First Ladies

by Caroli, Betty

  Unfortunately, the “narrow mentality” that Norman Thomas had identified years earlier prepared her poorly for strong leadership. Her tendency to judge issues in terms of the people involved and how they treated her was also a fault. Poorly educated in matters of government but richly endowed with ambition, she determined, like many women of her generation, to hitch her own career to her husband’s because the time had not yet come, as she predicted it would, when a couple might profitably choose to put their combined energies into the wife’s career.

  No one ever accused Grace Goodhue Coolidge, who followed Florence Harding into the White House, of exerting influence on her husband’s political decisions. Not long after her marriage, she had prepared to go hear her husband speak but he had stopped her with a laconic “Better not,” and that separation between politics and family continued for the rest of their time together. While he progressed from state representative to mayor of Northampton, then state senator, lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts, Grace and her two sons remained in half of a house they rented in Northampton. After his work took him to Boston, Calvin commuted home on weekends. “I knew nothing of the conducting of [political] affairs,” Grace later wrote, “considering that they lay outside my province. If I had manifested any particular interest, I feel sure that I should have been put properly in my place.”61

  Calvin Coolidge had made clear his contempt for his wife’s general education when, early in their marriage, he quizzed her on Martin Luther and her answers did not satisfy him.62 He gave no indication that he ever consulted her on any important question. She had to learn from friends of his decision not to run in 1928 because he had not bothered to tell her. By her own admission, her monthly meetings with wives of cabinet members did not go beyond social schedules and the “insoluble problems which have confronted Cabinet hostesses since Martha Washington’s day.”63

  It would be wrong, however, to conclude that Grace played no part in Calvin’s success. He had announced that “the business of America is business,” and he proceeded to act as though government were an arm of business. In his appointments and in his actions on tax and tariff matters, he paid careful attention to the needs of the business community. Having a wife who did not divulge her opinions on any important matter fitted in with his image of the president as corporate head.

  But she was hardly inconspicuous, and Calvin profited from her visibility. For a politician who found it very difficult to show interest in the people around him, having a wife who charmed everyone she met was a decided advantage. Grace was frequently photographed hugging children or playing with her pet racoon or her dog, Rob Roy. Florence Harriman, who was acquainted with several presidents, pronounced Grace’s “vivacity and savoir faire … the administration’s greatest success.”64 Grace characterized her role as Calvin’s “safety valve.”65 A 1926 New Yorker profile described her as his “psychological frame” and after offering the supreme accolade—a comparison with Dolley Madison—concluded: “Few White House chatelaines have been so genuinely popular in Washington.”66 Good Housekeeping included Grace on its list of most admired women, the only one without a profession of her own, and the Pictorial Review praised her for complementing her husband’s personality and giving him “the light touch.”67

  Visitors to the White House who had a chance to see Grace Coolidge in action reinforced this view with their own stories. When their son John brought his fiancée to dinner, she was noticeably nervous and, although the daughter of a governor and accustomed to meeting important people, she could not quite manage her plate of fish. A large piece plopped on her lap. The president broke the ensuing silence with his New England twang: “Miss Connecticut has spilled on her lovely gown,” and it remained for a thoughtful First Lady to provide the talcum powder.68

  At official receptions, the president curtly nodded to people and quickly passed from one obligatory handshake to the next while Grace’s exceptional memory for names and her genuine concern for guests’ comfort made them feel at ease. People meeting her for the first time reported they liked her immediately. A tourist who managed to get an invitation to one of the twice-weekly receptions confessed that she felt awkward and feared she would do something wrong, but the president’s wife assured her that would only make her more interesting.

  The sharp contrast between charming Grace Coolidge and taciturn Calvin mystified many of their closest friends. The only child of a Vermont engineer and his wife, Grace showed such irrepressible humor and outgoing personality all the way through the local schools and the state university that nobody, least of all her mother, could see what attracted her to the rather eccentric lawyer whom she married. Not long after their wedding, the Coolidges attended his tenth reunion of the Amherst Class of ’95, and another young wife remarked to her husband that she could not see “how that sulky, red-haired little man ever won that pretty, charming woman.” Dwight Morrow, whose wife had made the comment, offered his own opinion that they would all hear one day from the sulky little man, and his wife replied, “Yes, but through [Grace].”69 Like many First Ladies, Grace apparently recognized somewhat sooner than others the potential for success in the man she married.

  Many stories emphasize the impish sense of humor that Grace and Calvin Coolidge shared, and that trait may explain their attraction to each other more than any other. That they perceived incongruity and humor in diverse ways increased the magnetism. She had been watering flowers at Clarke Institute for the deaf where she taught when she happened to look up one morning and see a man shaving himself near the window.70 What drew Grace’s attention was the felt hat he had planted firmly on his head when his only other garments were his underwear. Grace laughed so loudly that he noticed her and very soon he arranged a meeting to explain to the slim, dark haired teacher that he anchored the hat on his dampened hair in order to help control an unruly lock of hair.

  Although Calvin’s taciturnity is well established, evidence that he possessed a sense of humor is less easily assembled. Yet Will Rogers, who should have known, applauded the Vermonter’s joviality but pronounced it too subtle for most people to appreciate. Calvin never played for the big laugh but rather for the slow, long reaction, Rogers pointed out, and he offered this example to illustrate his point. Once Rogers had invited the president to hear him and then added, as an after-thought, that an excellent quartet would be singing too. Calvin Coolidge, who had sat silently through the invitation, perked up at the mention of music and said, “Yes, I like singing.”71

  About his wife’s cooking, Calvin Coolidge was merciless. He delighted in dropping one of her freshly baked biscuits on the floor and stomping his foot loudly at the same time to emphasize its lack of delicacy, and he suggested that her pie crust recipe should go to the road commissioner as a substitute for the paving material currently used. Grace, who had no illusions about her ability as a cook, took this as well as his other ego-deflaters in the same imperturbable way. Sometimes she came back with some of her own, frequently zeroing in on his reputation as a man of few words. On one of their weekend cruises on the Potomac, Calvin had sat silently through an entire meal without so much as acknowledging the two women seated beside him. The next morning, one of the women entered the dining room as Calvin was inquiring of Grace where the two guests were and heard Grace explain that they were resting because they had been “exhausted by your conversation last evening.”72 Calvin’s refusal to say very much led to many stories, including one about two men discussing the Coolidges. The first man pointed out that Grace had taught the deaf to speak, and the second responded, “So why didn’t she teach Cal?”73

  Grace Coolidge appeared to accept with equanimity this quirk in her husband as well as his frugality, which she had encountered very early in her marriage. When they returned from a one-week honeymoon in Montreal, cut short so Calvin could campaign for election to the local school board, they moved into a hotel suite in Northampton, Massachusetts. A few months later, they rented the quarters which they c
ontinued to occupy until Calvin won national office. When the local hotel went out of business, the Coolidges purchased the supplies so that for years their linens and silverware carried the marking “Norwood Hotel.”74 Grace told the joke on herself of how Calvin, soon after their marriage, had presented her with socks to be darned. Since there were fifty-two pairs of them, she decided that he must have been saving them for some time, and she inquired if that was the reason he had married her. “No,” he had answered, “but I find it mighty handy.”75

  On only one subject did Calvin forget his frugality. In purchasing clothing for Grace, he could be extravagant. Nothing was too good for her. When he saw a particularly striking dress or hat, he brought it home for her to try and she cooperated by wearing his selections even when her friends pronounced the colors too flamboyant or the styles inappropriate. While he was still a struggling lawyer, saving postage costs by sending his secretary out on foot to deliver bills, he paid $19.98 for a rose picture hat for Grace and no one recalled his regretting the expenditure.76 In the White House, he pouted if she wore the same gown twice, causing her secretary to conclude that she had never seen a man who took more interest in his wife’s clothes than did Calvin Coolidge.77

  Grace’s natural dignity and determination to remain just what she was earned her the praise and the satisfaction that no clothing extravagance could have matched. She arrived in Washington, conspicuous as the wife of the vice president, but with little experience outside small towns. Rather than try to compete with other, more sophisticated women, she relaxed in what she was, and later confessed that she could not remember a single embarrassing moment. She recalled that at her first big party, she had stood in a “simple gown by a village dressmaker” and received guests alongside the hostess “resplendent in a gorgeous creation of brocaded white satin by Worth…. It was all very gay and I had a wonderful time.”78

  Grace Coolidge’s ingenuousness was as complete as Florence Harding’s artifice and stood her well in the paradoxical 1920s. Rather than making her seem stupid, her casualness appeared refreshing to Washingtonians accustomed to formality and pretentiousness in First Ladies. As wife of the vice president, Grace presided capably over meetings of Senate wives but she rarely missed a chance to play the comic. On one occasion when someone stood up to thank her for providing ham and potatoes, she banged a fork on the table and reminded the group: “Don’t forget I brought a cake too.”79

  Although Calvin Coolidge permitted his wife to give no interviews while she was in the White House, her exuberance generated so many stories that the public felt an acquaintance with her as with few other First Ladies. On shopping trips to the local department stores, she was often recognized. When a salesclerk remarked on her resemblance to the First Lady and suggested that she must often be mistaken for her, Grace murmured, “Sometimes I am,” and continued her shopping.80

  Her husband laid down strict rules for Grace’s White House tenure, and she followed them in the manner of an obedient child. Once when she had decided that the White House stables provided an excellent opportunity, she secretly outfitted herself and went out with a riding instructor. The next day Washington papers carried prominent headlines: “Mrs. Coolidge Learns to Ride.” At breakfast the president read the item and then turned to his wife: “I think,” he said, “you will find that you will get along at this job fully as well if you do not try anything new.”81

  That dictum continued to limit her activities for the rest of her husband’s term. When she appeared one day in a stylish culotte outfit, Calvin suggested that none of the Coolidges had ever worn anything like that and she returned it. He bragged that no photographer had ever caught him with a cigar in his mouth, although he chewed one frequently, and she carefully confined her smoking to private places.82 On one of the rare occasions when Grace found herself out dancing and having a good time at a party, someone volunteered, “I wish your husband could have been here.” Grace replied quickly, “If he were, I wouldn’t be.”83

  In explaining her White House years, Grace Coolidge projected the same detachment that later characterized Eleanor Roosevelt’s statements. Grace wrote, “This was I and yet not I—this was the wife of the President of the United States and she took precedence over me; my personal likes and dislikes must be subordinated to the consideration of those things which were required of her.”84 Not until her husband’s presidential term had ended would she express herself more fully.

  The most extensive remodeling of the White House since the turn of the century was done during the Coolidge administration but Grace had little choice in undertaking her part in it. The Office of Public Parks and Buildings had informed the Coolidges in 1923 that the mansion had deteriorated badly and needed extensive renovation, but work did not begin until early 1927.85 The president’s family moved to a house on Dupont Circle and then took an extended summer vacation in South Dakota. When Grace returned to Washington, she obtained Congress’s permission to accept period pieces to furnish the White House, but Americans were not in a generous mood and few gifts arrived. Her own offering was a coverlet which she had crocheted, one small square per month, for the Lincoln bedroom.

  The Coolidge sons, John (born 1906) and Calvin, Jr. (born 1908), absorbed some of Grace’s view that politicians’ families should remain in the background. When Calvin, Jr., received a letter addressed to “First Boy of the Land,” he responded: “You are mistaken in calling me the First Boy of the Land since I have done nothing. It is my father who is President. Rather the First Boy of the Land would be some boy who had distinguished himself through his own actions.”86

  This particular anecdote was recalled by Grace Coolidge after Calvin, Jr.’s death. In the summer of 1924 when his father was about to be nominated to run for a term of his own, Calvin, Jr., got a blister on his toe. He left it unattended, developed blood poisoning, and died within days. Whatever ideas the Coolidges had about preserving privacy in the White House, this tragedy thrust them even more into the national spotlight, and hundreds of thousands of messages poured into Washington. The president’s wife wore black and tempered her usual gaiety, but she resumed a full schedule within weeks.

  A woman with Grace’s spirit might have brought a new dimension to the job of president’s wife but she chose to accede to the wishes of her husband and limit her activities to those her predecessors had made traditional—working with the Girl Scouts and giving receptions. When prevailed upon to give a speech, she injected a note of humor by using sign language which she had learned in her work with the deaf, a language which no one else in the room understood. She remained the most uncontrolling of individuals, never seeming to mind how many guests showed up unannounced for lunch or when she would learn what Calvin expected of her next. When White House staff inquired about her travel plans, she frequently replied that they should inform her as soon as they learned the answer from the president.

  If observers perceived her as mysterious, they were mistaken—she simply waited until she left the White House to “come back to myself.”87 In 1930, the year after Calvin’s term in Washington ended, she published a poem, “Watch Fires” which began:88

  Love was not given the human heart

  for careless dealing.

  Its spark was lit that man might know

  Divine revealing.

  After her husband’s death in 1933, Grace gave interviews and published an article, “The Real Calvin Coolidge” in which she revealed a great deal about herself. In the nearly quarter of a century that she survived her husband, she matured beyond the childlike woman who had been First Lady and began to speak out on such issues as early intervention in World War II. She sold the house she had shared with Calvin (and the furniture in it), toured Europe, and then went to live with a friend in Northampton. When the WAVES came to train at Smith College, she offered them the use of her house.89 Her work to win better education for the deaf continued until her death in July 1957.

  Calvin’s choice of a political career almost c
ertainly limited his wife’s actions. Her writing and other activities after his death indicate that she might have thought more than people gave her credit for, but she kept well within the traditional boundaries that Calvin had set. What she might have done in other circumstances, without the constraints imposed by marriage to the president, remains unknowable, but she herself related an anecdote which lends interest to the question. A painter came to the White House to do her portrait, in which he rendered her uncharacteristically solemn. When Grace’s son asked why, the painter replied: “Because I once saw in your mother’s face a look of resignation.”90

  That kind of acceptance is not apparent in portraits of Lou Henry Hoover, who replaced Grace Coolidge in the White House in 1929; and in other ways, the two women differed. Rather than reflect the comic-serious split of Grace Coolidge, Lou Hoover showed many of the same contradictions that marked interpretations of Herbert Hoover’s record.91 Historians have continued to debate whether President Hoover remained stubbornly tied to the past in evaluating possible solutions for the Great Depression or anticipated many of Franklin Roosevelt’s answers. Did those four years under Herbert Hoover show excessive reliance on volunteerism to end hardship or did they introduce a steady increase in the role of centralized government? Was Herbert Hoover efficiently hardnosed or was he deeply involved in and responsive to people’s suffering? Lou Hoover’s record remains just as paradoxical, because in many ways she helped make way for an activist and modern First Lady while remaining, herself, very much a retiring gentlewoman of the nineteenth century.