First Ladies Read Online Free

Acknowledgments
    IN THE YEARS SINCE I completed the first edition in 1986, I have become even more aware of the valuable aid that scholars and archivists generously give each other, and I am happy to acknowledge here the dozens of individuals and institutions who contributed to the research and writing of this book.
    Members of the Institute for Research in History Reading Group on Cities generously enlarged their mission to include First Ladies in urban studies, and I am grateful to the following for their comments on portions of the manuscript: Cathy Alexander, Jane Allen, Selma Berrol, Barbara Blumberg, Elizabeth Hitz, Nora Mandel, Jean Mensch, and Carol Neuls-Bates.
    Two conferences stimulated my thinking on the subject. In April 1984, Betty Ford hosted a meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to explore the role of modern First Ladies. Hundreds of people, including journalists and White House curators, two ex–First Ladies, and the daughters and one granddaughter of other First Ladies exchanged views on how the role of presidential wife had changed. In December 1982, Barbara Welter chaired a New York City conference where newswomen and academics, colleagues of First Ladies, and statisticians evaluated the role of Eleanor Roosevelt and her predecessors. I benefited greatly from both meetings.
    The presidential libraries have furnished a great deal of information, and I am grateful to the staffs of the libraries of Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gerald R. Ford. In the case of two recent presidents whose libraries were not ready for use when I needed them, I had help from Madeline MacBean Edwards, assistant to Rosalynn Carter, who supplied material on the Carter years, andfrom Helen McCain Smith, press secretary to Pat Nixon. Rosalynn Carter generously answered many questions not dealt with in her autobiography,
First Lady from Plains
.
    Although I attempted to use as many primary sources as possible, I relied heavily on the research and interpretations of historians and political scientists who had gone before. In the course of studying Ellen Wilson and Lucy Hayes, I called on their respective biographers, Frances Wright Saunders and Emily Apt Geer, both of whom responded far beyond what I had a right to expect. Joy Scimé, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the subject, clarified my thinking on federal regulations on the employment of women in the 1930s. Douglas Lonnstrom and Thomas Kelly, Co-Directors of the Siena Research Institute, shared results of their polls of historians and political scientists. Lester Meigs forced me to consider more carefully what I had written. Margaret Klapthor at the National Museum of American History answered many questions. Phyllis Deutsch assisted in the first stage of the research, and Carl Sferrazza Anthony, who researched the topic of First Ladies for years and published two fascinating volumes on the subject in 1990–1991, helped me throughout the research. Rita Cooley, Professor of Politics (now Emerita) at New York University, was an inspiring mentor when I first knew her, and she has continued her enthusiastic aid beyond the granting of my degree. Lewis Gould offered many helpful suggestions.
    Among the many historians and curators who answered my queries were Elizabeth F. Abel, Town Historian of Stillwater, New York; Dale Irene Maugans, of Lawnfield, the Garfield home in Mentor, Ohio; Herbert S. Gary, of the Warren G. Harding House in Marion, Ohio; Lawrence E. Wikander, the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Room, Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts; Betty J. Gallagher and Dale C. Mayer of the Herbert Hoover Library; Mary Ellen Andrew, Elmira College; John Dobson, Library of the University of Tennessee; Mark E. Neely, Jr., of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana; Kathleen Jacklin, Cornell University Libraries; Polly B. Johnson and Vera Weeks of the Pierce