15 First Ladies and Their Powerful Legacies
Their Lives , inluneces and imiators
Abigail Adams, who followed Martha Washington into the role, became the first first lady to reside in the White House (1797–1801). An intellectual peer to her brooding husband, the two exchanged myriad letters during their long separations, in which she often appealed to his conscience and took care to remind him of the importance of recognizing the contributions of women to the nation’s cause.
James Madison, the fourth president, was described as a “withered little apple-john.” His wife, the charming Dolley Madison (1809–1817), compensated for her husband’s shortcomings, making their home the center of Washington social activity not only during her husband’s time in the White House but during the administration of widower Thomas Jefferson, for whom her husband served as secretary of state.
“When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell.”
— Dolley Madison
“Our private property must be sacrificed.”
— Dolley Madison
Mary Todd Lincoln (1861–1865), in many ways a tragic figure, embodied the country’s divisions during the Civil War. She actively supported Union troops, some of which were quartered in the White House East Room for a time. But the Kentucky native was considered a traitor by members of her family who fought on the side of the Confederates. After the death of her son Willie in 1862, likely from typhoid fever, Mrs. Lincoln’s activity in the White House as first lady diminished significantly.
-No one is loved as much as you by the people. Don’t waste that power.-Mary Todd Lincoln
-I explain to you, exactly and truly, how we are circumstanced. A greater portion of our means is unavailable, consisting of a house in S. Springfield and some wild lands in Iowa. Notwithstanding my great and good husband’s life was sacrificed for his country, we are left to struggle in a manner…of life undeserved. Roving Generals have elegant mansions showered upon them, and the American people leave the family of the Martyred President to struggle as best they may! Strange justice this. -Mary Todd Lincoln
Woodrow Wilson married Edith Wilson the following year. In 1919, after her husband suffered a stroke that rendered him partially paralyzed for the balance of his term, Mrs. Wilson (1915–1921) embarked on a “stewardship” of his presidency, taking over routine duties but stopping short of making policy decisions.
“I will stand by you – not for duty, not for pity, not for honour – but for love – trusting, protecting, comprehending love”
― Edith Galton Wilson
Eleanor Roosevelt (1933–1945), expanded the role seminally. Traveling extensively for her husband, Franklin Roosevelt, who had been crippled by polio, she reported to him on the plight of Americans during the depths of the Depression. She made her views known not only to the president but also to the American people through a daily syndicated newspaper column called “My Day,” radio addresses and by becoming the first first lady to hold regular press conferences. Within a year of leaving the White House, she was appointed by Harry Truman as a delegate to the U.N., where she served as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights. She was later reappointed by John F. Kennedy as a delegate to the U.N.
-A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt
-The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt
-Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression. Eleanor Roosevelt
-Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. Eleanor Roosevelt
-You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give. Eleanor Roosevelt
At age 31, Jackie Kennedy (1961–1963) became one of our youngest first ladies. A paragon of beauty and style, she made the White House the center of cultural activity and the subject of fascination. Her grace and courage after her husband’s assassination made her an object of pride and helped the country move forward with dignity in the wake of tragedy.
-I have been through a lot and have suffered a great deal. But I have had lots of happy moments, as well. Every moment one lives is different from the other. The good, the bad, hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love, and happiness are all interwoven into one single, indescribable whole that is called life. You cannot separate the good from the bad. And perhaps there is no need to do so, either.Jackie Kennedy
-That’s what we’re here on this Earth for, to help others.
Betty Ford
-The search for human freedom can never be complete without freedom for women.
Betty Ford
-I have an independent streak. You know, it’s kind of hard to tell a independent woman what to do.
Betty Ford
-My makeup wasn’t smeared, I wasn’t disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?
Betty Ford
-I feel it’s important to be active. People who retire, sit by their swimming pool and golf course and plan to relax have a very empty life.
Betty Ford
-You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
Betty Ford
-A housewife deserves to be honored as much as a woman who earns her living in the marketplace. I consider bringing up children a responsible job. In fact, being a good housewife seems to me a much tougher job than going to the office and getting paid for it. Betty Ford
– My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age. His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.
You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through. Rosalynn Carter
If you look at suicides, most of them are connected to depression. And the mental health system just fails them. It’s so sad. We know what to do. We just don’t do it. Rosalynn Carter
One day, I made a remark that I might work with people with mental illness, and somebody in the press heard it, and it was in the paper. And the more I thought about it and found out about it, the more I thought it was just a terrible situation with no attention. And I’ve been working on it ever since. Rosalynn Carter
Early diagnosis is so important because the earlier a mental illness can be detected, diagnosed and treatment can begin, the better off that person can be for the rest of his or her life. Rosalynn Carter
If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk. Rosalynn Carter
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. Rosalynn Carter
There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home. Rosalynn Carter
If you look at suicides, most of them are connected to depression. And the mental health system just fails them. It’s so sad. We know what to do. We just don’t do it. Rosalynn Carter
Nancy Reagan (1981–1989) pursued causes including the Foster Grandparent Program and her “Just Say No” campaign to curb drug and alcohol use among the nation’s youth. But her primary role, albeit informally, was as her husband’s chief protector. After President Reagan sustained gunshot wounds in an unsuccessful assassination attempt, she carefully monitored his schedule, ensuring that he wasn’t overtaxed, and made sure his staff pursued his agenda, not their own.
-My life really began when I married my husband. Nancy Reagan
-I am a big believer that eventually everything comes back to you. You get back what you give out. Nancy Reagan
-I thought Obama ran the best campaign I have ever known – disciplined, well organised, very, very good. I was very impressed. Nancy Reagan
Popular and grandmotherly, Barbara Bush (1989–1993) championed literacy, launching the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy while promoting volunteerism as one of what her husband called “a thousand points of light.” Eight years to the day after leaving the White House, the former first lady became the first mother when her son George W. Bush was inaugurated as our 43rd president.
Bill Clinton made no bones about his faith in his wife’s ability when he said during his presidential campaign in 1992, “Buy one, get one free.” After becoming president, he appointed Hillary Rodham Clinton (1993–2001) as chair of his Task Force on National Health Care Reform, and she continued to be active in raising awareness about health-related issues. After leaving the White House, she pursued public life in her own right, as a U.S. senator from New York, making her the first first lady to gain elected office, and as secretary of state under President Obama.
1. “Fear is always with us, but we just don’t have time for it. Not now.”–at her Wellseley commencement speech in 1969
2. “Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when you’re knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.”–ending her 2008 campaign for president
3. ‘The worst thing that can happen in a democracy–as well as in an individual’s life–is to become cynical about the future and lose hope: that is the end, and we cannot let that happen.”
4. “I think that if you live long enough, you realize that so much of what happens in life is out of your control, but how you respond to it is in your control. That’s what I try to remember.”
5. “People can judge me for what I’ve done. And I think when somebody’s out in the public eye, that’s what they do. So I’m fully comfortable with who I am, what I stand for, and what I’ve always stood for.”–on PBS NewsHour in 2014
6. “There is a sense that things, if you keep positive and optimistic about what can be done, do work out.”–to ELLE in 2012
7. “Every moment wasted looking back, keeps us from moving forward…In this world and the world of tomorrow, we must go forward together or not at all.”–ending her 2008 campaign for president
8. “Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as you can.”–on Twitter in 2016
9. “You know, everybody has setbacks in their life, and everybody falls short of whatever goals they might set for themselves. That’s part of living and coming to terms with who you are as a person.”
10. “It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy.”–to the NAACP in 1995
11. “We need to be as fearless as the women whose stories you have applauded, as committed as the dissidents and the activists you have heard from, as audacious as those who start movements for peace when all seems lost.”–at the Women in the World Summit in 2012
12. “We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.”–to the UN 4th World Conference in 1995
13. “To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want — even president.”–on Twitter in 2016
14. “To LGBT men and women worldwide, let me say this: wherever you live and whatever the circumstances of your life, whether you are connected to a network of support or feel isolated and vulnerable, please know that you are not alone.”–on International Human Rights Day in 2011
16. “You have to be true to yourself. You have to be enough in touch with who you are and what you want, how you want to live and what’s important to you, to make your decisions based on that. Sometimes that’s very difficult.”–to Marie Claire in 2012
17. “Whether I am meant to or not, I challenge assumptions about women. I do make some people uncomfortable, which I’m well aware of, but that’s just part of coming to grips with what I believe is still one of the most important pieces of unfinished business in human history—empowering women to be able to stand up for themselves.”–to Vogue in 2009
18. “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life.”–on Nightline in 1992
19. “You have just one life to live. It is yours. Own it, claim it, live it, do the best you can with it.”–to Marie Claire in 2012
20. “We can tell stories all night and we can talk about the women who have inspired us. But what inspires me is not just who they are, but what they do. They roll their sleeves up and they get to work.”–at the Women in the World Summit in 2012
21. “I know that at a time when so much seems to be pulling us apart, it can be hard to imagine how we’ll ever pull together again. I know because I’ve seen it in the lives of people across America who get knocked down and get right back up. And I know it from my own life.–at her DNC presidential nomination acceptance speech in 2016
22. “I have always believed that women are not victims. We are agents of change, we are drivers of progress, we are makers of peace–all we need is a fighting chance.”–at the Women in the World Summit in 2016
23. “Among the most striking things that I have learned is how much we have in common. I’ve sat down with people everywhere, discussing what was in their hearts and on their minds. And it doesn’t take long to find commonality, which is often overlooked, ignored, dismissed, and rejected otherwise.”–at Dublin City University in 2012
24. “You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the President of the United States. And that is truly remarkable.”–ending her 2008 campaign for president
Former schoolteacher and librarian Laura Bush (2001–2009), like her mother-in-law, made reading her cause, launching the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., and promoting global literacy. After the attacks on 9/11, she took a stand against the oppression of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime and championed women’s rights throughout the world.
― Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart
― Laura Bush
― Laura Bush
(Former First Lady, Laura Bush)”
― Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart
― Laura Bush
― Laura Bush
― Laura Bush
― Laura Bush
the Great Comanche war chief, Ten Bears”
― Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart
― Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart
― Laura Bush
Lady Bird Johnson (1963–1969) contributed to her husband’s Great Society by championing environmental causes, including wilderness protection and highway and urban beautification. She became the first first lady to campaign for her husband, traveling unflinchingly through newly desegregated Southern states by rail after her husband signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me…beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.
“Some may wonder why I chose wildflowers when there are hunger and unemployment and the big bomb in the world. Well, I, for one, think we will survive, and I hope that along the way we can keep alive our experience with the flowering earth. For the bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.
“The environment after all is where we all meet; where all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.
“My hope for what lies ahead in the field of landscape design—our own and that of the professionals—isn’t a revolution against the use of non-natives, but a resolution to educate ourselves about what has worked for Mother Nature through the ebb and flow of time and to put that knowledge to work in the planned landscapes that are everywhere a part of our lives.
“When I go into the poorest neighborhoods, I look for the flash of color – a geranium in a coffee can, a window box set against the scaling side of a tenement, a border of roses struggling in a tiny patch of open ground. Where flowers bloom, so does hope – and hope is the precious, indispensable ingredient without which the war on poverty can never be won.
“My heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.
“My special cause, the one that alerts my interest and quickens the pace of my life, is to preserve the wildflowers and native plants that define the regions of our land-to encourage and promote their use in appropriate areas and thus help pass on to generation in waiting the quiet joys and satisfactions I have known since my childhood.
“Wherever I go in America, I like it when the land speaks its own language in its own regional accent.
“I know that the nature we are concerned with ultimately is human nature. That is the point of the beautification movement, and that finally is the point of architecture. Winston Churchill said, ‘First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us.’ The same is true of our highways, our parks, our public buildings, the environment we create. They shape us.
“The biggest decision of all concerns our highways, the greatest public works program of any civilization … our challenge is to see that these highways are not only superbly functional, but also in harmony with our landscape and a pleasant asset to our lives. After all, this is a civilization where our favorite recreation is driving for pleasure.
“Too often we have bartered away not only the land, but the very air and water. Too often we have sacrificed human values to commercial values under the bright guise of progress. And in our unconcern, we have let a crisis gather which threatens health and even life itself … Today, environmental questions are matters for architects and laymans alike. They are questions, literally, of life and death. Can we have a building boom and beauty too? Must progress inevitably mean a shabbier environment? Must success spoil nature’s bounty? Insistently and with growing volume, citizens demand that we turn our building to a sensible, human purpose. They are asking, literally, for a breath of fresh air
Michelle Obama (2009–2017) made history of her own as the first African-American to hold the role of first lady. She took on childhood obesity as her cause, including launching the “Let’s Move!” initiative. Her emphasis on healthy eating led to the planting of a garden on the South Lawn. Additionally, she led efforts to support military families and promote the arts.
The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.And let’s be clear: It’s not enough just to limit ads for foods that aren’t healthy. It’s also going to be critical to increase marketing for foods that are healthy.Together, we can help make sure that every family that walks into a restaurant can make an easy, healthy choice.The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.
On maintaining dignity: “When they go low, we go high.” (In her Democratic National Convention speech, 2016)
On young people and the future: “I want our young people to know that they matter, that they belong, so don’t be afraid. You hear me? Young people, don’t be afraid. Be focused, be determined, be hopeful, be empowered … Lead by example with hope, never fear, and know that I will be with you, rooting for you and working to support you for the rest of my life.” (In her final address from White House, 2017)
On remaining focused: “One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.” (In a Marie Claire interview, 2008)
On maintaining hope in dark times: “See, now we are feeling what not having hope feels like, you know. Hope is necessary. It is a necessary concept. What do you give your kids if you can’t give them hope?” (In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, 2016)
On the true meaning of success: “Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you. We realized that being successful isn’t about being impressive, it’s about being inspired. That’s what it means to be true to yourself.” (In her Oregon State University commencement speech, 2012).
On the key to a healthy marriage: “In our house we don’t take ourselves too seriously, and laughter is the best form of unity, I think, in a marriage.” (On Live! With Regis and Kelly, 2011)
On helping others: “When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.” (To the 2013-2014 White House Fellows, 2013)
On the importance of diversity onscreen: “For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them … I come across many little black girls who come up to me over the course of this 7½ years with tears in their eyes, and they say: ‘Thank you for being a role model for me. I don’t see educated black women on TV, and the fact that you’re first lady validates who I am.’” (In a Variety interview, 2016)
On standing up for women’s education: “Men in every country need to look into their hearts and souls and ask themselves whether they truly view and treat women as their equals. And then when you all encounter men in your lives who answer no to that question, then you need to take them to task. You need to tell them that any man who uses his strength to oppress women is a coward, and he is holding back the progress of his family and his country.” (At the Summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, 2014)
On dreams: “This time, in this great country—where a girl from the South Side of Chicago can go to college and law school, and the son of a single mother from Hawaii can go all the way to the White House—we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be.” (In her Democratic National Convention speech, 2008)
On having courage: “You may not always have a comfortable life. And you will not always be able to solve all the world’s problems all at once. But don’t ever underestimate the impact you can have, because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.” (At the Young African Women Leaders Forum, 2011)
Every girl, no matter where she lives, deserves the opportunity to develop the promise inside of her.
Jinx 