First Ladies

by Caroli, Betty

  55. Laura Langford Holloway, The Ladies of the White House (Philadelphia, 1881), p. 629. Originally published in 1869, this book was enlarged to include the Hayes and Garfield administrations and republished in 1881.

  56. Holloway, Ladies of the White House, p. 662.

  57. Harry J. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, 4 vols. (East Lansing, 1967–1981), vol. 1, p. 160.

  58. Garfield, Diary and Letters, vol. 1, p. 234.

  59. Garfield, Diary and Letters, vol. 1, p. 271.

  60. James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress; microfilm reel 5 contains letters from November 16, 1853 to November 23, 1862.

  61. Lucretia Rudolph to James Garfield, August 19, 1858, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  62. Lucretia Garfield to James Garfield, March 18, 1860, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  63. Lucretia Garfield to James Garfield, March 18, 1860, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  64. James Garfield to Lucretia Garfield, December 26, 1862, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  65. Margaret Bassett, Profiles and Portraits of American Presidents and Their Wives (Freeport, 1969), p. 195.

  66. Theodore Clarke Smith, James Abram Garfield: Life and Letters, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1925), vol. 2, p. 755. For an entirely different explanation of why the Garfields became more compatible, see Margaret Leech and Harry J. Brown, The Garfield Orbit (New York, 1978), p. 121.

  67. Allan Peskin, Garfield (Kent State, 1978), p. 347.

  68. Peskin, Garfield, p. 348.

  69. Peskin, Garfield, p. 348.

  70. Biographical Sketches of James A. Garfield and Chester Arthur, published by the Republican Party, 1880, p. 6.

  71. Smith, James A. Garfield, vol. 2, p. 1187.

  72. Albeit P. Marble, “Directions to Teachers on the Exercises Commemorative of Garfield” (Worcester, 1881).

  73. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, vol. 2, p. 18.

  74. Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary (New York, 1970), p. 6.

  75. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 4, p. 635. Lucretia’s White House diary is published at the end of vol. 4.

  76. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 4, 630.

  77. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 4, p. 636.

  78. James Garfield to Elizabeth Stanton, January 9, 1872, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  79. James Garfield to “Brother Erret,” January 18, 1872, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  80. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 3, p. 64.

  81. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 3, p. 64.

  82. Brown, ed., Diary of James A. Garfield, vol. 3. p. 64.

  83. See introduction to James A. Garfield Papers, microfilm ed., Library of Congress. Series 3 includes letters between Lucretia and James.

  84. Sarah Agnes Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War (New York, 1904), p. 83.

  85. Giraud Chester, Embattled Maiden (New York, 1951), p. 40. See Betty Boyd Caroli, “Women Speak Out on Reform,” in The Rhetoric of Protest and Reform, 1878–1898, ed. Paul H. Boase (Athens, Ohio, 1980), pp. 214–217.

  86. Chester, Embattled Maiden, p. 154.

  87. Amy La Follette Jensen, The White House and Its Thirty-Three Families (New York, 1958), p. 129.

  88. Jensen, White House, p. 128.

  89. New York Times, November 27, 1918, p. 13; A Sermon Preached to the Colonial Dames of the State of New York at Grace Church (New York City) on January 26, 1919 by Charles Lewis Slattery, D.D.

  90. New York Times, January 10, 1886, p. 1, and February 20, 1886, p. 1.

  91. New York Times, August 17, 1885, p. 3.

  92. Furman, White House Profile, p. 240.

  93. Furman, White House Profile, p. 245.

  94. Frances Cleveland did not receive a high rating from historians in the 1980s (see Appendix II), but her popularity extended through the 1920s. See Good House-keeping (February, 1932), p. 18.

  95. Furman, White House Profile, p. 242.

  96. Furman, White House Profile, p. 242.

  97. Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland (New York, 1932), p. 312.

  98. Nevins, Grover Cleveland, p. 308.

  99. Robert McElroy, Grover Cleveland, 2 vols. (New York, 1923), vol. 1, p. 286.

  100. New York Times, October 30, 1947.

  101. Harriet McIntire Foster, Mrs. Benjamin Harrison (Indianapolis, 1908), p. 14.

  102. Frank G. Carpenter, Carp’s Washington (New York, 1960), p. 301.

  103. James et al., Notable American Women, vol. 2, pp. 145–146.

  104. Jensen, White House, p. 139.

  105. Jensen, White House, p. 139.

  106. Emily Holt, “Household Economy,” Good Housekeeping, vol. 36 (June 1903), p. 546.

  107. Ophia Smith, “Caroline Scott Harrison,” National Historical Magazine, vol. 75 (April, 1941), p. 4; Olive Flower, History of Oxford College for Women (Miami, 1949), p. 258.

  108. “After College,” Good Housekeeping (June 1903), p. 508.

  109. Review of Woman Who Toils in Good Housekeeping (June 1903), p. 510.

  110. Ladies’ Home Journal (March 1887), p. 13.

  111. Good Housekeeping (June 1903), p. 509. Barbara Welter has documented that domesticity formed part of the “cult of true womanhood” in the antebellum period. (See American Quarterly, Summer 1966, pp. 151–174.) Presidents’ wives had not yet become prominent national figures.

  112. Carpenter, Carp’s Washington, p. 302. Caroline Harrison also had the assistance of several women relatives. After her death, one of them, her niece, Mary Dimmick, married Benjamin Harrison.

  113. Alan M. Chesney, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, 3 vols. (Baltimore, 1943–1963), vol. 1, pp. 193–196.

  114. Bassett, Profiles and Portraits, p. 235.

  115. Joseph Hartzell, Sketch of Mrs. William McKinley (Washington, D.C., 1896), p. 1.

  116. New York Times, May 27, 1907, p. 1.

  117. Margaret Leech, In the Days of McKinley (New York, 1959), p. 15.

  118. Leech, In the Days of McKinley, p. 15.

  119. For two very different accounts of Ida’s behavior and the explanation for it, see Leech, In the Days of McKinley, and Wayne Morgan, William McKinley and His America (Syracuse, 1963).

  120. John A. Kasson, “Impressions of President McKinley,” Century (December 1901), p. 268.

  121. “The Good Natured Presidency,” Nation, vol. 72 (March 7, 1901), p. 188. For a considerably more positive view of the McKinley presidency, see Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of William McKinley (Lawrence, 1980). Gould concludes that William McKinley was “the first modern president” because he formalized relations with the press, brought experts and academics into government, and traveled a great deal.

  122. Leech, In the Days of McKinley, p. 456.

  123. Ellen Maury Slayden, Washington Wife: Journal of Ellen Maury Slayden from 1897–1919 (New York, 1962), p. 8. Slayden’s entry is for May 6, 1897, near the beginning of the first McKinley administration.

  124. Bassett, Profiles and Portraits, p. 238.

  125. William Jennings Bryan, Memoirs (Chicago, 1925), p. 302.

  126. Washington Post, March 20, 1892. Cited in Paxton Hibben, The Peerless Leader (New York, 1929), p. 138.

  127. Hibben, Peerless Leader, p. 129.

  128. Louis Koenig, Bryan: A Political Biography (New York, 1971), p. 236.

  129. Barbara Sicherman et al., eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, 1980), p. 138. Ruth Bryan is listed as Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde.

  130. Bryan, Memoirs, p. 451.

  131. Paolo E. Coletta, “Won, 1880—One 1884: The Courtship of William Jennings Bryan and Mary Elizabeth Baird,” Illinois State Historical Society Journal, vol. 50 (Autumn 1957), p. 236.

  132. Coletta, “Won,” p. 240.

  133. Koenig, Bryan, p. 95.

  134. Harper’s Bazaar, vol. 33 (August 11, 1900), pp. 954–956.


  135. Frances Wright Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson: First Lady Between Two Worlds (Chapel Hill, 1985), p. 214.

  136. Koenig, Bryan, p. 596.

  137. Sicherman et al., Notable American Women, pp. 591–592.

  Chapter 5

  1. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours: Reminiscences of Alice Roosevelt Long-worth (New York, 1933), p. 158.

  2. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections of Full Years (New York, 1914), p. 351.

  3. Amy La Follette Jensen, The White House and Its Thirty-Three Families (New York, 1958). Pages 190 and 194 show two contrasting portraits.

  4. Carleton Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, 2 vols. (New York, 1958), vol. 1, pp. 170–171; Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vols. (New York, 1939), vol. 1, p. 107.

  5. Hermann Hagedorn, The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill (New York, 1955), p. 10.

  6. Hagedorn, Roosevelt Family, p. 82.

  7. Jacob A. Riis, “Mrs. Roosevelt and Her Children,” Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 19 (August 1902), p. 5.

  8. Riis, “Mrs. Roosevelt and Her Children,” p. 6.

  9. McClure’s (July 1905); Harper’s Bazaar (May 1901); Harper’s Weekly (March 9, 1901); Review of Reviews (July 1904).

  10. Harper’s Weekly (March 9, 1901); Review of Reviews (July 1904); Harper’s Bazaar (May 1904); Current Literature (September 1907); Ladies’ Home Journal (August 1902).

  11. Mabel Potter Daggett, “Mrs. Roosevelt: The Woman in the Background,” Delineator (March 1909), p. 394.

  12. Jensen, White House, pp. 185–187.

  13. Archibald W. Butt, The Letters of Archie Butt, ed. Lawrence F. Abbott (Garden City, 1924), p. 53.

  14. Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary (New York, 1970), p, 263.

  15. Taft, Recollections, p. 281.

  16. Harper’s Bazaar (February 1908), p. 158.

  17. Butt, Letters, p. 299, reports that Edith delegated to Butt the task of conveying the message to the woman named.

  18. Jensen, White House, p, 191.

  19. Helen McCarthy, “Why Mrs. Roosevelt Has Not Broken Down,” Ladies’ Home Journal (October 25, 1908), p. 25.

  20. Sylvia Jukes Morris, Edith Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady (New York, 1980), p. 277.

  21. Butt, Letters, p. 238.

  22. Butt, Letters, p. 127.

  23. Morris, Edith Roosevelt, p. 172.

  24. Butt, Letters, p. 83.

  25. Edward T. James et al., Notable American Women, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1970), vol. 3, p. 193.

  26. Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., Day Before Yesterday: Reminiscences of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (Garden City, 1959), p. 301.

  27. Edith Kermit Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, American Backlogs: The Story of Gertrude Tyler and Her Family, 1660–1860 (New York, 1928).

  28. Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt, Richard Derby, and Kermit Roosevelt, Cleared for Strange Ports (New York, 1927), p. 5.

  29. Diary of Helen Herron, Papers of William Howard Taft, Library of Congress, Series II, reel 609, vol. 16, entry for September 3, 1883. Referred to hereafter as diary of Helen Herron.

  30. Diary of Helen Herron, September 3, 1883.

  31. Diary of Helen Herron, October 6, 1883.

  32. Diary of Helen Herron, September 5, 1879. For more about the options open to young Nellie Herron, see Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era (New York, 2005), 33–58.

  33. Taft, Recollections, p. 10.

  34. Taft, Recollections, p. 10.

  35. Papers of William H. Taft, Library of Congress. William’s first letter to Helen is in Series II (1879–1885), reel 609, dated April 19, 1882 and addressed to “My dear Miss Herron.”

  36. Letter of April 29, 1884, Papers of William H. Taft.

  37. Letter of October 11, 1884, Papers of William H, Taft.

  38. Letter of June 17, 1885, Papers of William H. Taft.

  39. Taft, Recollections, p. 20.

  40. George E. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era (New York, 1958), p. 234.

  41. Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate Biography (New York, 1981), p. 48.

  42. Henry F. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vols. (New York, 1939), vol. 1, p. 160.

  43. Taft, Recollections, p. 30.

  44. Taft, Recollections, p. 33.

  45. For a full discussion of how Helen Taft used her White House years to showcase American music and performers, see Lewis L. Gould, Helen Taft: Our Musical First Lady (Lawrence, 2010).

  46. Taft, Recollections, p. 233.

  47. Anderson, William H. Taft, p. 85.

  48. Taft, Recollections, p. 280.

  49. Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, A Biography (New York, 1931), p. 259.

  50. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 1, p. 315. Helen Taft skips the details of her appointment with the president (although it is documented in many other places), but she makes no secret of her disdain for the “fixed groove” of judicial life. See Recollections, p. 263.

  51. Anderson, William Howard Taft, p. 111.

  52. Taft, Recollections, p. 324.

  53. Butt, Letters, p. 362.

  54. Irwin Hood Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the While House (Boston, 1934), p. 40.

  55. Taft, Recollections, p. 331.

  56. Taft, Recollections, p. 332.

  57. Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances S. Leighton, It Was Fun Working at the White House (New York, 1969), p. 26. Lillian Parks reports her mother’s recollection of inauguration day in 1909, but it should be noted that the book was published well after Richard Nixon’s famous comment about not being “kicked around.” However, Irwin Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House, was published well ahead of Nixon (1934), and on p. 45, Hoover gives a similar report of Taft’s statement.

  58. New York Times, May 18, 1909, p. 1; July 30, 1909, p. 1.

  59. Anderson, William Howard Taft, p. 166.

  60. Pringle, William Howard Taft, vol. 2, p. 603.

  61. George Griswold Hill, “The Wife of the New President,” Ladies’ Home Journal (March 1909), p. 6.

  62. Taft, Recollections, p. 365.

  63. Butt, Letters, p. 362.

  64. Butt, Letters, p. 623.

  65. Taft, Recollections, p. 349.

  66. Elizabeth Jaffray, Secrets of the White House (New York, 1927), p. 7.

  67. Ellen Maury Slayden, Washington Wife: Journal of Ellen Maury Slayden, 1897–1919 (New York, 1962), pp. 156–157.

  68. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 2, p. 1076, cites a letter from a Washington jeweler who advised against changing the monogram because the piece would be ruined.

  69. Papers of William H. Taft, July 8, 1895, Series II, reel 24.

  70. Stanley Kutler, biographical entry for Helen Herron Taft in Notable American Women, vol. 3, p. 420.

  71. Anderson, William Howard Taft, pp. 161–164.

  72. George Griswold Hill, “The Wife of the New President,” Ladies’ Home Journal (March 1907), p. 7.

  73. Butt, Letters, p. 234.

  74. Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1924), p. 357.

  75. Archibald Butt, Taft and Roosevelt (New York, 1930), p. 436.

  76. Pringle, Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 2, p. 622.

  77. Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (New York, 1937), p. 50.

  78. Frances Wright Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson: First Lady Between Two Worlds (Chapel Hill, 1985), p. 18.

  79. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, p. 15.

  80. Arthur Link, biographical entry for Ellen Axson Wilson in Notable American Women, vol. 3, p. 627.

  81. The League had originated in a student rebellion against the National Academy of Design and although the League quickly achieved a reputation as a serious place to study, it lacked the prestige of the Academy. See Michael E. Landgren, Years of Art (New York, 1940), passim.

  82. On admission of women to study at art
schools in the United States, see Charlotte Streiffer Rubinstein, American Women Artists: From Early Indian Times To the Present (Boston, 1982), p. 441.

  83. Ellen Axson lived only three blocks from the League’s studios at 38 West Fourteenth Street. The student body numbered 500, and the faculty included, by the year she left, George De Forest Brush and Thomas Eakins. See Landgren, Years of Art, p. 46.

  84. Eleanor Wilson McAddo, The Priceless Gift (New York, 1962), p. 88.

  85. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 122.

  86. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 122.

  87. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 122.

  88. Rubinstein, American Women Artists, p. 89.

  89. Cornelia Crow Carr, Harriet Hosmer: Letters and Memories (New York, 1912), p. 35. I am indebted to Enid Bell, the sculptor, for information on Harriet Hosmer and other women artists of the nineteenth century.

  90. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, p. 79.

  91. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 81. See Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 3, p. 494, for text of letter of October 31, 1884.

  92. Arthur S. Link et al., eds., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 53 vols. (Princeton, 1966–1986), vol. 3, p. 494, gives text of letter of November 28, 1884.

  93. John A. Garraty, Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1956), p. 16.

  94. Carl F. Price, Wesleyan’s First Century (Middleton, 1932), pp. 161–162.

  95. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilmn, p. 70.

  96. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, p. 89.

  97. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 181.

  98. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, passim, esp. p. 147.

  99. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, p. 110.

  100. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, pp. 188, 201–202.

  101. Saunders, Ellen Axson Wilson, p. 201.

  102. McAdoo, Priceless Gift, p. 256. Frances Wright Saunders, in letters to the author, pointed out that Woodrow would not have approved of coeducational schools for his daughters and that Goucher did have a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

  103. Hester E. Hosford, “New Ladies of the White House,” The Independent, vol. 73 (November 21, 1912), pp. 1159–1165.

  104. Slayden, Washington Wife, pp. 224–225.

  105. Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 30 (May 1913), pp. 18–19.

  106. Mabel Potter Daggett, “Woodrow Wilson’s Wife,” Good Housekeeping, vol. 56 (March 1913), pp. 316–323.