Nancy Kegan Smith Takes the Helm at FLARE
Nancy Kegan Smith Takes the Helm at FLARE
Association dedicated to preserving the legacies of America’s first ladies enters its third year.
When Nancy Kegan Smith speaks of the time she spent researching and interviewing former First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson in 1987, she never anticipated, then, how that experience would shape her future advocacy for presidential spouses.
But, it did.
And on an early January afternoon, Smith, retired director of the Presidential Materials Division at the National Archives and Records Administration, spoke to East Wing Magazine about her first lady encounter and about her latest leadership position: president of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE).
Back in the mid-1980s, Smith, an archivist at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library at the University of Texas in Austin was assigned to process and review papers for Lewis L. Gould, Eugene C. Barker Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas and a pioneer in first ladies’ research, for his 1988 book Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment.
In doing so, Smith not only worked with Dr. Gould, but she also worked with Lady Bird Johnson and, over time, got to know her. That interaction, she says, had a huge impact on her career. Smith’s interview with Johnson ended up the subject of an 1987 article she wrote for Prologue, a National Archives magazine that ceased publication with its winter 2017-18 issue.
“It was just so fascinating the responses she gave,” Smith recollects. In fact, Smith shares that she had asked Lady Bird Johnson if former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy after the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy (the 35th president), had given her a tour of the White House. Johnson’s response was that just three days after the assassination she was invited by Jacqueline Kennedy for tea.
The significance of that meeting between the two women can’t go understated.
The newly widowed first lady asked Lady Bird Johnson if she would continue her initiative with her White House restoration efforts, which Jacqueline Kennedy had started within a month of becoming first lady. Lady Bird Johnson said yes. Jacqueline Kennedy as first lady had established a White House Fine Arts Committee made up of preservation experts to help with the restoration. In 1964, the newly sworn in president, Lyndon Johnson, indeed, signed an executive order making the White House curator position permanent and creating the permanent Committee for the Preservation of the White House.
“The earth shaking thing about it is that it is the only instance I know of where a first lady had asked another first lady to carry on her initiative. And she did,” says Smith.
Educating the public of such little-known pieces of first ladies history is what motivates Smith and the goals of FLARE.
Additionally, Smith’s early contributions to the field of first ladies research is an aspect the organization hopes to pass on to future researchers. In 1989, Smith co-edited the book Modern First Ladies: Their Documentary Legacy, which includes a collection of essays of first ladies from Lou Hoover to Nancy Reagan. The book was the first of its kind, Smith says, that provided researchers who were interested in first ladies with a description of the collections at presidential libraries and documentation detailing where the collections on first ladies were located.
Decades later, Smith’s work in cementing America’s first ladies in history continues. This month, she assumes the position of president of FLARE, the country’s first association dedicated to the study of presidential spouses. Smith steps into the position that was held by Myra Gutin, FLARE founding president and professor emerita at Rider University.
The nonprofit’s mission is to create and sustain a network to promote and publicize research and education about the contributions, lives, impact and last legacy of U.S. first ladies.
Established in 2021 by seven founding members and in partnership with American University’s School of Public Affairs and its First Ladies Initiative, FLARE is entering its third year. Since its launch, the organization has done numerous virtual programs that are free and accessible by the public. It has a growing interdisciplinary membership base that includes a community of scholars, institutions, first lady staffers, biographers, archivists, journalists and historians.
“Our mission is to promote and make the knowledge of the important impact of these first ladies known and to further research and education on first ladies because they have had a huge impact,” Smith says.
She points to several former first ladies and their legacies as an example: Betty Ford and breast cancer prevention; Barbara Bush and her Foundation for Family Literacy; Rosalynn Carter and addressing mental health; Lady Bird Johnson’s Wildflower Center; Dolley Madison’s social entertainment role at the White House; Laura Bush’s role as chief comforter after Sept. 11; and Martha Washington who had no role model to follow, yet created the first.
Looking ahead to 2024, Smith says FLARE is focused on broadening its audience, holding two conferences, inaugurating its e-journal, formalizing its speaker’s bureau and continuing to offer its membership networking opportunities.
First ladies have helped shape and have been a vital part of American history, says Smith, who believes FLARE will support people in the field to tell stories that have yet to be discovered.
“It’s not fair to look at these women as just a sidearm to their husband.”
— Nancy Kegan Smith
“It’s not fair to look at these women as just a sidearm to their husband,” says Smith, who is a co-author with FLARE founding members Diana B. Carlin and Anita B. McBride of the first college textbook U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies about every first lady through Dr. Jill Biden and also the trade book Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Making Women.
History shows that presidential spouses have sometimes led and sometimes followed societal norms. Or, according to Smith, there is First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who was ahead of her time in her role as chairperson of the drafting committee of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states that human rights are universal – to be enjoyed by all people, no matter who they are or where they live.
“I really love the topic,” Smith says. “These are really incredibly impactful women who are not given their due credit.”
Find more information about FLARE membership here.
East Wing Magazine is a member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education.