Transcripts For CSPAN3 First Lady Florence Harding 20170424

Controversy. Event. An hourlong allow me to introduce our guest tonight. She teaches womens history, history, andomatic africanamerican history. Shes published six books, editing in 2016 a companion to first ladies, a companion to american history. Stolenphs include secrets and the dawn of the cold war, the evolution of soviet american relations, and a book on the subject of tonights presentation which is for sale right outside. Behind the tragedy and controversy. She serves on the board for american communist history and the Advisory Committee for the United States department of state. She received her phd from the university of california at santa barbara. The commentary has appeared recently in time, the guardian, usa today, the canadian broadcasting 70 and the new york post. Heres something you dont hear about historians every day. In 2011, she got to appear as Florence Harding in a play which she wrote at the ohio state marion campus. We are so enthused by her work that we are gladly welcoming her back for next march as primary organizer for a fullday conference we will be having on southern first ladies. That is for next year. Tonight, lets learn about a northern first lady. Please join me in welcoming dr. Sibley. [applause] dr. Sibley thank you so much, it is a pleasure to be here. Good evening, i am thrilled to see so many of you here to learn about Florence Harding. You are probably wondering why is she up there . I know that you think that she, eleanor roosevelt, broke the mold. We all know she broke the mold. Let me just give you another example of her just to confirm. There she is, she broke the mold. But who made the crack in that mold . The subject of our talk tonight, Florence Harding. Florence harding was a very influential first lady because she created a model for other first ladies to follow. A way they could carve out their own influence in American Culture and politics in a way that eleanor and others were probably more active and others probably would not go quite in that direction. Florences model was Ground Breaking and others would follow. She helped pave the way for activism we have seen growing in the last century since she was in power. She was well recognized at the time for her old lives in the nations affairs. She was the first first lady to vote for her husband. I forgot, i have this nice little gadget. I have a picture of what people thought about her voting. She came into power at a time when first ladies have never voted for their husbands before. It was very exciting. Some people still were still concerned. In many areas we will see tonight, she stepped outside the traditional box for women at the time. I do see a number of women wearing red tonight, it is International Womens day, congratulations. She is a woman who for her time was very unusual. She was a single woman, an independent income worker. She was outspoken as first lady on behalf of veterans, africanamericans and women, prisoners especially. She was concerned about animals and their treatment. She was also very interested in womens political activism. She took advantage of the celebrity culture of her time, the movies, the films, the new interest in that, to bring herself to greater prominence. Ironically, she is remembered as kind of a tragic, or at least a laughable figure, a figure of scorn for many of us. This is fun for me because i will show you there is another side to florence and i hope you will find it intriguing. I think she is also significant because she shows the changes in the first lady since the earliest early 20th century. The way she was a transitional first lady. I think it is quite striking. We can compare with some of her immediate predecessors. This is it is roosevelt, who was very private. She guarded her familys privacy in her own. She would not shake hands with people. She would hold little bunches of flowers so she would not have to be exposed. I dont know if she was concerned about germs but she did not like shaking hands. She was the opposite of florence in that way, as you will see. She was the first first lady have a social secretary. She made the office more professional because she realized the letters were coming in and someone needed to help with that. She also remodeled the white house. She was the first to really use that term this is one of the rooms she remodeled. She did a lot of interesting additions and renovations to the white house. She is followed by a first lady who is a little more like florence, and activist, nelly taft. You may not know she was an activist because she got sick shortly after she came into office, but she has been someone who has been very concerned about the plight of a number of underprivileged people. Back when she was in the philippines with her husband, she was someone who really worked against a lot of the prevailing attitudes at the time to reach out to the filipinos and encourage dedication for the children there at the time the americans had a colony in the philippines and her husband was the attorney general. She was also concerned about working women in the United States and protested on their behalf and was the first first lady to ride with her husband to the inauguration. Unfortunately, she came down she basically had a stroke on the mayflower. This is the mayflower, the president ial yacht. It was shortly after coming into the white house. She was silenced for the next couple of years. Her daughter had to cover things. It was very sad. She was an activist and she would have done a lot. She did recover, and we know or for this. Everyone knows she helped the plant the cherry trees, to understand are coming out early this year. Three with weeks early this year. They left that lovely legacy for us. She also left other legacies. One was, her husband needed a bath every once in a while, and it was not big enough. This i think was in the philippines. One of the things she did do when she recovered, along with the cherry blossoms, she was very concerned she does not get credit for this very often, a lot of times we associate this with ellen wilson, but it was nelly taft concerned with the working conditions of women, especially in washington. She was concerned about working women, mostly factory workers. When she was in washington, she got a closer view of the office workers. Dark conditions and very few restrooms. She tried to help them. There was a contested election, a threeway election in 1912, so that was the end of tafts korea. He was relieved, he did not want to be president in the first place. This was carried on ellen wilson, nelly was not able to see it happen in her time unfortunately. When we think about her successor, i bet you forgot about ellen wilson and went on to edith. She is the one we remember. She was the usurper. I want to tell you about ellen wilson who came before edith. She was his longtime wife and mother of his children. She also earned her own money as a painter. She could have been a professional in those days. As a woman painter even today, women painters are given less attention than men, and she was not able to do that fulltime. But she did raise money, she sold some paintings and gave the money away to charity. It underlines that she was someone who made her own income. She also was an activist. These women, nelly and ellen are much like florence in their activism. One of the things she was concerned about, i dont know what you can tell, this is an alley in washington, a set part of washington, this is where africanamericans lived in slums. She was very concerned. She wanted to change it and help them. It was called the alley bills. Unfortunately, ellen died about a year and a half into the presidency of wilson. It was not put into place. It is interesting because i think when we think of the wilsons, we think of the southern racists, especially woodrow, but she was not, she really wanted to help africanamericans eared but there was not a full opportunity for her to do that because she died of rights disease and her husband did marry eat it. She clearly had a strong role. She was a confident of her husband. He shared al qaeda things with her all kinds of things with her. She was not as concerned with womens causes, mostly she wanted to help her husband, which was not so bad. One of the things she did as a war measure to know about this . She planted things for sheep on the white house lawn. They mowed the lawn and produced will. But this was not very firmly to the people in washington. At that time, people were used to going on the white house grounds and they cannot go there if the sheep were there. She also was helpful in telling soldiers how to live. Ironically, this is at a time in him and working arrested in the streets of washington, people like Margaret Sanger for providing Birth Control information. Now, one of the things she was not sympathetic about with the issue of womens suffrage. She thought it was appalling and wanted nothing to do with it. Many women believed that edith supported him up but not until the end of the administration when it seemed obvious it would happen. She thought they should go away. She did not welcome at all. The me go back and show you one more picture of her. Her crowning glory was going to france with her husband at the end of the war and being part of the wonderful effort to solve the war with the treaty of versailles. But things did not go quite as people desire later on. And they got home, he went around the country trying to sell the message and did of having a stroke with the effort of all of the speeches. He had had medical issues before and strokes before, but this one was very debilitating. You probably know the story, he went home and she told the rest of the country that he was fine and running things just as before, but they had to work through her. She set a precedent for first ladies that has not been duplicated. She prevented anyone getting access to her husband. Saying she ran the country is too strong, but she stopped anyone else from running things and she stopped him from getting access to people in the senate, for instance, who wanted his advice and influence on putting through a measure for the league of nations. He wanted all or nothing for the league, some said we could compromise. She said absolutely not. Perhaps if yet heard some other voices closer to him, who can say . But she kept people away who would upset him him and she did not want to tell them how sick he was because she was concerned this might lead him to give up and die. I guess i am belaboring the point, because she did not really set a precedent for first ladies. On the other hand, florence did. Here is Florence Harding and here is healthy white house looked after she came on board. Let me continue. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She is someone who had a very serious ailment, she had a kidney ailment. It played her for much of her adult life. This i think has to be taken into account. We have to think about what she did. She had to transcend the illness , she was eventually at deaths door in 1922. Lets take a minute and look at her history and time. She was a young woman, a very successful pianist, wanted to go to conservatory in cincinnati, her father called her home and she ended up out of spite marrying the neerdowell next door. He left her and she divorced him. It is not clear that they were ever married in the first place as they were very young of course they did, but it is not really clear come up there is no evidence they married. There was a baby but he was not much of a father so she divorced him. She was an independent woman and had to support herself. She taught piano, and that may be how she met warring. Here she is at a roller skating rink. Have you heard of Norman Thomas . But they met and fell in love and it was a lovely story until she got sick and 1905, and then not so lovely because he had an affair with Kerry Phillips. Without her, there is no question that he would not have stayed in marion as a newspaper editor. She encouraged his ambitions. I dont want to say she made him, that is too strong. She did have a nickname of the duchess. She encouraged him to run for various offices, Lieutenant Governor and eventually senators, the first time senators could be elected by popular vote he ran. He probably wouldve been perfectly happy as senator except then there were other opportunities. Let me go back a second. We are moving into the president ial campaign. Florence and warren i living in washington and he wanted to continue being a senator but there were some intrigue and someone was going to run against him. He did not see much choice, so he decided to run for president. Here he was that is not him, that is nancy. Florence was given a terrible prediction from her psychic, just like nancy had a psychic. It said that her husband would die in the white house, and he did. The psychic was right. She was someone who clearly followed astrology and she was very much a believer in astrology, but she transcended that. She said were still going to do things for the good of the country and were going to have this happen. So they ran for the white house. She had some good friends who supported her. I dont know if you recognize this young woman, she was much younger than florence, florence was in her mid50s, and evelyn was only 29. They became fast friends. Evelyns husband with a figure in washington, as well. They vacationed a lot together. What you probably remember about the campaign if you remember anything, was the front porch. They campaigned from their front porch. It sounds so point. They did not have to go anywhere. But there is a war they were. All kinds of people came, all kinds of groups, women, men, africanamericans, even some movie people came. I want to play a little bit of a clip of harding and maybe you can hear how he was so appealing at this time. We all know he was appealing you cant quite tell here, but you know he was a handsome guy. He was dropdead handsome. He was also running at a time when people were very upset at the democrats because the league of nations had failed, people do not want internationalism, they were turning away from foreign problems, and he offered a brand of midwestern openness and sort of america first. Let me just play a little bit of this. I just have to go to the next slide and i will be able to do it. And just when you play a twominute clip. [indiscernible] dr. Sibley you heard the word normalcy in there, that was his word. I think he kind of created it, it was a trademark of the harding error. Era. Lets go down, ok. Click on thank you, that is it. Of course unity sheep were coming back. But dont worry, this is the industry sheep. [laughter] dr. Sibley they are done. It is back to normalcy now. Dr. Sibley you heard the word normalcy in there, that was his word. I think he kind of created it, it was a trademark of the harding era. Lets go down, ok. Click on thank you, that is it. Dont worry, this is the end of the sheep. [laughter] dr. Sibley they are done. It is back to normalcy now. We dont need sheep on the white house lawn, we want sheep but not shade. Basically the idea was to welcome people back. That is what florence wanted to do. That was her calling here. She herself had flipped once in the mud going by the white house and been shoot away shooed away by policemen. What they would do for hours and days at a time, day after day, they would be outside of the white house shaking hands with people can with people. Can you imagine that today . As you know the point of it was i dont know what the point if it was, i guess to connect with people. One of the things that want to emphasize about her is that she turned the white house and position of first lady as a vehicle to promote causes. This was always a little bit of a difficult dance for first ladies. I think we expected a little bit to be on a pedestal. I want to go on to this picture. To be kind of like a queen with the subjects coming to her and being a loyal. You see she was the first first lady to fly in an airplane. She had spirit. You see that with her leaving her first husband, the neerdowell, and being an independent Woman Working in the business with her husband. She liked greeting people. But after a while, she wanted to get active, as well. She wanted to take the position further. One of her causes, and i would argue she juggled this effectively, some of what he saw there from world war i, the veterans coming back. You can imagine why she might have been able to feel and empathize with them. Part of them was her own illness. She had been in dire straits medically. It was interesting, because out of this veterans calls came the veterans bureau. This was the first time the United States had a bureau, what you would call the v. A. Today. There was a scandal immediately around this. There was a man called forbes who was a close friend of the harding, his name was charles forbes, you can see him on the left, sort of in the center sitting down. One of the things that happened was he was in charge of these new hospitals and this hospital in particular, they were a number of buildings where there were stores things like cleaning fluid, not jones, things for the veterans. What did he do with it . He sold it to friends and got kickbacks. There was a scandal and he made a huge amount of money. He was caught and served time. It was a real scandal. Florence and warren, the reason they had bronfman is because they had been friends of his. They had fond feelings. They thought he could run the veterans bureau, but he was a bad choice. To florences credit, she saw this. This is an important thing to mention. We think of the Harding Administration as written with scandal. One after another. Oil concessions in wyoming. He himself was not a scandalous man. It happened again with other men like albert fall, the interior secretary. He stopped it, to his credit. Forbes was made to resign. One of the things about florence and her causes, she was a master of the photo op. This is a group of women from the philippines who came to america with their husbands, their husbands wanted something else, perhaps independence, but what they wanted was separate. Women in the philippines who were in the colonies did not have suffrage. I want to give a shout out to a group called the philippines on that on the potomac that give me some of these pictures. I thank them for these lovely pictures they gave me. One of the things you notice here, these women became interesting in their history later, as well. I think of interest of discussing florence, what i would like to draw your attention to is how she used this moment of being a figure in the movies she was the first first lady to take advantage of the celebrity culture developing at the time with the movies. The selling of her husband at the time, i dont mean in a bad way, i mean when he was running for president. They had buttons in recordings like you just saw. It was a minor profile for hollywood and films. She took advantage of that and made herself more prominent as a result. She loved for people to come to the white house that were cultural leaders. I thought his hair was wilder than that. This was a 10 day tame day for albert einstein. And that is madame curie. She also came to the white house. I mention these people because you often think of the Kennedy Administration as a time when there was a lot of glamour and camelot. I was at the museum today, it is a wonderful me then you have here in the city in dealy plaza. The hardings two, they have hardings too, they have culture. This is one of the famous singers of the day. She was wonderful musician and came to the white house. Florence was a pianist, and she loved music. There was some glamour around the white house in those days. I dont think we think about that when we think about florence. One of her more significant causes i want to mention is what is today called camp cupcake, since Martha Stewart ended up there. She did some bad things. When Florence Harding was first lady, she realized there was a problem. Women prisoners to not have a place to go where they could be with other women and safe. She lobbied for this. It did not happen during her time. Eleanor visited camp alderson, but it was constructed during but the idea came from florence. I think it speaks to her interest as a reformer and someone interested in womens issues and causes. She was also very interested in animal rights. She had laddy boy who kept her company. I want to talk about some of the difficulties she had to face. I dont know if you know this woman i dont know if she is treating those animals well, i hope she is. This is Kerry Phillips, has anyone heard of Kerry Phillips . She and her husband were very close to the hardings and they would vacation together, they would vacation even after the affair began between kerry and warren. Her husband was a sickly and florence with, so what do you think happened . They became very attached. This is an interesting story because the full revelation of their letters did not appear until 2014. This is recent. This was because when they were sort of discovered in the 1960s, the harding memorial association, which at that point was some very old men in ohio, they said this has been hidden for 50 years. One man tried to put in ellipses , which meant he had to leave out parts that were about bike parts. About body parts. But now you can see it. It is in the library at of Congress Library of congress. So they had an affair. It was significant and very vexing to florence. Apparently she offered or threatened to leave. Warren knew she could not he could not survive without her. She had really helped him in his rise to office. He did not want that to happen. In the end, the last gasp we heard from kerry, she was blackmailing the candidate during the election and the Republican Party did her money to go away. And she did. That was the end of her trouble for them. By then, the hardings did not have too longer to live themselves. And there was a rumor about another woman. If you read carl anthonys book, there are many Women Associated with harding, but i dont know that i agree. I dont even agree with this one, but something came out a year or so ago, the dna tests. Even then, i had to say, the book that is out there in the lobby, it has been revised. It had to be revised. I was wrong. The dna test suggests i was wrong. His is a controversy. This is man britain nan britten. From what i understood, she had a crush on him and helped he helped to find a job. The family decided to see if there was anything to the story that this girl was actually hardings daughter. Nan wrote a book called the president s daughter and tried to blackmail the family. She did publish the book, and that was bad, obviously something that was going on or they would not have tried to hunt her up. But there was nothing to support it, and i do not think it was credible. I downplayed it in my book, but you should always be careful about these things. It turned out just last year, 2015, hardings grandson this man, it turned out he was hardings grandson. Apparently it is very likely. Harding fairly had an affair as late as 1919 with a much younger woman. The suffering poor florence had to go through, it is appalling. [laughter] dr. Sibley i hope she didnt know about it but i have no evidence one way or the other. Speaking of suffering, here is florence recovering from this illness. She had this kidney ailment. Which he was in the white house, it hit her again in a very big way. She also had it while they were in the senate in 1914 and 1915. In the white house, she was really at depths deaths door. Look how gaunt she looks. She had an episode on the mayflower. They had a very hot summer, there had been labor strikes and she got very sick. She had to be secreted away. She did not let it be covered up. Nobody knew that nelly taft was sick. We hear rumors about how other president s would conceal illness. John f. Kennedys was not fully know. Florence was very open about it. People knew, and the country prayed for her. It was an amazing thing. I emphasize that because we often think she was unpopular, but she was very popular and people were worried about her. See this that she is wearing around her neck, she wore the a lot, she felt her neck was not attractive as of the illness. This man helped her, he came to the white house. He was a hypnotist, a french separatist, it was the idea of mind over matter. Florence was convinced she would get better. She got better. They were able to go on this amazing trip to alaska in 1923. I think you know what is going to happen. Perhaps because of exertions like this and other things that werent dead, warren did, he gave speeches and did a lot of things. It was a boiling hot summer. Nobody thought he was going to die on this trip, they got she was going to die because she had the fragile health. They actually have a coffin for her in the ship they took from Washington State up to alaska. There was a coffin waiting for her. She survived and he did not. He died in San Francisco on the way back, a lovely place called the palace hotel, a lovely place for your final rest. [laughter] dr. Sibley i know you heard these rumors, youre going to say she did it. She did not do it. [laughter] dr. Sibley i should not even mention it, i am feeding the rumor mill. But it needs to be addressed. There is nothing to it. She loved him, even with all of his flaws. She did not want him to die. She trusted his doctors, they were her doctors as well. Dr. Sawyer, she had had for years. Most scholars now understand that he died of a heart attack. There was. I think it is interesting, and it should underline how loved he was. I was struck at the Kennedy Museum today, the crowds and crowds after the assassination. The train travel all the way back from San Francisco to washington. It took three days, 96 hours. She slowed down in front of towns so people could look at the casket in the train. People were there night and day. They were there at 2 00 in the morning. The funeral in washington was an enormous ordeal. There was a viewing at the rotunda, there were many people. He had another she had another funeral in ohio, as well. In the end, they were buried together in this ridiculously giant mausoleum paid for by private donations i love the folks who gave little bits of money. However, the legacy of the hardings is not such a great one, as we know. We have scandals, we have people like harry daughter to, the head of the Justice Department at the time who was charged, but not officially found guilty, of corrupt practices there. Things like taking kickbacks in the enforcement of prohibition. Prohibition was begging for some kind of corruption. He was supposed to take care of it, and they were suicides of various things that happened. Very question will things happen. There were some issues with him. But they were Close Friends and here he a good buddy of his that helped him become president. So he was loyal. I want you to see that florence was very popular. People loved her. She would reach out to journalists in a fight them to come to the white house and and invite them to come to the white house and see how things were laid out. She was a friend to the media and people loved her in a lot of ways. I will say, in her personal life with that son she had with her first husband, i did not find her to be as kind as i would have liked to have seen. I dont think she ever had them to the white house. That was rather unusual. She would send clothes and things to them, but it always seemed a little bit surprising that she would send them calico and things like that, not the fancy gowns that she wore. I do not know why she was not more embracing. She spent money, but you couldve done a lot more, she was a very wealthy woman and she probably couldve done more for her children and grandchildren than she did. One thing she did do was be open about her illness. This is not the typical practice, as we know. We did not hear about kennedys illness. Another way she was unusual and set a standard for others after with campaigning with her husband. Here is laura bush with her husband much later. These are the sort of things florence did and set an exhibit for others. I mentioned i wanted to talk about that a little. Here she is, and what i want to mention is what you did was she couldve of had to walk a fine line. First ladies like Hillary Clinton who spoke out in front of congress were seen as too outgoing, taking too much of a role. Remember how she had to defend yourself about having teas and this can of thing. Others like maybe eisenhower fit maybe Eisenhower Mamie eisenhower fit another, passive role. Her success for successor Grace Coolidge was less visible. Hoover who came next was limited by the great difficulties of the depression to leave much of an impact. I promise you i would get to eleanor. Florence has made the crack, and here is the woman who broke the mold. I do want to spend a little time on eleanor to show you how she was a successor to florence in a lot of ways. Most people would laugh to think of them in the same sentence, that i hope you will see that there were some important connections between them. One of the things that florence was concerned about was making sure im sorry, eleanor was concerned about, was making sure women had opportunity. She wanted to make sure women have access to her as journalists, she would only talk to women journalists. Also like florence, she was very interested in veterans. You may know, it is an amazing story, during world war ii, she traveled thousands and thousands of miles, hundreds of thousands. She met large groups of soldiers. She went to australia and new zealand. She broke part of her years because she was traveling in planes. She was very active in reaching out to those who were suffering in the war. Like florence, she had to deal with problems like this. This is ms. Healing and a woman who was very close to her husband. She did not let grass grown her feet. Successors of florence and eleanor who were more traditional first ladies. Like best truman, bess truman, who thought the most important thing was that her hat was on straight. Not florence. I mentioned mamie, we may think she is a caricature, but she left an interesting legacy. She was also concerned about Heart Disease cancer has been had it. One of the things most striking about her, does anybody have a pink bathroom . She is responsible for that. She had a big impact on style in the 1950s. Before i speak about jackie, i want to speak of some other first ladies in the mold of florence. We know that jackie had a very glamorous time. There is perl buck, she came to the white house. Igor stravinsky. They did have Cultural Icons coming to the white house. There were models for this early on. Jackie was very interested in the history of the white house. She really helped to remodel it in the way that many first ladies have done before and since. She was very concerned about historical integrity. I am going to conclude my remarks and look forward to hearing yours with just about five or so first ladies, many of them interestingly southerners, and we will be talking more about southern first ladies in about a year. This is i am going to look at Lady Bird Johnson and a a few others i think made an impact in a way similar to florence, to show the trajectory of her influence. You often think of lady bird, we use the term highway beautification, she hated that term. She preferred to be called a conservationist. She really was a harbinger of the environment all movement in so many ways. On the political front, she was the first first lady to go on a Solo Campaign for, and not at an auspicious time. She went into the deep south on behalf of her husband after the civil rights bill had just been passed. It was very unpopular, but you probably helped him in much of a cell in a way that wouldve been impossible without her effort. Another activist first lady, 84, and she set a betty ford, and she said a similar legacy to florence because she spoke about her illnesses. By doing so, she helped others. Really interesting first lady. Intercourse roselyn carter, a great activist on behalf of health issues. Her concern with Mental Health, on part because i guess there were family stories and other kinds of things, she was someone who actually saw a bill through. There was a Mental Health bill and it passed in 1980, but the next administration undid it. That was unfortunate for her legacy. But she was a very well traveled first lady. She was a diplomat. She was a great consultant to her husband during the tough times of his administration. The next activist first lady, Hillary Clinton, i kind of count as a southerner because she lived down her little while. Dont know if you southerners will agree or if you are even all southerners. But she was an activist on many causes. She spoke to congress on behalf of health care and other causes. She was involved in issues addressing adoptions and other aspects. She later had to deal with her own kinds of struggles just like florence did, except that were publicly. People give her credit for helping him avoid if not impeachment, at least being removed from office because of the way she confronted the issue. Laura bush, very different first lady, a first lady that most people think of as quiet and traditional. But she was not. She was the first first lady to go behind the battle lines, in afghanistan. She also embraced what we might consider traditional first lady causes such as libraries and literacy causes, but she went beyond that. She spoke on behalf of of republican candidates and was interviewed many times, and these were things florence did not do. Im trying to suggest is that what we consider a more traditional first lady today are doing things that more activist first ladys when i have done. We are seeing a trajectory the role of the first lady has had in the influence on the husband, the way they expand with her husbands can do. Again, this idea of being campaigning together and being visible with each other. With social media and Popular Culture today, they go very natural with being a first lady. Michelle obama was in many magazines. Interestingly enough, also campaigning and taking on the role, just like florence, bringing people into the white house, on the white house lawn, working on causes, helping and people the healthier, these kinds of things she was concerned about as well as concern about the military families. That was something that she, jill biden and laura bush all took on together. She took herself abroad in a way that Florence Harding probably did not get the chance to do. Now, what about the current first lady . She is not in the white house yet, we know what you will do. If she will be an activist remains to be seen. She is perhaps spending time with her family and businesses. To be determined. To conclude, Florence Harding has left a legacy for first ladys and even if the first even if the current first lady is not halloween that motive outspokenness, i think we will see a return to that in whatever comes next. I think that pattern has been set up and it is something that we expect, and whether it is a waiver has been in that role. We will see for the future. They do very much. [applause] thank you so much. We would love to open it up. Im going to let dr. Sibley run her own q a. Please wait for microphones so we can all hear you and cspan can hear you, as well. I will let dr. Sibley call on you and you will have someone bring you a microphone. Dr. Sibley ok, this gentleman here. Yes. I will get to you all. Plenty of time. You start things early here in texas so we have plenty of time. Do we have her voice on tape . Dr. Sibley that is a good question. I almost played i had a recording of her moving around with the filipina women, but there was no recording of her voice. I believe there must be. It would be wonderful to hear. I honestly dont know. I never encountered it when i was doing my research, but thank you for asking. Great. Yes . Could you hand that down to her . Of the first ladys you researched, who surprised you the most, who delighted you the most, and who did your buyer admire the most . Dr. Sibley i was most surprised by florence because i thought she was kind of a joke. When i first saw a display of books on first ladies, before i had written the book, i noticed you dont have one on florence. The kind of laughed. Later, they asked me to write about her. Then i decided discovered i had interesting things to say. She was really kind of a joke, the harridan, the duchess. I had some little anecdotes of what people said about her, brittle, sexless, people said horrible things about florence. Oh my gosh, appalling things. That was francis russell, by the way. He wrote a book. He was alluding to the allegations that warren was black, and warren said, i dont know, maybe i am. But the dna of his grandson, no, probably not. Who delighted me the most . I think it was great cool which Grace Coolidge. She was a lovely person and so sweet. She was an asset to her husband, but he treated her badly. He was not a nice man. He was kind of a controlling man. She would have been i think even more influential as a first lady if she had been unleashed a little bit. Who do i admire the most . Eleanor roosevelt, how can you not . She really had her heart in the right place on so many issues. She was so ahead of her time. I wish i had more time to talk about her. She spoke out against racial discrimination, spoke out for women, should she spoke out on so many causes, and she was tireless. I think that is why her husband tried to find a break, but she never stopped. It was a little much maybe to deal with that. She is someone to really admire. Over here. Your point of view that she was kind of like, into showed the train and all the crowds, i wondered that at that time, there was not much to do, people went out because that was the only thing exciting to do. [laughter] how can you judge how much she was loved in any situation . Dr. Sibley excuse me. That is a very good question. We think about it some there were a number of these kinds of sort of memorial trains. Robert kennedy in 1968. I tend to think though that they mean something. I really got kind of interested in that whole death story. People were out there at any time of day, some of them at 2 00 in the morning. They were also singing. It was almost like the country with taking over by a sentimental that is the wrong word, almost a romantic and bittersweet sadness about his passing. Everything he was loved. When you read about him, he was a very enduring man. At the time when florence was ill, there was a doctor came to the white house, and he came to stay for a long period to help her through her illness. Warren was so kind to this man, when i read some of the diaries. He is a man who would want to hug if you met him. Yes, he probably should have been more judgmental about his friends, it wouldve been better for country, but i think he was very popular. You might say, was there a lot of substance to him . He was. One of the things he did was parting eugene debs, who would be put in prison as a protester against world war i. You are right, crowds of necessarily predict anything for sure, but i think it is suggested in this case. Thank you. Yes . Do you need a microphone . He is going to hand you one. It appears that florence was treated by conventional physicians, but i had read that president harding was treated by a homeopathic physician and that may have contributed to a misdiagnosis in his death. Dr. Sibley Charles Sawyer was his physician, and yes, i think there were some of that. There were some things done that i think we probably would not consider to be the most effective, but i really trace it to the fact that i dont know if anyone read the wonderful book about influence of of influenza a couple of years ago. Medicine really was the wizard arm of science. This is not much after that. I think the people who were treating him, boone think was more professional. He was younger and maybe more recently educated. There was a moment when harding was doing badly and boone diagnosed it better than sawyer. But i dont think anyone admit any malfeasance. I dont think anyone was trying to hurt him or do anything quackish, but there was limited knowledge of the time. We think about how garfield was treated after he was assassinated, it was ridiculous. They basically poisoned him. I think that is what was going on. Others may disagree. These stories continue to be debated. Yes . First of all, thank you very much, it has been very interesting. I had a question about your source material. Were the letters that were written by president harding to Kerry Phillips dr. Sibley very steamy. [laughter] did you read them and incorporate information from those letters into your book . Dr. Sibley i did