before eleanor roosevelt. however, were two women whose communication with the american public is worth contemplating in greater detail. both of their husbands presencies ended disastrously. i would argue that the communication choices of one first lady pushed her husband down the track to failure. while the communication decisions of the other helped him maintain his personal popularity despite evidence of mounting scandals. as you may have guessed the communications calamity was edith wilson. the success story was florence harding. as we've heard this morning distinctly gendered expectations governed first ladies actions. in the early decades of the 20th century if she were to communicate with the public the first lady was expected to support her husband not to upstage contradict or challenge him. the gender norm was that the man led the family and this was neat and right and ordained by god in fact any man who could not control his wife called into question his ability to lead the nation effectively. but if

eleanor roosevelt went out and so they work together. it's not necessarily the key ordered her to do that or ask her to do that. they just did it. in 1940, he does ask or specifically to go to chicago, to the democratic national convention. that's an unusual situation, where he has to ask her. >> stacy, we have a hard in question i'm not sure if the research -- but the viewer wants to know i was mrs. harding's image so unpopular? why was she so unpopular with the public? >> good question. i don't think she was unpopular the public. i think she was unpopular with historians. once the scandals of the administration became public, even though there are scholarships saying they had little to deal with it, didn't know much about it. her reputation was smothered under the scandals. she is never quite gotten out from under. that also, the first several books written about her work stream lee unkind. lots of ad hominem attacks. very ugly things said about mrs. hearting and it's been really recently catherine simply wrote a book that has -- she's

i mean before then it was just sort of even eleanor roosevelt people worked for her. she had secretaries and all but it wasn't listed as an official government employee. our question from geraldine from connecticut. were you surprised about anything in your research for this book? oh, yes, there were surprises all the time in what can i think of as an example? you're reading along and you find something that probably can't go into the book but you it surprises you. what can i say? what's the most surprising thing? i was surprised that how influential. ladybird was you know in her case she left a very full record. she left a diary that her printed diaries something like 800 pages white house diary. she was the first one by the way to do that. i shouldn't say that. she was the first modern first lady to do that helen taft had written a book about the white house and even julia grant back in the in the 1870s had written a book about being first lady, but it was not published for a hundred years. so after lady bird johnson every first lady except pat nixon who had her dau

>> i would have to say eleanor roosevelt. for the reason that i just -- she experimented with so many things. the investigations, the traveling abroad. taking a stand opposed to her husband. i would think that she's most ahead of her time and we haven't really matched that since. >> from eugenia in arizona, she asks has any first lady actually really relished the job? >> oh dear, a lot of them hated it. a lot of them hated it. that's the first thing that comes to mind. jane pierce you know prayed her husband would lose. even eleanor roosevelt didn't love it at all. i mean she was extremely unhappy to move into the white house. so who was happiest about it? who relished it? i can think of a single one. many of them say when they leave what they miss. they miss the perks of the white house, and the opportunity to meet people and to be part of what's going on in the world. so many of them talk about missing what whn they leave, but i can't, oh yes -- >> julia grant liked to be first lady. >> julia grant and helen taft. everyone

she's my favorite first lady eleanor roosevelt, but i talk about eleanor roosevelt very often and she is a first lady that many people know a lot about so when patrick asked me to do this presentation, we thought about maybe talking about first ladies who aren't as well known as eleanor roosevelt and i would start to complicate these four categories. and begin to discuss how it's really not terribly historically accurate to place any one first lady in one category the celebrity the controversial the reluctant or the political that most first ladies were a combination of several of these characteristics. so i want to look specifically at three first ladies who lived in very different periods in us history and talk about the quality of their years as first lady and discuss ways in which they crossed these categorical boundaries. so the first of these first ladies is an early republic first lady that i would like to talk about a little bit and that's darling madison here. she is in a photograph taken very late in her life. she's one of our first first ladies to be photographed although s

because i had done this other talk here about eleanor roosevelt was in terms of women in war eleanor roosevelt. is a woman who goes into the war she goes and is active in meeting the military. she goes to europe. she is a very very active person in being in the front line of engagement in the war. i think they got a little nervous at points because she was she really was involved in all this stuff but the red room, which is a little off topic but the red room became a symbol of the integration of women into kind of the white house circle. and a francis per well, the francis perkins is important because of her cabinet position, but you know when they had the gridiron dinner, which is a famous dinner that they have every year. she was not allowed to attend the gridiron dinner. because she was a woman, you know, some of these things we forget about there's a very famous woman philosopher named martha nussbaum. who one of the most eminent writers and philosophers who went to what was then radcliffe when she had to go to a lecture in harvard? she had to enter through the door in the 1960s.

and the portrait of eleanor roosevelt, which is on loan from the white house, we are very happy to have it on exhibition because it is partnered with the portrait of franklin roosevelt, which is in our collection, which is on view in the next presidents gallery. both of these are studies. and so the artist has shown his subjects several times, the study for franklin roosevelt, was for eight and realized portrait called the big three at yeltsin, which included churchill and stalin. and you kind of see them sketched out there. there is this attention that -- has two hands. he is really focused on hands. hands are tourists late for portrait artists, artists to do figurative application very difficult to master. so he is kind of showing off that he does hand so well. but with eleanor roosevelt's hands he is really showing all of the things that interested her, how busy she was with him, whether she was knitting, holding her classes or writing. she wrote. she had a daily newspaper column by day. she did a weekly radio address. so here we caught her at a moment when she is, writing and she's

list, headed by martin luther king's i have a dream, are them speeches by women, and to our by eleanor rooseveltn human rights, barbara bush's 1990 commencement address, and hillary clinton's speech in beijing on the u.n. conference on women in 1995. i could speak for 15 minutes on all of these a speeches but i don't have that much time. briefly, let me talk about where their power came from. in barbara bush's case, it was the use of humor to deflect a very uncomfortable situation. if you remember, she wasn't the first choice be the commencement speaker at wellesley and there were partitions to try to remove her from that position. she deflected that with humor and she went on to conclude her speech by saying, who knows, somewhere out in the audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the white house as the president's spouse, and i wish him well. essentially what she said is women should make her own choices. >> i know your first choice today was alice walker. [laughter] guess how i know? [laughter] [applause] known for the color purple, instead you got

left you can see too early box camera microphones positioned on stands in front of first lady eleanor roosevelt as she gives a speech in los angeles that was being broadcast on radio. now let's examine why this microphone in our collection is so important. to do that we need to begin by talking a little about presidential communication. communication skills are a vital element in presidential leadership. a big part of any president's job is explaining complicated economic and political issues to the public. most presidents come into office with an ambitious agenda but to achieve it they must be able to explain their goals in programs in a clear and compelling way show americans how it will benefit the nation and convince them to lend their support. the communication tools available to america's presidents have expanded dramatically during the past 200 years. modern presidents have been able to use newspapers magazines radio broadcast and cable television and in recent decades the internet and social media to reach out to the public and lobby for their agenda. of course nearly all of these tools

she would definitely want eleanor roosevelt there because in some ways eleanor roosevelt was her husband's eyes and ears and in his case his legs the way in some ways the role that nancy reagan performed people. will not believe that comparison but also because franklin roosevelt was ronald reagan's most admired president. and i also she actually read biographies of other first ladies, and i know that she was also very interested in theodore roosevelt's wife and how she performed this first lady. well, that would be you know, i've often thought about that too and you think about you mentioning jackie kennedy and here's a woman who was 32 years old when her husband was elected president. was first lady for less than three years, but has left such an extraordinary legacy including the creation of the white house historical association in nancy reagan much more senior in her life a two-term president and so quite a different role as first lady, so it'd be interesting to compare those or see those two. i'd love to be a flaw on the wall for that conversation. well, there's one point where in th

eleanor roosevelt, and hillary clinton's speech in beijing to the u.n.rth world conference on women it in 1995. i could speak for 15 minutes on all of the speeches, but i don't have that much time, so briefly, let me talk about where their power came from and why they made the list. and barbara bush's case it was with the use of humor to deflect a very uncomfortable situation that -- if you remember, she was not the first choice to be the commencement speaker and there are petitions to try to remove her from that position. she deflected that with humor and then she went on to conclude her speech by saying, who knows, somewhere out in this audience may even be somebody who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the white house as the president's staff and i wish them well. and essentially what she said is women should make their own choices. the short clip at the beginning of the speech, if you would show that please. >> i know your first choice today was alice walker. [laughter] >> guess how i know. [laughter] [applause] >> known for "the c

she was equally effective as a first lady not as effective as eleanor roosevelt that behind the scene she wasry very effective and mrs. reagan was wonderful to me over the years especially starting on my first book with a 76 campaign. i was having some trouble and she caught wind of it through a mutual friend of mine who was one of the president speechwriters. notebook had been written on the campaign it is a thrilling campaign with all the gubernatorial presidential campaigns this was very exciting and she found these files that the library had that were sealed they were not her priority like the presidential files were so she made them available to me for my exclusive use for my book for the 76 campaign and then to honor her memory. and on the new biography in fact we covered her at an event at the reagan library in montgomery alabama. >>caller: good show gentleman i was celebrate my 60h birthday today. i want to share a story in regard to fdr. that he had two other brothers and i remember him saying he wanted his siblings one of my answer they were on their way to see one of my gra

two by eleanor roosevelt on human rights after she left being a first lady and barbara bush's 1990 mansonress and the speech of hillary clinton in beijing to the u.n. fourth world conference on women in 1995. i could speak for 15 minute on all the speeches but i do not have that much time, so briefly let me talk about where the power came from and why they made the list. in the case of barbara brush it was with the use of humor to deflect a very uncomfortable situation that was with a hostile audience. if you remember, she was not the first choice as commencement speaker at wellesley, and there were petitions to remove her from the position. she deflected that with humor, and then she went on, to conclude her speech by saying, who knows, somewhere in this audience may even be someone will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the white house as the president's spouse, and i wish him well. essentially, what she said was, women should make their own choices and not have society do so. i have a short clip. >> i know your first choice today with alice walker. [laughter] guess how i

and i i once her to story mike that eleanor roosevelt unheard date the day she married franklin delano roosevelt another relative. everything was fine until uncle teddy walked in and just took just sucked all the oxygen out of the room. that's right, and so he gave away eleanor at her marriage to franklin and i don't know who said it but someone famously said that he wants to be the bride at every wedding the baby in every christening in the corpse at every funeral. ambitious here's from sarah in chicago. can you talk about tr's relationship with booker t, washington? oh, i'd love to and it's especially fitting now tr is the first american president to break bread with an african-american in the white house to have dinner with an african-american of course, but booker t. washington is a looming important figure and activists in american history at that time. interesting to note tr got an awful lot of backlash from basically white supremacists that were in the south of that time and he never invited booker t back for such a public meeting again, but booker t washington came became one o

i saw and met eleanor roosevelt and some of the other luminaries and i at that moment and i loved politics and i was an usher at the los angeles coliseum where he gave his acceptance speech and co-ran in college and was just hooked. i went to law school because i thought my survey showed at least a third of people serving in congress are lawyers and that's what i was interested in. then i practiced more briefly where i was a senior aide and got involved with john frank. i attended a subcommittee and he was the head of the american bar association at the time when there were almost no women involved working at the carter white house for two years as the deputy secretary and then was a practicing lawyer during the dark years of the reagan administration. i could see many things he did right and then found the opportunity to run for congress. it was kind of daunting because the district lines were changing what i thought was a safe seat that republicans were more likely to win and i won against the odds. one was a daughter of ronald reagan who was then retired and was helping her when the cal

there was not much security back in the day and i saw the nomination of john kennedy and i met eleanor roosevelt and some of the other luminaries. at that moment i had my life epiphany which was that i loved politics and i was an usher at the los angeles coliseum where kennedy gave his speech and i got active in politics in high school. aye ran my democratic caucus in college and i was just hooked. i went to law school because my unscientific survey showed me at least one third of people serving in congress are lawyers and that was what i was interested in. then i studied law briefly but my way to the senate rather was a senior aide to california senator was when i got involved with john frank. it ended the subcommittee working on access for lawyers and he was then the head of or a member of the american bar association. it at any rate i worked for john for five years at a time when there were almost no women involved working in the carter white house for two years as a cabinet secretary and then was a practicing lawyer in the dark years of the reagan administration. i could see many things he d

then i am also reading a new biography of eleanor roosevelt. is excellent there's all sorts of things going on a shouldn't mentioned that he really gets into her head. shouldn't a woman be writing about her? he makes you feel he is behind her eyes. i have read a couple actually have a thing about her for some reason it's not just fdr. that she standing next to him doing things but not her. that's what i'm reading when a sitdown tire but i will also get through this 1200 page gotham. host: it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you so for more information on nine nasty words please support your local bookseller or final program of the season will be held on and friday april 14 and we will be in conversation >> hi everybody. welcome. my name is -- and i'm vice president for international studies at the cato institute and today we will be discussing mustafa akyol's new book. the book is about the crisis in islam and about

a major feat and he is the face of that major feet but probably more important was his wife, eleanor rooseveltwho pushed for equality during the time. also, the whole host of african-american civil rights leaders like walter white and many of the others at the time that were using pressure to push the military towards integration, towards more equality for african-americans. the main thing that comes out of that executive order is this fair employment practices commission. you get a bit of duality in the language, the actual order itself says that people should strive to eradicate -- that there will be no discrimination in the hiring practices. the fair employment practices commission outright says all departments shall leave the way in eradicating prejudice based on color and race. within the context of the time that is huge. the prevailing argument by senior military leaders hitherto had been that the military is not a testing ground for social experiments. what we will find as we go along , the process of integration will take place in the military before it does in civilian society. by the

and now has a forthcoming book on the relationship between eleanor roosevelt and john kennedy . she also has a forthcoming book on the presidency facing constitutional crossroads which we will be featuring in a webinar on may 13. i'm going to turn this over to barbara to get the tconversation started but i'll ask all of you to join us as well by sending us your questions in the q&a function on your screen. barbara and i will collect your questions and even pass notes to one another behind-the-scenes and try to get as many of our guests questions into our two featured guests. with that barbara i handed over to you . >> thank you bill so much for that kind introduction and a big warm welcome to governor and mrs. robb. thank you for being here today and a virtual welcome back to your one time hometown of charlottesville . we know that one of your three daughters is a cavalier along so we are just delighted to have you with us today and it is as bill said given my background in studying the presidency and congress and the courts and first ladies and presidents in american government

she would not have been -- she probably would have had, i see her the bridge between eleanor roosevelte first ladies of today. she is really the first modern first lady. if we transplanter her into 2021 i think she would have been able to be as modern as she was then. but not have to conceal it quite so much. >> yes, i agree completely. there's another related question about that, and any of the first laser 1968 to the present they publicly recognized lady bird johnson as an inspiration for how they conducted themselves and their role? >> yes, ies think almost all of them have in one way or the other. most of them don't have knowledge of how much material she left behind. i would say i hope that our current first lady and others to come, can get a sense of just how deeply involved she was in the johnson administration. i think that notion of shared collaboration, shared partnership is something other first ladies have been given a hard time about that. and i think to know somebody in the 1960s was doing it ought to empower those who are there today in the future to do so as well. >> co

was not massive security back in the day, and i saw the nomination of john kennedy, and i met eleanor rooseveltome of the other luminaries. and i, at that moment had my life epiphany which was, is that i love politics. and i was an usher at the los angeles coliseum where kennedy gave his acceptance speech. i got active in politics in high school. i co-ran my democratic club in college. and, you know, i went to law school because i thought that my unscientific survey showed me that at least a third of people serving in congress are lawyers. i think it's probably higher. and that was whatye i was interested in. and then i practiced law briefly but migrated to the senate where i was a senior aide to a california senator named john funny. i think that's when i got involved with john frank because i headed a subcommittee working on access to the law, access to lawyers. and he wases then, i think, eitr the head of or a senior member of the american bar association. at any rate, worked for john tunney for five years at a time when there were almost no women in roles like that. i was -- [inaudible] con

offered some 20 books focusing on subjects from secretary of state dean atchison to jimmy carter, eleanor roosevelt, fdr and others. recently we invited him to talk with us for a long time, six hours. >> in this episode of booknotes+, here part of our conversation with doug brinkley. subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. >> former national security advisor h.r. mcmaster and former defense secretary leon panetta spoke about lessons learned from the war in afghanistan and from president biden's decision to withdraw troops by december 11 of this year, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. the foundation for defense of democracies hosted this one hour-long event. >> on behalf of the foundation for the defense of democracies, thank you for joining us. i am cliff, the founder and president. we are pleased to be joined by former secretary of defense and cia director leon panetta, and former national security advisor general h.r. mcmaster, to discuss the critical policy decision, the withdrawal of all u.s. troops from afghanistan. on september 11, 2001 terrorist engaged in a jihad, struck our homel

clinton and health care and hillary nearly reaching the white house herself, and in wartime, eleanor roosevelt now announcing the first association, and the causes they choose has a major impact on millions of people here and abroad. joining me now is the director of first ladies's initiative, and she was the former chief of staff of first lady, laura bush. tell me why the first ladies association for research and education is needed now? >> well, thank you so much, andrea, for doing this interview and covering this, because after our interview today the first ladies' association for research and education appropriately called f.l.a.r.e. will be launched and our website will go live. it's the first organization dedicated to the study of roles and legacies of the first ladies, and you have covered them in your legacy, and we appreciate that. this is a dream come true, as said by the first president of f.l.a.r.e., who is a scholar in the area of first ladies. this is a dream come true for all of those who have been working on this topic of studying the first ladies, and lighting the way of their

offered some 20 books focusing on subjects from secretary of state dean atchison to jimmy carter, eleanor rooseveltfdr and others. recently we invited him to talk with us for a long time, six hours. >> in this episode of booknotes+, here part of our conversation with doug brinkley. subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. >> former national security advisor h.r. mcmaster and former defense secretary leon panetta spoke about lessons learned from the war in afghanistan and from president biden's decision to withdraw troops by december 11 of this year, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. the foundation for defense of democracies hosted this one hour-long event. >> obe

eleanor roosevelt was in terms of all the reading i have done about her. but i think a lot of my role models were men that were in political life as well as in academics that were able to really make a difference. my role models where those that took whatever possibilities they had and develop them in unexpected ways and do not always expect to be told that they are brilliant. they work very hard. frankly, there were not a lot of role models. i find it very strange when people say, how do you feel building a role -- being a role model? it never occurred to me that i would be a remodel. but, i do take seriously how i behave. my granddaughter said, what is the big deal about grandma mattie being secretary of state? all will women secretary of state. david: i would like to tell a story from my new book. i interviewed joe lepore -- jill lepore. she wrote the first textbook of american history ever written by a woman. think about it. it is called "these truths". she pointed out the one-time she went to a third or fourth grade class and was asking young children

couple but they were a good legal team although her influence was much more subtle than say eleanor rooseveltwas. she was deeply effective as the first lady not like roosevelt or some others but was very effective. and mrs. reagan was wonderful. i remember when i was starting my first book in the 76 campaign i was havingpa some trouble with the reagan library and she caught wind of it through a mutual friend of mine who was one of the presidents speechwriters who was a friend of mine and no book had been written on his campaign. it was one of the most brilliant campaigns of all the gubernatorial presidential campaigns. she directed the bios of the library h had she personally tod them to open the library up for mike loses use for my book on the campaign so i will be forever indebted to mrs. reagan and i always her will honor her memory. >> host: booktv is covering karen tumulty on her new of nancy reagan wean covered her event at the ronald reagan library. montgomery alabama, please go ahead. >> guest: >> caller: a great show gentlemen. i'm celebrating my 60th birthday b today. >> host: happy

i can tell you she was voted the most trusted woman in america after eleanor roosevelt. she had a line of house stresses. she had a cookbook that was successful. she had a column where she gave motherly advice. she this show was the first show. that was so successful on television. it was made into a movie like everyone knew i even interviewed someone who worked with her on the movie who played a young woman in the movie at the time and she is still with us and i asked did you know who gertrude berg was when you were going to do the movie and she said oh honey, everybody know. you who cartridge berg was? so that just tells you like this woman was incredibly famous and i didn't know i had never heard of her. so that was the first thing that kind of like i filed away in my head and the second thing from the mary tyler moore show research was that we were talking about the character that betty white played on the mary tyler moore show, which was sue ann nibbons the happy homemaker, she great character and great performance. she was his character who had like a homemaking sh

she was voted the most trusted woman in america after eleanor roosevelt. she had a line of how stresses. she had a cookbook that was successful. she had a column where she gave motherly advice. this show was the first throw that was so successful on television, it was made into a movie. everyone knew, i even interviewed someone who worked on the movie who played a young woman and she is still with us. and i asked, who do you know who burger crude bergh was when you did a movie? she said oh honey, everybody knew who crude bergh was. so, that just tells you. this woman was incredibly famous. and i didn't know. i had never heard of her. so, that was the first thing that kind of like, i filed away in my head. and, the second thing from the mary tyler research -- was we are talking about the character that betty white played. which was the happy deal maker. great character and great performance. she was with her to have a whole making chill stationed where mary work. and she was this very sweet sort of sickly sea character in front of the camera and from dresse

roosevelt from 1926. >> on the way down. >> it kind of reminds me of eleanor.s more theater. i finally realized how much of this is just theater. it took trump to kind of shake the box for me to see that this is just a bunch of a waste of time. in my wrong? >> no, you're not wrong at all. >> all right, noakes question. >> trump, watching press conference he would say that wa so crazy, that was a wild. trump supporters all knew that it was crazy, but they were jus into that. there like that great i wish that people on the left could b more honest about what's happening now. now things are back to normal. this is not normal. you can't watch one of those an say that that is anything close two normal. presidents normally know where they are confidently at a minimum, and then can even go the extra mile and be able to competently answer questions very that's not happening and were not seeing that acknowledgment from anybody. >> at least he's not tweeting and that's the most important thing. >> i don't think he could. >> and who cares, who cares if the president thank

received fellowships and grants from the national endowment for the humanities the franklin and eleanor roosevelt institute, the hoover