Southern First Ladies explores the ways in which geographical and cultural backgrounds molded a group of influential first ladies. The contributors to this volume use the lens of “Southernness” to define and better understand the cultural attributes, characteristics, actions, and activism of seventeen first ladies from Martha Washington to Laura Bush.
The first ladies defined in this volume as Southern were either all born in the South—specifically, the former states of the Confederacy or their slave-holding neighbors like Missouri—or else lived in those states for a significant portion of their adult lives (women like Julia Tyler, Hillary Clinton, and Barbara Bush).
Southern climes indelibly shaped these women and, in turn, a number of enduring White House traditions. Along with the standards of proper behavior and ceremonial customs and hospitality demanded by notions of Southern white womanhood, some of which they successfully resisted or subverted, early first ladies including Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Julia Tyler, and Sarah Polk were also shaped by racially based societal and cultural constraints typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of which have persisted to the present day.
The first nine women in this volume, from Martha Washington to Julia Grant, all enslaved others during their lives, inside or outside the White House. Among the seven first ladies in the book’s last section, Ellen Wilson, for example, was profoundly influenced by the reformist ethos of the Progressive Era and set an example for activism that five of her Southern successors—Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush—all emulated. By contrast, Ellen’s immediate successor in the White House, Edith Wilson, enthusiastically celebrated the “Lost Cause.”
Southern First Ladies is the first volume to comprehensively emphasize the significance of Southernness and a Southern background in the history and work of first ladies, and Southernness’ long-standing influence for the development of this position in the White House as well as outside of it.
Table of Content
Foreword, Jeffrey A. Engel
Acknowledgments
Introduction, Catherine Allgor and Katherine A. S. Sibley
PART I: From the Early Republic Through Late Reconstruction
1. Martha Washington: Southern Influences in Shaping an Institution, Diana Bartelli Carlin
2. Dolley Madison and the making of a Capital Etiquette, Merry Ellen Scofield
3. Elizabeth Kortright Monroe: La Belle Americaine, Mary Stockwell
4. Reclamation of a First Lady: Julia Gardiner Tyler’s Pursuit of a Federal Government Pension, Christopher J. Leahy and Sharon Williams Leahy
5. A First Lady, a Funeral, and a Legacy: Press Coverage of the Death of Sarah Polk, Teri Finneman
6. Mary Lincoln, Elizabeth Keckly, and the Perils of White House Friendship, Sylvia D. Hoffert
7. Southern Woman, Republican Partisan: Mary Lincoln’s Wartime Identity, Laura Mammina
8. Press and Propaganda: Examining War Coverage of the Confederate First Lady, Teri Finneman
9. Eliza Johnson, First Lady of the Tennessee Hill Country, John F. Marszalek
10. Julia Dent Grant: Aspiring Southerner, Louie P. Gallo
11. Southern Roots of Activism, Nancy Beck Young
PART II: From the Progressive Era to the Present Century
12. Ellen Asson Wilson: A Progressive Southern First Lady, Lisa M. Burns
13. Edith Bolling Wilson: A “Southern” New Woman, Valerie Palmer-Mehta
14. Lady Bird Johnson: First Lady of Deeds, Nancy Kegan Smith
15. Diplomacy First: Rosalynn Carter as Diplomat, Kristin L. Ahlberg
16. The Lone Star Yankee as First Lady: Barbara Bush of Texas, Myra G. Gutin
17. A Southern Primer: Hillary Goes to Arkansas, Janette Kenner Muir
18. Laura Bush: Texan by Nature, Anita B. Mc Bride
19. Reflecting on Activism of Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century First Ladies, Katherine A. S. Sibley
About the Contributors
Index
About the author
Katherine A. S. Sibley is professor of history and director of the American studies program at Saint Joseph’s University and is the author of First Lady Florence Harding: Behind the Tragedy and Controversy.
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