host: lucretia garfield made it into the new century, she died in 1918 at the ripe old age of 85. how did she live those post white house years and what -- how should we put her in the pantheon of first ladies? guest: unfortunately her tenure was so brief. but we can say this. she was the first to be self-conscious enough to not destroy papers and the first to keep a diary of her white house days. and she might best be thought of as a former first lady in a sense. in terms of her career. i think there's a lot of similarities between her and jacqueline kennedy. both in terms of committing to the legacy of their husbands and yet also not allowing their lives and the lives of their children to be weighed down by

the grief. host: we're looking at some photographs of the large family. do you know if any of the garfield family members went into politics? guest: one of her sons was in theodore roosevelt's cabinet. and another son was in woodrow wilson's cabinet. as administrator. she died right at the very beginning, a year into world war i. and she was actually herself doing a work on -- as a volunteer with the red cross in pasadena. when she died. but there's some suggestion that she decided to go from republican to progressive to slightly democratic because president wilson gave her son a job in the cabinet. host: on that note, we will say thank you. we've talked about the fact that you've spent your historical career focusing on first ladies. as we close here lots of first ladies ahead of us, how did you get interested and why do you think it's interesting for people to learn about first ladies? >> because they have a natural

influence on the thinking of their husbands. and their intelligence and their wisdom and sometimes their ability to even see sort of a larger picture that they, the husbands themselves, can't. was for so many years neglected. you know, they were always just sort of written off as mannequins for clothing who had nice dishes. and in fact, you know, they -- their intelligence and their efforts and conscientiousness helped their husbands reach the presidency. host: here's one of carl nict's 1789 to rst ladies 1991 and available wherever you buy your books. and closing out here, i say this each week, we are working with the historical sites and thanks to the folks at the garfield home in mentor, ohio, for their help and the white

house historical -- and we have this biography book they have published for many years a special edition of it for those of you who want to read more about the biographies you can find it on our website. selling it at cost. the idea that you can learn more history if you're interested. thanks for being with us tonight. on our first ladies program. on the garfield and arthur administrations. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> while visiting washington in 1885, france's fulsome received a marriage proposal from the president of the united states, grover cleveland. a year later they were married in the white house he coming the only president and first lady to be married on the white house. francis became a celebrity overnight. was used widely in advertising, without her consent. monday, we get a closer look at frances cleveland. our website has more about the

first lady's including including a special section, welcome to the white house. it chronicles life in the executive mansion during the tenure of each of the first ladies and we are all spring a special edition of the book " first ladies of the united states of america," comments from noted historians, and thoughts from michelle obama on , nowole of first of ladies identified -- now available for $12.95 less shipping. -- plus shipping. >> c-span, created in 1979, brought you as a public service by your television provider. click c-span talked with members of fema as they walked through a neighborhood of oklahoma, registering homeowners for federal assistance affect it by the tornado.

you will hear from two members of the team as they talk about the process which includes the ability to register applicants on site via a mobile app. rex my name is ronnie. >> bob. >> you said you were registered? there are some survivors. for anything that is needed. >> explain the process. 15 minutes they get a registration number. and then they will get a phone .all from a fema contractor he comes over with copper identification makes a phone call to schedule an appointment to come to the survivors home to do and in the section -- an inspection. we do our inspection and in the next day or so they get a call.

we mention they have proper identification and then they get a packet in the mail, make sure they feel that out. sba, fema, unemployment, crisis counsel through the state. there is a center if they have any questions or concerns. our thing, we are the first group some -- boots on the ground for fema. we want them, what is their need? what do they need? we work in conjunction with the state. medical, housing, food, clothing, we point them in the right direction for that information. that is our main objective. my mission is to make sure we reach out to every disaster survivor that was affect did. -- affected.

>> we certainly have. we have a claim number. outas an inspector been yet? >> we had a couple girls, i. -- come by. >> they should have made an appointment trade >> not yet. >> you should be hearing from them shortly. >> you will receive a letter in the mail saying you are ineligible. it is not true. it is just because it is automatically sent out since you have insurance. lets the insurance go through and when you have your settlement, you give that 1-800 number a call. quite she gave me another one.