we're honored today to have annette dunlap as our speaker. annette was awarded an mba from washington university at st. louis. and has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, speaker and entrepreneurial consultant. in her spare time, when she's not raising cattle on a 29-acre farm in north carolina, annette writes books. her first biography was "frank: the story of francis folsom cleveland, america's youngest first lady." and her second book, "the gambler's daughter: a personal and social and personal history" involved a bit of autobiography in exploring her father's gambling addiction. dunlap's current research brings her to lou henry hoover. she has twice been a recipient of the hoover presidential foundation's travel grants for visiting scholars, allowing annette to mind the lou henry hoover manuscript collection here in west branch. dunlap was featured as scholar for frances cleveland and lou henry hoover on c-span's recent series, "america's first ladies." more than a decade has lapsed since lou hoover received a book-length biogra

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome annette b. dunlap who will speak on america's first ladies and the politics of fashion. >> thank you very much. that's a great introduction. well, thank you, tom, for the introduction and i was listening to this saying who is this person? i guess it's the one who stares out from the mirror. first of all, you are the most awesome crowd ever. and i speak at much smaller venues, and i will have to admit that when the first ten people showed up, i said to tom, well, five more people showed up than i was expecting, so i'm feeling great. and then we came down to please raise your hand if there are any available seats, so thank you all so very, very very much. i really appreciate it. so let's take this afternoon to kind of journey through a history of our first ladies and their fashions. and if you haven't had an opportunity to do so while you're here at the hoover this afternoon, i want to encourage you to see the special first ladies exhibit which i finally had a chance to take in this morning when i was he

. >>> up next, the herbert hoover presidential library hosts author annette dunlap as she explores the evolution of first ladies' fashion. she chronicles on the public image of the women living in the white house and what their wardrobe choices reveal about the times in which they lived. this program runs about an hour. >> well, good afternoon and welcome to the herbert hoover presidential library museum. my name's tom schwartz, and i'm the director.