Autumn Stephens - Feisty First Ladies and Other Unforgettable White House Women

Copyright 1997, 2009 by Autumn Stephens

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Viva Editions, an imprint of Cleis Press Inc., P.O. Box 14697, San Francisco, California 94114.

Cover design: Scott Idleman

Text design: Frank Wiedemann

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Excerpt from Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era copyright 1992 by Autumn Stephens. Reprinted by permission of Conari Press.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges The Library of Congress for the photos and illustrations on pages: 3, 9, 13, 17, 31, 33, 37, 43, 45, 47, 57, 61, 75, 87, 107, 109, 127, 143, 145, 157, 165, 179, 189. Photograph of Hillary Clinton on page 195: copyright: Todd Pierson, Shutterstock.com. Photograph of Laura Bush on page 201: copyright: Stocklight, Shutterstock.com. Photograph of Sarah Palin on page 207: copyright: mistydawnphoto, Shutterstock.com. Photograph of Michelle Obama on page 209: copyright: Suzanne Tucker, Shutterstock.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stephens, Autumn.

Feisty first ladies and other unforgettable White House women / Autumn Stephens.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-57344-604-4

1. Presidents spouses--United States--Biography--Anecdotes. 2. Presidents--United States--Family--Anecdotes. 3. Women--United States--Biography--Anecdotes. 4. Presidents--United States--Biography--Anecdotes. 5. White House (Washington, D.C.)--Anecdotes. 6. Washington (D.C.)--Social life and customs--Anecdotes. I. Title.

E176.2.S75 2008

973.099--dc22

2008049133

CONTENTS

FEISTY FIRST LADIES

T HE CONSTITUTION IS CLEAR on the point: Technically speaking, the president of the United States, and not the woman in his life, gets to be the official Big Cheese. Yet from firebrand Abigail Adams, who exhorted the Founding Fathers to remember the ladies (or else!) to career woman Hillary Clinton, frankly advertised as part of the presidential package in her husbands two-for-one campaign, American wives, mistresses, mothers, and even serving maids over the centuries have matched the mettle of the men in the Oval Officeand, on occasion, the gall.

The whole government is afraid of me, and well they may be, gloated early nineteenth-century reporter Anne Royall, who held a naked presidents pants hostage until he granted her an interview. Well, Warren, I have got you the presidencywhat are you going to do with it? inquired indomitable First Lady Florence Harding in 1921. And the words of audacious phone freak Martha Mitchell, who didnt hesitate in 1973 to tell Watergate conspirator Richard Nixon (and every reporter in Washington) that she had his number, still ring across the decades: Mr. President should resign!

Many a secret White House paramour, of course, has held (or at least briefly handled) the reins of Executive power. The careers of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, to name only a few, all once hung on the question of an extramarital indiscretion (and also the forbearance of American voters).The many madcap lovers of John F. Kennedyamong them Judith Campbell Exner, also intimately involved with a Mafia boss during her two-year affair with JFKprobably deserve a book (among other things) of their own.

Not every female who infiltrates the bastion of patriarchal power, of course, revels in her role. Fiercely private Bess Truman, plagued in the mid-twentieth century by unfavorable comparisons to her larger-than-life predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt, termed the Executive Mansion The Great White Jail; 150 years earlier, the much-scrutinized Martha Washington, Mother of All First Ladies, grumbled that she was more like a state prisoner than anything else. And to the present day, savaging the presidents spouse rivals football as a beloved national sport.

But for every reluctant White House resident, a dozen would-be denizens wait restlessly in the wings. Nowhere is it written, all appearances to the contrary, that the individual who inhabits the Oval Office must actually be a man: From self-proclaimed libertine Victoria Woodhull in 1872 to black feminist leader Shirley Chisholm a century later to Hilary Clinton in 2008, a host of bold trailblazers have not only fantasized about becoming president, but seriously contended for the position. And overriding the democratic process altogether, a brazen bevy of protestors, picketers, and gate-crashersnot to mention rock star Grace Slick, who once plotted to spike Richard Nixons tea with LSD, has simply tried to take the White House by storm.

From feisty first ladies and mutinous housekeepers to overt publicity hounds and behind-the-scenes dictators, American women have left an enduring imprint in the annals of presidential history. In the spirit of 1776, heres to every White House revolutionary who celebrated Independence Day her way and to the proposition that a nation of enlightened voters will someday also remember the ladies at the ballot box.

MARTHA WASHINGTON

A MUCH-HYPED PROTOTYPE

I F MARTHA WASHINGTON DIDNT DO IT, observed one Clinton-era comedian of the great to-do about Hillarys hands-on approach to first ladyhood, then no one is sure it should be done. If truth be told, however, not even Martha, the revered Mother of Her Country, escaped some rather trying eighteenth-century controversy about how to interpret her role.

Reputedly the richest woman in Virginia when she wed George in 1759, Martha, a widow of twenty-seven, reentered the state of matrimony with two small children and a slightly risqu reputation attached. Not known in her pre-George days for demureness or for dignity, she amused herself by riding her horse up and down her uncles front steps, aggressively pursued her first husband (a wealthy tobacco farmer some twenty years her senior), and as heir to his plantation, harassed various London merchants by letter, shamelessly demanding an uncommon Price for her goods.

But in 1789, when Husband Number Two snagged the position of President Number One, Martha meekly turned her attention to the topic of just how the chief executives wife should act, and also what she should be called. And so, it seems, did the rest of the just-hatched nation, then preoccupied with both the practical and the symbolic details of how to set up a democracy. The U.S. Senate convened to consider a suitable title for George, His Highness and His Excellency among the numerous options. As for his spouse, suggestions ranged from Marquise to Mrs.: not until 1849 would the term First Lady (in reference to the deceased Dolley Madison) be verbally bandied about, and in the end, Martha remained Lady Washington.

Regrettably, the government did not also dictate protocol to the crowds that collected in New York and Philadelphia (only with the completion of the White House in 1800 would presidents officially reside in Washington) whenever Lady Washington stepped out her front door. I am more like a state prisoner than anything else, the rather cranky object of curiosity complained to her sister. [A]s I cannot do as I like I am obstinate [and] stay home a great deal.