She Was Told Studying First Ladies Was ‘Trivial.’ She Did It Anyway.

Now, scholars Teri Finneman and Lisa Burns dive into presidential spouse history and explain why it matters in a new podcast.

Co-editors Lisa Burns (left) and Teri Finneman of the forthcoming book Cambridge Companion To U.S. First Ladies launch The First Ladies podcast. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Teri Finneman)

Why does studying America’s first ladies matter? 

That was the closing question in episode one of the new The First Ladies podcast that launched last week at the start of Women’s History month. Host Teri Finneman, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas who studies media portrayals of first ladies, sat down with Lisa Burns, a first ladies scholar and Quinnipiac University media studies professor who edited Media Relations and the Modern First Lady, to begin discussing the answer to that question over the course of 14 initial episodes.

Ultimately, the answer is meant to drive the point that the presidency and its place in U.S. history overshadows the significant impact their wives make. The podcast coincides with the upcoming book Cambridge Companion To U.S. First Ladies that Finneman and Burns are…