Maurine Beasley Would Not Be Dissuaded from Studying First Ladies
Eleanor Roosevelt scholar awarded FLARE 2026 Lewis L. Gould Award.
It’s a familiar story. At least it is for the few women in the late 20th century who pursued scholarship of the understudied American first ladies.
Maurine Beasley was one of them.
As a first woman (or for many years a token woman) journalism professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park, Beasley recalls being advised by a former dean of another journalism school to stop wasting her time studying first ladies if she wanted tenure.
She didn’t take the shortsighted advice.
Earlier this week and more than 40 years later, Beasley was honored for her pathbreaking work studying first ladies when she was awarded the First Ladies Association for Research and Education’s 2026 Lewis L. Gould Award.
The annual award, presented by FLARE on its fifth anniversary, recognizes distinguished contributions to the field of first lady research and education while furthering the study of U.S. first ladies. In fact, it was the award’s namesake that gave Beasley the confidence all those years ago to embark on her studies of presidential wives.
“It means a great deal that the award is named for professor Lewis Gould whose inspiration has drawn so many of us to the field of first lady studies,” Beasley said in her acceptance speech.
She recalled meeting him in 1981 when he spoke at one of the first conferences of the American Journalism Historians Association. His stature as a professor in the history department of the University of Texas, a renowned institution, put an academic “seal of approval” on research pointing out the important roles played by first ladies in the political and social culture of the United States, she said.
“It was a time that we sorely needed a seal of approval. It was a time when first ladies, like many other women in American history, were not considered worthy of serious scholarship,” said Beasley, whose initial interest was studying first ladies in the news media.
Beasley, who worked as a journalist at The Kansas City Star and The Washington Post before transitioning into academia, would go on to author Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady, which was a selection of the History Book Club, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia, co-edited with Dr. Holly C. Shulman, Ph.D., FLARE’s 2025 Gould Award recipient, and Henry R. Beasley. The encyclopedia was named one of the outstanding reference books of the year in 2001 by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association. Her most recent work on Eleanor Roosevelt will appear in the Global Journal of Human-Social Science later this year.
“The history of Eleanor Roosevelt would not be the same without the work of Maurine Beasley,” said Shulman, who presented the award to Beasley. “Nor would the history of first ladies, nor would the history of women journalists, nor would the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism where she was both a professor and a graduate director. She’s a specialist in women and the media and in Eleanor Roosevelt and in first ladies.”
Diana Carlin, president of FLARE, noted how members of the organization owe a debt of gratitude to Gould, warmly known as the “father of First Ladies Studies,” and the other pioneers in first ladies research and education such as Maurine Beasley who promoted first ladies studies against resistance.
“Without their determination those of us who followed would not have the multiple outlets for our scholarship and education activities,” Carlin said. “Dr. Beasley’s research was instrumental in introducing the importance of first ladies in our nation’s history.”
This is FLARE’s sixth presentation of the Gould Award since its inception, five years ago, in 2021. This year, the organization has launched its own Journal of First Ladies Studies for scholars. Previous award winners include Lewis L. Gould, Anita McBride, Catherine Allgor, Allida Black and Holly Shulman.
“Maurine has been in the field for over 40 years, really near 50 years, and is really a pioneer, along with Dr. Gould, of First Ladies Studies,” said Nancy Kegan Smith, former president of FLARE. “I want to note that this is the first time, and this is an indication of FLARE’s interdisciplinary nature, that the Gould Award has been given to a journalist-historian.”
In addition to Gould, Beasley also praised another man who was helpful in the “cause of women’s history”—the late William Emerson, former head of the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park, New York, in the 1970s.
The two first crossed paths, according to Beasley, when she visited the library seeking material on Eleanor Roosevelt’s press conferences. The library had almost none, she recalled. And it was Emerson who explained how Eleanor Roosevelt’s papers, unlike those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, had not been professionally archived originally. Instead, Mrs. Roosevelt, herself, had had to hire students at nearby Vassar College to file her papers, resulting in a hit-or-miss approach that archivists struggled to overcome for years, she said. It initially made it difficult for scholars to research the depth of Eleanor Roosevelt’s career.
It was also Emerson’s candor then that stood out in Beasley’s memory.
“Dr. Emerson also told me, frankly, that most historians who came to the library were male and not looking for research material on women. In fact, they thought it was inconsequential,” she said. “For instance, he said valuable confidential reports for the Roosevelt administration on the economic woes of the Great Depression that were written by Mrs. Roosevelt’s intimate friend Lorena Hickok had never been published.”
The reason in his opinion, she recalls, was simply because they were written by a woman.
Beasley forged ahead co-editing with another male historian, Richard Lowitt, in 1981 One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports the Great Depression. Since then, there have been other editions of the book and the material has been footnoted in articles and books on the Roosevelt administration. They were valuable reports, noted Beasley, since Eleanor Roosevelt was responsible for Hickok’s employment and received her reports along with administration officials.
“I offer this as an example of early First Ladies Studies that helped move the field beyond descriptions of gowns and greeting White House visitors,” Beasley said. “First ladies both, to me, represent and do not represent American women at various periods of history, but they certainly are worthy of study and they tell us much more about ourselves as Americans.”
New Tickets to Be Released for Obama Presidential Center
The Obama Foundation on Wednesday announced it will release more Obama Presidential Center Museum tickets following a sellout due to high demand. The new ticket release for the Museum will include visits from September 2026 through January 2027. The Museum is the only ticketed area on campus, with the vast majority of the campus free and open to the public.
Founding Members of The Obama Foundation will receive exclusive presale access beginning July 1, with tickets becoming available to the general public on July 8.
“The overwhelming interest we’ve seen since opening our doors is a powerful reminder of how much people are looking for spaces that bring us closer together,” said Valerie Jarrett, CEO of The Obama Foundation in a press release. “We’re thrilled to make more tickets available and grateful to our members whose support helps us invest in the next generation of changemakers.”
Membership in The Obama Foundation provides early museum ticket access and exclusive benefits while supporting the Foundation’s mission to inspire, empower, and connect the next generation of leaders.
For more information on membership or to purchase tickets, please visit obama.org.
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