New FLARE President Diana Carlin Targets Growth in Milestone Fifth Year
With Carlin, the First Ladies Association for Research and Education continues to build out offerings that expand and aim to ‘rewrite’ America’s first ladies history.
As the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE) enters its fifth year, the new president of the nonprofit, Diana Carlin, is looking ahead at 2026 as another pivotal year in its growth.
Carlin is the third president of the association, following Nancy Kegan Smith and its inaugural president Myra Gutin.
In just a few short years, Carlin, professor emerita of communication at Saint Louis University and a retired professor communication studies at the University of Kansas, has watched members of FLARE get the support and opportunities that it originally intended. As an example, Carlin, who has also taught college courses on first ladies, shares that she invited a professor doing first ladies work to join the organization, which eventually led to featuring the member on FLARE’s regular virtual programming. That opportunity led to a book deal for the member.
“This is what FLARE was designed to do,” Carlin says, adding that once the member’s book is published, FLARE will help publicize it and feature the author on their recently launched podcast, American FLOTUS, which is the companion podcast to the Alan Lowe hosted American POTUS podcast.
Heading into 2026, Carlin and the FLARE board set out a strategic plan with financial sustainability being the primary goal. The organization has a growing number of institutional lifetime and individual memberships that helps offset the amount of free information it provides about the history, impact and legacies of first ladies.
The year ahead for FLARE also includes the launch of a free-access, peer-reviewed online journal.
“This journal is the place where you publish everything, because it’s still hard to get [research] published in other journals if you’re an academic or not even an academic,” Carlin says. “There are a lot of people in history museums, in archives, in the presidential libraries who publish, and it’s just tough to find the right place for it.”
Later this year, FLARE is planning a first ladies conference with programming focused around this year’s 250th anniversary of America’s founding. In 2024, FLARE hosted its first national gathering at the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, honoring former First Lady Betty Ford’s own First Ladies Conference co-sponsored with former First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1984 that was also held at the museum.
“It’s an opportunity for us to rewrite history that’s been taught,” Carlin says of the forthcoming conference. She notes some attention will focus on first ladies during the founding of the country and the roles that Martha Washington and Abigail Adams played during the revolution.
Also in the works this year is a special research grant and the launch of an experts bureau for members.
Formed in June 2019 by seven women from a combination of backgrounds including former White House staff, academics and book authors of first ladies, the nonprofit FLARE was established to be the primary association to facilitate networking, promoting and publicizing research and education for people from various fields studying America’s presidential spouses.
There was a demand because many people studying first ladies have faced scrutiny about the subject matter. It wasn’t until the 1980s when Lewis Gould—the father of First Ladies Studies—challenged that thinking by writing several books on first ladies, editing the Modern First Ladies book series and teaching the first-ever history course about first ladies.
Gould, the Eugene C. Barker Centennial professor emeritus of American History at the University of Texas at Austin, was honored for his foundational work by FLARE last year under the leadership of then FLARE President Smith when the organization published its first monograph The Founding of First Ladies Studies: A Tribute to Lewis L. Gould. FLARE’s annual Gould award is named in his honor.
In addition to the April 2024 First Ladies Conference (done in conjunction with FLARE, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, Library and Museum, American University’s School of Public Affairs and the National Archives) celebrating Betty Ford’s 40th anniversary as first lady and the 50th anniversary of the first First Ladies Conference, FLARE, on the same day, also co-sponsored a luncheon hosted by the Fords’ daughter, Susan Ford Bales, who welcomed then First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. Biden gave remarks on her Women’s Health Research initiative. And late last year, FLARE held its first successful major fundraiser—a national online live auction that has been incorporated into the organization’s protocol to raise money.
“Diana has a very ambitious and wonderful program to grow FLARE in many different ways, including tackling new membership streams, enlarging our communication and social networking in terms of a conference that will solicit paper proposals,” Smith says, adding the new priorities will help achieve the important mission of FLARE, which is to promote research, education and the importance of the lasting legacy of first ladies.
Membership information can be found on the FLARE website. People do not have to be a member to donate to FLARE. Donations can be made directly on the organization’s website.
East Wing Magazine is a member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education.