ms. weininger: one of our more controversial collections is the white house china. journalists of the day wrote scathing articles. one said that the art was absurd. who's going to want to be eating this lovely meal and see a duck at the bottom of their plate? >> she took an active interest in public affairs from an early age. >> she had a college degree, and she had taught. ms. weininger: two causes that were very important to her were veterans and soldiers and also orphans, children who had been made orphans as a result of the civil war. >> she combined all of these roles. that's the interesting thing. she manages to be a very devout mother. she doesn't neglect her children. but she also embraces the life of her times. ms. swain: lucy hayes wrote, "women's minds are as strong as man's, equal in all things and superior in some." born in 1831 in chillicothe, ohio, she was the first first lady to earn a college degree and her life tells us much about the times in which she lived experiencing the civil war reconstruction, and the gilded age, and into a period where tec