“Why Haven’t We Learned This Before?”
“Why Haven’t We Learned This Before?”
New college textbook brings America’s first ladies front and center.
Presidential first ladies have leapt from the footnotes to the forefront of American history.
Solidifying that ascent, which has surged in recent years, is the nation’s first-ever college textbook focusing on the transformational legacies of the wives of America’s presidents. Co-authored by Diana B. Carlin, Anita B. McBride and Nancy Kegan Smith, U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies is published by Cognella Academic Publishing and is now available to college level students and educators across the United States. The authors are also founding members of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE), which was launched in 2021 in affiliation with American University’s School of Public Affairs, First Ladies Initiative.
“In all of this discussion in our country about inclusive history, why would you not include these women who have a platform and have used it and have a significant role in the presidency?”
— Anita McBride, director of American University's First Ladies Initiative and former chief of staff to former First Lady Laura Bush
“In all of this discussion in our country about inclusive history, why would you not include these women who have a platform and have used it and have a significant role in the presidency?” says McBride, director of American University's First Ladies Initiative and former chief of staff to former First Lady Laura Bush, in an interview with East Wing Magazine. “So if we're talking inclusive history, then we're talking about first ladies.”
The 320-page volume fills a gap in academic literature and examines how first ladies have influenced American society, public policy, politics, diplomacy, and life in the White House. The textbook looks closely at the lives and legacies of first ladies from Martha Washington to Dr. Jill Biden and how they influenced the development and evolution of the first lady position. It also provides a foundation for educators who are beginning to fill the demand for classes being taught on first ladies. But for the authors, it answers a familiar question they often field: “Why haven’t we learned this before?”
The authors joined forces to respond to that apparent void.
“There is nothing like this [book] out there,” says Carlin, Professor Emerita of Communication at Saint Louis University. “You have to cobble things together [about first ladies] and the stories are sort of chopped up.”
The authors cannot underscore enough the importance of such a volume after 247 years and 46 American presidencies without one. And, to the authors’ validation, perhaps the country’s most visible educator right now, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, recognizes it.
Biden wrote the textbook's foreword, noting that stories of first ladies are critical to understanding America’s history. She went on to state that as a teacher she is certain this textbook “will shine a spotlight on women who have so often thrived in the shadows of their spouses.” Biden goes onto answer the question all first ladies surely ask of themselves as they step into the position. “I know that what “first lady” means right now, in this time and place in our history, is mine to define alone. It is an honor and a responsibility that I treasure, and like my predecessors, I hope to leave a legacy worthy of the people I serve.”
Last week in an East Room reception at the White House, Biden congratulated the authors on the book while welcoming attendees of the Presidential Sites Summit organized by the White House Historical Association.
“As I was going over remarks and I saw how exciting it was that your textbook was coming out, I thought, ‘Hmm, maybe I should write, you know, ‘The First Ladies: The Real Story,’” Biden jokes, prompting laughter from more than 100 guests in attendance. “No, I’m just kidding.”
Back at the Mayflower Hotel, speaking with East Wing Magazine, the authors contemplate the impact Biden’s foreword will have on the book and the greater field of first ladies studies. “That shows [Biden] was committed to supporting this project,” McBride says. “She's an educator and she's a first lady.” McBride goes on to share that Laura Bush, who was also a teacher, wrote the first review of the book. In her review, Bush recognizes that while first ladies are not elected, they use the platform to improve the lives of Americans and people in other countries.
“But the role of the First Lady is ever changing and will always be defined and redefined by the personalities, experiences and passions of the First Lady herself,” Bush writes in the review.
For co-author Nancy Kegan Smith, former director of the Presidential Materials Division of the National Archives and Records Administration, the book makes history more fulsome and less male-centric by showcasing what first ladies have done for the country. Smith mentions Mary Todd Lincoln as a prime example.
Mary Lincoln, Smith explains, is of the lowest rated first ladies, while Abraham Lincoln (the 16th president credited with ending slavery and preserving the Union after the Civil War) is the highest rated president.
“The point here is that Abraham Lincoln without Mary Lincoln would never have been president,” Smith says, noting he lost two Senate races and set sights on becoming governor of Oregon. “[Mary Lincoln] told him she believed that he would be president. He laughed at her. But she said, ‘I believe in you.’”
Mary Lincoln told her husband not to go to Oregon because it would take him out of the political mainstream, Smith says, adding that story resonates because people don't give her credit for the good.
McBride and Carlin nod in agreement.
“Plus, [Mary Lincoln] seasoned him to be out in society,” Carlin adds.
“Yes,” they echo, while Smith continues the oral history.
“He's there in Springfield, [Illinois], and she's getting him into the right places and socializing him, but that the decision to not take the territorial governorship of Oregon was … was major,” Smith says. “She had a brother-in-law killed in the Confederate army. She never wavered. She stood by the Union. She supported [Abraham Lincoln], she supported him on emancipation. And she was vilified by both sides. She was called a traitor by the North and a traitor by the South.”
The hope is that a fuller picture would provide a more holistic view of Mary Lincoln and other first ladies.
The authors also offer students thematic chapters that include first ladies’ actions on civil rights, their significant speeches and communication strategies, and their political activism. Additionally, the book documents important social changes that first ladies have encouraged through their initiatives while in the White House, as well as the establishment of organizations that carry on their work and sustain their contributions.
“The three of us were overwhelmed by the legacy foundations that the modern first ladies have set up,” Smith says. “And their profile is not only domestic, it goes global. And some of these foundations raise hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“The three of us were overwhelmed by the legacy foundations that the modern first ladies have set up,” Smith says. “And their profile is not only domestic, it goes global. And some of these foundations raise hundreds of millions of dollars.”
For McBride, the book feeds a hunger that’s out there for students seeking new and interesting material while “changing the game a little bit in academic literature.”
For young college students, the book demonstrates that power can be wielded in different ways than how it has typically been depicted in Western society. Technically, many first ladies didn’t have a lot of agency, but still got things done, Carlin says.
“First ladies are an inspiration for how you can be supportive of other people who are doing something. It humanizes the presidency. It humanizes what people actually gave up for this position,” Carlin says.
“First ladies are an inspiration for how you can be supportive of other people who are doing something. It humanizes the presidency. It humanizes what people actually gave up for this position,” Carlin says. “And that it's not just the president, but the first lady is there hand-in-hand, no matter how she approaches it. And that's a very important part of our history that we don't know.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated a quote about Mary Todd Lincoln’s age when a brother-in-law of her was killed while serving in the Confederate army. Errors are corrected and stories are updated when noted.
Correction requests can be made by emailing jtaylor@eastwingmagazine.com.
Erin Donaghue contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: East Wing Magazine is a member of the First Ladies Association of Research and Education.