Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency Edith Wilson Reconsidered 20220901

My name is nancy keegan smith, and id like to welcome you as flares Vice President to tonights program. Thank you to our partner American University school of Public Affairs who has been so supportive of our endeavor. And to our flare institutional members Writer University White House Historical association, Massachusetts Historical Society the Gerald R Ford president ial foundation and our two newest institutional members the National First ladys library and the center for president ial history at Southern Methodist university. I programmed tonight is called taking a new look at edith wilson and should be a fascinating discussion of ediths influence on the role of first lady. The Panel Moderator is dr. Catherine sibley professor of history and director of the american studies at Saint Josephs university. Panelists in order i think our doctor Mary Stockwell retired professor of history and Department Chair at Lords University who writes on the American West 20th century politics and especially Woodrow Wilson. Our second panelists will be Rebecca Roberts curator of programming at planet word a museum of words and language in washington, dc. And our third panelists will be dr. Stacey cordray who holds the dentists and von johnson endowed chair in Theodore Roosevelt studies at Dickinson University in north dakota here. More biographic information on each panel is available on the flare website at flairnet. Org. We will be taking questions at the end of the program, which should be email to first ladies 2021 gmail. Com. Now with great pleasure. I turn over the the program to my friend and scholar dr. Catherine sibley. Thank you so much nancy what a lovely introduction of our exciting panel this evening, and its so lovely to have you all here. Thank you so much for coming and it is my great pleasure to open up with our first presenter. Who is dr. Mary stockwell, and im so excited to hear what she has to say about edith wilson. Thank you all. All right. Thank you. My slides there they are. Thank you so much. Um, thanks for inviting me. Thanks for everyone at flair. Thanks also to the rosie the support technical support. Thank you. Let me say i wish i could say a lot about edith wilson, but what i want to do tonight is simply to kind of give you some of my overview my first insights and then make three points about it that i have found fascinating next, please. I dont know if you have had this experience about edith wilson, but when i talked to her about people that im writing about her a Woodrow Wilson, i often get hit with a negative response. I say shes got what i call negative charisma. There are some people in history no matter what you do. You cant quite bring them out of darkness. They seem to be always. Uh, theres something there thats mysterious and dark i mentioned ive got to mention Alexander Hamilton one of my favorite people when i was growing up people thought terribly of him. No matter what you said. You couldnt see anything nice spot hamilton. Thanks to Lynn Manuel Miranda whos brought him out of the darkness now and hes a great heroin america. But i and unless edith gets a musical. I dont know if it will ever happen for heres what people tell me she was a femme fatale. She lured wilson into a second marriage when his wife was barely dead. She was a lady macbeth. Kind of throne manipulating him when he had a stroke. I hear more now that she was a racist family of slaveholders a lover of robert e lee and she was antifeminist because she didnt want to a constitutional amendment for women to have the right to vote next please. What ive discovered is a much more complex. It is wilson. Wrote a book on Woodrow Wilson for a series on the president s i discovered a wilson. I didnt know very romantic very emotional very deep feeling im discovering. Who edith really is im working with molly on her book and like first ladys memoirs. Her memoirs fascinating and that third picture there on the right. Ive been to the library of congress and ive read her papers, especially ediths papers when she was trying to put this memoir together, and ive learned a lot from all of this next please. Ill write my first point. You cant understand edith wilson if you dont understand Woodrow Wilsons attitude towards women. This is a very sensitive topic now if i say wilson women most people will say like that wonderful picture. I found these Kaiser Wilson he was against the constitutional amendment giving the women the right to vote at least for a long time. He was president. This makes you think that wilson is a kind of dour figure who hates women doesnt want them to succeed has has nothing to do with them or nothing too good to say about them. Quite a discovered. Nothing can be farther from the truth. I cant think of another president for whom women were so important. They were his advisors his counselors from the time. He was a little boy with his mother all the way up through having the wives and children. He looked at women as intelligent supportive and he needed there not just their adoration not their support, but he needed them working with him when he was a a student when he was a professor and then he he was president next, please this is just a short list of the women who played a key role in his life from his mother all the way up through edith. The wilson comes through most of his biographies is again dower dark Sigmund Freud wrote a horrible portrait of him as a woman hating a kind of a man worshiping person again. Nothing could be farther from the truth all of these people in his life mattered to him and he turned to women for counsel help support and especially once he was president both of his wifes first ellen and then edith out. Were closer to him than i have to say. They were advisors. They were helpmates. I this might be a stretch but sometimes i think of them the way maybe Valerie Jarrett was in the white house helping obama. They did a lot more than the typical things. You would think of a woman should do in that position. And that includes, you know again being a supporter helping with speeches. They even helping make policy decisions and edith is going to fit right into this this need and this love wilson has of women next please. Which he becomes the first lady she does again. It happens right after wilsons wife has died. He meets her through his through his doctor. Shes brought into the white house. Shes a washington widow to help Margaret Wilson and help helen bones the cousin who are brokenhearted wilson falls in love with her and immediately even before theyre married. She begins to help him. Im not saying make policy decisions, but she listens to his troubles. She listens to a speeches and she begins to help him crafting a lot of his ideas of the two Amazing Things she will do when shes in the white house. The first one is shes the decoder. She will decode and code all the secret messages going back and forth to europe and world war one and she will also handle thing called the box. Wilson put all of his papers from everybody who needed a decision and a box on his desk at night. Hed read through them. He type up his answers. She was right there with them again. She always said i didnt formulate policy, but he certainly bounced ideas off of off of me next please. Its october 1919. Wilson has a stroke and the nation is in a crisis. These are the men i could think of who are in a crisis of either illness or assassination and they had a few days a few weeks a few hours to live. I also thought of Zachary Taylor who had five days to live. Nobody had really been in a position like wilson where he was mentally totally sound from a stroke, but he was physically weak. What should have been done think of yourself you be edith wilson and you try to figure out what would you do at this time . What if you were wilsons daughters . What if wilson had had a son and Something Like this had happened . What should have been done to help this president . Next please. She makes a decision. She makes a decision and this is the second thing ive discovered about her. She takes on the role of chief of staff. Her role of chief of staff is almost identical. To the definition of chief of staff that you can find in chris. Whipples book the gatekeeper where he shows how hr haldeman created this role in nixons presidency. Thats exactly what edith wilson was doing 50 years before its wilsons doctors who encourage her to keep continued doing what she did before sitting with wilson and helping to make decisions or that just watching and make decisions. She decided yes, ill do what theyre recommending. Ill every everything will come to me first if its something that a department or senator can decide ill send it back if wilson must decide it. I will type it up in a tabloid form. Ill show it to him and make the decision. Ill make sure the decision is implemented. Again it she never used the term gatekeeper. She never used the term chief of staff but when you read her against whats coming 50 years down the road, thats exactly what she did next, please. Next. Okay. Why did she do it . To save her husband did her doctors. Tell her if he has something to live for. Meaning the presidency hell survive, but she also believed completely in his agenda, which was to stop republicans like henry cavillage who were out to destroy both what he wanted on an International Stage of a national stage. They lost the fight for the league of nations. They lost the fight for the treaty of versailles, but they tried and she also said he made two more important decisions that are forgotten when she was a chief of staff. He he. Stopped all leases for oil and government land. He said thats going to lead to corruption which it does in the next presidency. He also vetoed the volstead act. Didnt want prohibition his his decision was overridden, but he kept trying to do the progressive things. He thought were necessary things like keeping the doors of immigration open, and she said if if i can serve in this position to help him win his agenda, then thats what ill do next, please. I would recommend his story and dont just look at edith wilson. Dont just look at hr hallman who will come up with a real chief of staff physician. Look at people in the next 50 years who did a similar thing to her and judge her against them or evaluate her very creative role. She played against them. There was another woman in under fdr who acted as a chief of staff again de facto informal and thats missing a hand especially in his second term. She was a gatekeeper. She helped to push so much legislation through but we think of her. Okay two minutes. I see it. We often think of her as well. She was this is what she wore. This was the dress wasnt she a bubbly person . No, she was a chief of staff next, please. Might be a stretch but there was a relative in the future who stepped in a crisis to act as an acting chief of staff as Robert Kennedy who stepped in after the bay of pigs and became the real gatekeeper and counselor somebody jfk could trust performing a similar role to what either did next please. I think the person she was most like i would compare to admira William Leahy, especially in fdrs final year in office. Fdr was sick much much sicker than wilson was and he he helps make major decisions about the president s for the president that critical final year of office again doing the same thing. Informally hes considered a great hero, but edith is often suspect for what she did. Next please. My final thing ill wrap this up fast. She dismisses everything she does she dismisses it. I didnt do anything that important. I didnt do anything that critical. I just stepped in like maybe any wife would any first lady would know she created a role which is going to become much more important as a 20th century goes on historians have dismissed her i learned about this dismissal say that writing tablet. She filled up writing tablet after writing tablet with her memoirs and out of that will come her her autobiography next please. An inner autobiography. Shes under immense pressure to prove her femininity. This is the most shocking thing. I learned about all the kind of the publicity materials for publisher. You keep saying youre feminine you keep saying, youre just a good sweet woman. To be chief of staff youve got to be tough. So shes always in this position of denying what she did. We we still i think has historians followed that instead of saying what does she do to be a real leader at a critical time in American History . Next please. My two final slides i began to realize that theres a rhetoric to the chief of staff position and i learned this because again, im working with molly who was a professor of rhetoric and shes putting together this great book and first ladies a memoirs. And i began i read chris whipples book again. Theres a big book and William Leahy the big peter bakers book on james baker on jesus staff and i began to hear this. Thats a manly job from manly man working from manly president and arent all these guys great because theres such men like linebackers protecting a quarterback or like bouncers throwing a drunk son of a bar this damage. Is then our view of edith because she has to be a woman. She has to be just first lady that she stepped in in the in the breach of a terrible tragedy and kept wilsons presidency going at least for a year. I think if she was a man shed be admired for like you saying to she had been thomas Woodrow Wilson jr. That probably be great books about her right now. Maybe we can sunday get past that idea that a chief of staff is a manly thing and we see it as a position of helping the president my last slide, please. This is a famous picture. Ive always seen it but and when historians write critically about her that she was this lady macbeth behind the throne kind of telling the drooling Woodrow Wilson what to do. This is in her memoir. She was proud of this picture. She said no, this is me. This is 1920. I like to think hes be towing the whole stud act right now. She thought it was this helpmate, but still theres that quality of a she shouldnt have been doing this this person behind the throne next please. Take a look at this picture. We would never ever think anything negative about James Baker James baker secretary. Im sorry james baker in his role as chief of staff for reagan and i think the bushes he was there to help not to in any way get in the way of reagan. He was in there to make sure that his his agenda was fulfilled and then and then he was the gatekeeper to do that. My theory is edith was the first two whether you thought think she should do it or shouldnt have whether we will see her like again, probably not with a 25th amendment and the antinap autism act, but she was a much more important person maybe than we her credit for being thank you. Thank you so much for that really enlightening presentation and now it is my pleasure and keep your questions in your heads because youll get a chance to ask some questions later on now. It is my great pleasure to introduce Rebecca Roberts who will continue our discussion of edith wilson. Thank you. Thank you so much and i will say i came to edith wilson. Ive got a biography of her coming out next year because ive written a couple of books about suffrage and whenever i gave talks about suffrage people ask me about edith. There is some narrative out there that maybe she was whispering in wilsons ear to make him finally reluctantly support the 19th amendment just totally untrue. She was as mary said against federal suffrage, but there is this notion out there that she was you can call her lady macbeth, you know some kind of manipulative power behind the throne and if you dont think that of her you think she is this sort of country bumpkin who didnt have much education who won the presidency the president s heart because she was so pretty who had no Business Holding the power that she did when wilson had a stroke and lets be clear. She did have no Business Holding that power right . No one elected edith to anything and whether she did it well or not. Its still or whether she had good intentions or not. It was still unconstitutional and probably not the best thing for the office of the presidency, but as mary said one of the reasons, i think everyone is so surprised that this lovely little edith wilson. Took on a role like that. Is that she very much wanted it that way. She cultivated this image of herself as this extremely feminine extremely background person who was just doing everything she could to support her very brilliant husband and her memoir while fascinating its not always true. She says some things are embroider some things or leave some things out that are demonstrably wrong. And so she very very much curated her image as this feminine helped meat as opposed to as a strong ambitious person so we could all be forgiven forgetting her wrong, but the truth is if you do just a little bit you shouldnt be surprised by what she did at night in 1919 at all. She telegraphed over and over and over again. What kind of a person she was starting from her childhood and with phil virginia. This is a picture of her on the back porch of the family house where she was in charge of caring for her grandmothers canaries, which she absolutely hated, but her grandmother was formidable. Terrifying in some ways and edith was the sixth of nine children seven of eleven born six of nine surviving. So she was in the middle of a pack of this big family that had come down in the world after the civil war they lost their plantation and moved to this storefront in with phil, virginia, and she was this grandmothers favorite and so even though she didnt have a lot of formal schooling which is not unusual for a woman of her class and status and time period she did she was educated. She wasnt pumpkin and she or her grandmother bowling her mothers her fathers mother very much taught her to trust her own confidence and trust around gut and bolstered this idea that she was capable and that she was independent. There was a conflicting message from her other grandmother and her mother herself which were who were deep into the cult of true womanhood about you know, dont let your back hit the back of the chair and be submissive and pious at all times. So edith, i think a lot of the conflict we see later is that she was actually this confident strong grandmother bowling believed her to be but she had to pretend she was this feminine help me that her mother wanted her to be and thats i think the under without psychoanalyzing her too much the underlying story of edith a lot. So shes in with film. She goes to school twice neither was a huge success after her second year of school. She wanted to go back but at that point she had three younger brothers who were due to go to school and there wasnt enough money to educate a daughter. So she goes to washington here. Im sitting in washington dc right now because one of her older sisters had married a man named alexander gold. So she gets to washington in 1890 and 1890 washington was gilded age booming. It was a really interesting place to reinvent yourself if thats what you wanted to do, and she did so she didnt have any money, but she had social status and she had enough of a sort of veneer of sophistication that she was at the opera all the time and she met interesting people and she learned to be fashionable and she became what she thought she wanted to be and she ended up marrying a man named norman galt her sister. Her sisters husbands cousin picture, please. This picture is from this time period i love this picture because shes so confident. Shes so beautiful. Shes so just owning who she is and i think of and this is from the 1890s. This is edith becoming herself getting out of her little appalachian town and becoming herself on her own. To a large degree as mary said if she were a man this would be a very different story including the up by your bootstraps, you know American Dream that she would have been given credit for if she were a man so shes shown that she can grab an opportunity. Shes shown that she can be sophisticated. She marries norman galt. It is not a love story for the ages it is he is her ticket out of whitfield. He is secure he in his own sort of fuss budget way adores her, but she thinks hes hell do just fine and they have a nice life here in washington. They have one child who doesnt survive for more than three days and then no more children and she becomes of sort of woman about town next picture. She becomes the first woman in washington to get a drivers license. She told about town and what she called her electric runabout. This is sort of a like golf cart with a tiller it top speed of about 13 miles an hour, but it was a symbol of independence and she with her fabulous hat. She was always beautifully dressed with tool around town. They traffic cops newer and she you know other washington hostess is newer she was a person and she had made that of herself and then when norman died, she inherited his jewelry business, so next slide he ran galt which was sort of the tiffany of washington. It was this highend jewelry and silver business and throughout washington history president s and society hostesses and rich people had bought their silver and jewelry and you know commemorative plaques from galts. It had been really a place that marked the passage of Society Washington and edith inherits it completely in the early part of the 20th century, which was still unusual, you know married womens property acts hadnt been around for that long. But the fact that she didnt have children and normans only brother was an invalid there wasnt really sort of a man who could have contested it and made a play for the business and the business was profitable, but when edith inherited it there was some debt because norman had bought out his partners and he hadnt yet paid off that investment. So she struggled with you know, do i sell it . Do i bring on a partner . What do i do and she decides to keep the business and run it she of course had plenty of help. She didnt run it singlehandedly, but this is a woman who just decides i can do this. I can do this on my own i can make this. Work i can learn what i need to learn and i dont care that i dont see a whole lot of other Women Business owners. I dont care that i dont have a college degree. Im just going to make this work and she did. And then her father died and it became vital that she had this business because she became the cornerstone of her holy enormous family her three younger brothers all worked at galts her older sister bertha and her mother widowed mother moved to washington and they all support bertha and mrs. Bowling and its all on edith. Its not on her older brothers. Its not whos some of them were doing quite well. She takes on this role of supporting everybody helping everybody and she really relishes it. She really enjoys being the person that everyone depends on. So shes already shown us that shes incredibly confident that she can walk into any situation and just sort of trust her, you know instincts to get on through that shes willing to reinvent herself if thats what it takes and that she really isnt going to wait for permission from anybody to do what she thinks is is necessary for herself and that she cares fiercely about the people that she loves especially family. So shes this wealthy woman about town. She doesnt have to answer anybody. This is a unique position in early 20th century america. She doesnt have children. She doesnt have a husband. She doesnt need a chaperone. She has means she can do whatever she wants at a time and place when women could not do whatever they wanted. She travels she becomes a fashion plate. She when she describes this era in her memoir. She definitely kind of shakes the truth in this too. She describes a european trip with her sister bertha, she x dimension there were two men along on that trip too that the whole thing was kind of an extended double date. Shes curating who she was at the time and this is the moment when she meets which are wilson and their letters back and forth are amazing. First of all, theyre really racing or at least his are often racy. Hes saying, you know, youre so beautiful and wonderful, and i want to kiss your eyelids. Shes saying are you really gonna fire William Jennings bryan tell me whats going on in mexico. Have you written a response to the germans about the lusitania . Shes asking him to get much more involved in his work and he is waxing eloquent about her beautiful form and you know how much he wants to kiss her on the dear lounge in the house, whatever and shes writing back saying i really want to know what youre working on and finally she says that out right . She says, i love all your romantic letters any woman would but what i really like is tell me what youre working on because then i feel im right there with you and he finally takes the hint and he starts sending her huge packets of correspondence and legislation so that she can keep up with what hes doing and she always claimed to not be political which is just sort of laughable, but she is really interested and shes really smart and she really wants him to value her for her brain. Not just her looks and as mary mentioned wilson was a man who very much depended on the council of women, especially a few women very close to him. And so hes desperate for her to play that role. And so when he has his stroke in 19, and then sorry one more chapter where she telegraphs what shes doing next slide. During the negotiations over the treaty of versailles. They both got a paris unprecedented. No president had been gone more than you know to the panama canal to check on the progress. No first lady had gone out of the country while in office ever and they were in paris for the better part of six months. She is not there as a plus one. Shes right there in all the pictures with the queen of england with the leaders of european nations. She elevates the role of first lady on an International Stage and wilson is sort of shy in selfconscious enough that he doesnt like walking into situations where he doesnt really know what to do and what the protocol is. Shes happy to do all that shell wander on in and ask her do we wear gloves with dinner . How do i address so and so she speaks very eccentric french because the grandmother bowling taught it to her and a grandmother was selftaults or pronunciations are all off but it doesnt mind shes happy to just barrel all in there and do what needs to be done because shes so charming and so delightful and people really respond to her and the press of that visit. She just is absolutely adored and youll hear more about edith and the press in a minute. But so we now see that this is a woman who is smart confident willing to hide the truth if thats useful to her fiercely. Loyal to the people she loves and willing to wander on into a situation. She knows very little about whether its running a Jewelry Store or being the first lady and just trust yourself to figure it out on the fly. And so when wilson collapses from a stroke in october of 1919 the fact that she chooses to do all of those things. Shouldnt be surprised to anybody. She chooses to hide his illness from the public. She chooses to protect him at all costs. She said overtly i was fighting for my husband first, and then the president of the United States. She decides that she can figure out what legislation he needs to see she can make the decisions about what needs to go to him. And what doesnt theres huge stacks of unopened mail discovered years later at the archives just stuff she decided to ignore which of course has its own consequences. And so she telegraph who she was and she was fascinating and really smart and really complicated and thats why i am delighted that shes kind of getting her do as a real threedimensional person. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That was fascinating wonderful pictures and a great discussion. So now it is my turn to introduce our last but certainly not least a speaker stacey cordary and i also would like to invite everyone to participate in the email first ladies 2021. Thats first ladies 2021 at gmail. Com. So write an email. Thank you so much. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us and thank you to everyone who made this possible. My task today was to speak about edith wilson and the press so i would like to begin by suggesting that when edith became first lady in 1915. I dont think we can assume that she knew a great deal about what that meant. She wrote in her memoir. That politics was not her metier and that when she met wilson she had to bone up on her understanding of government. Today incoming for spouses can study the history of first ladies and in fact, most do apparently in order to help them understand how to take best advantage of this unique position lacking in a Job Description beyond social expectations and tradition. Given Edith Wilsons lack of interest in politics the relatively short time between when she met and married president wilson the lack of available resources beyond first ladys memoirs. It is highly unlikely that she knew much about how former first ladies dealt with the oftentimes crushing presence and expectations of the press. For example, she probably did not know that Lucretia Garfield back in 1881 gave an interview to the press on a political topic. Instead Edith Wilsons southern upbringing her position as the widow of a prestigious Washington Store owner plus the gendered expectations of the progressive era governed her relationship to the press which as we know did not end so well but i dont think it necessarily began all that well either. As news leaked out that the widow galt and the president were getting serious whispers went around washington, but it was not until the engagement was finally announced in the fall of 1915 that newspaper reporters pounced. Every first lady complains about the omnipresence of the media the swift catapult to fame and the concomitant loss of privacy. Edith wilson felt that way too when the notice of the official engagement was published she called it that day of readjustment to a new life. It would have taken her less than 24 hours to know first hand that she had zero control over what press wrote about her. In front of you our descriptions of edith galt from the earliest newspaper coverage following the announcement of her engagement. She is just past 40. It didnt matter that she was actually 43 at the time. It was really nervy of the newspapers to print any age at all. And in fact within days, they will revise downward her age and start to call her 38 years old. She is by no means small. This was another way to say what they often said which is she was plump. She bears a striking resemblance to the first mrs. Wilson. Ouch, just ouch. She has an unusual character. What does that even mean . Mrs. Galt was considered beautiful when a young girl. But what about today . She has simple tastes. She likes baseball, although she doesnt really understand it very well, and shes not a society leader. Well, there were certainly many nice things said about her too, but these likely stung and may not have given her a warm and fuzzy feeling about the press. Which may have been the genesis of this from the Washington Post . Their fell on her the glare of the searchlight of the nation and she is shrinking from it like a child afraid of a storm. When she encountered journalists, she smiled a lot. She bowed to them. She waved her bouquets at them. She appeared friendly, but she depended upon an old understanding that women were private people as opposed to men who were public people. This meant that she did not expect the press to ask her opinion nor did she believe she should give it . But times were changing and there were goodly number of women active in causes especially suffrage who did want to be quoted by the newspapers. But not mrs. Galt. Early on she said i am of no importance and the less the newspapers spent about me at the present time the more i will appreciate their kindness to me. And so i am sure will the president. And apparently the wilsons were serious because during their honeymoon this sentence appeared in the Washington Post warning has been given today that publication of snapshots secured of the president and mrs. Wilson would be punished by abrogation of white house privileges. As we know edith once married to woodrow fiercely protected his health. This is partly why she accompanied him when he traveled . And when she did so of course the press covered her dress her actions and in an elaborate exercise in semiotics tried to read her for what they could glean about the president. She did travel with him many places both before and after the United States became involved in world war one. So much so that she was according to the Washington Post. A more Constant Companion to the president than the wife of any chief executive hitherto. She was always with him. Golfing nearly every morning driving together every afternoon attending the theater several times a week the first couple reviewed preparedness parades and the panamerican celebration. They laid cornerstones and reese. They attended official events together. This was all part of her taking care of wilsons health, which was a natural and expected part of being a wife in that era. She received positive press coverage for what the newspapers called first lady first standing beside the president while he took the oath of office riding with him to the capitol and during the 1916 inaugural parade in another first lady first. She attended press club dinners in new york and chicago with the president. When she took to the campaign trail along wilson in 1916, no journalist complained they were used to seeing the pair together. When the United States joined the First World War edith wilson made admiring headlines for her Red Cross Work sowing sheets and pajamas standing at the president s side to review a red cross parade or a tender red cross ball. There was also really good press for her autographing a baseball which was auctioned off to support the red cross. Although i have to tell you that the first ladies baseball only garnered 1400 dollars and the president s got over 5,000. She was praised also for letting sheep graze on the white house grounds so they could be shorn and their fleece auctioned off to help the red cross. Being a Constant Companion included her going overseas with wilson as he took upon himself the peace treating negotiations. She was only the third first lady to leave the country in her role and the first one to go to europe. She was much lauded for her appropriate wartime frugality regarding what she spent on her gowns and for taking gowns made in america with her. And then once in europe for visiting american soldiers in the red cross hospitals and blind soldiers in the American Hospital in paris for distributing suites to parisian orphans for presenting flowers to american canteen workers in france and for meeting with european royalty on an equal footing etc. Etc. Etc. Of course, it would have been unpatriotic to print much of anything bad about the first lady during that long and important trip. Overall and despite an imperfect beginning it is fair to say that Edith Wilsons press coverage was extremely positive. Journalists kept to their unspoken bargain of the era not insisting on interviews not quoting her focusing their stories on her good works and her role as wilsons Constant Companion. And she kept to hers. She did not expect to be interviewed or quoted and she was gracious as she accompanied the president. At no point. Did she step out of that decades traditional gendered role. She had no cause as first lady beyond her husband and she never saw the spotlight nor used her position as a bully pulpit. Its when the wilsons returned to the United States and embarked upon a trip to drum up support for the treaty of their science september 1919 that Edith Wilsons relationship with the press began to diminish. But it did so because it was connected to the role. She had always played. Private and Constant Companion who guarded her husbands health after his Health Failed on that western trip, the first lady remained silent about his initial collapse. As wilsons doctor suggested they returned to washington early there wilson suffered a severe stroke, which left him partially paralyzed. Edith wilson then made a series of other decisions that were controversial in that day and remained. So today. She made the decision that he should not resign even when his illness lengthened from days to weeks to months. She kept silent about the gravity of his illness telling neither the public nor congress nor even wilson himself. She decided not to tell the press much at all about the status of the president s health and when it had to be mentioned, it must be minimized. As his Constant Companion solely on the lookout for what was best for him. She felt she was doing the right thing and was unapologetic about it in her memoir. She never broke out of that gendered traditional relationship with the press. She was not a suffragist. She was not used to speaking to reporters. Despite the fact the very clear fact that she was dealing with an emergency of enormous proportions and global impact. She did not step across that private public line. She did not provide updates on wilsons health and consistently treated his condition as though it were only a private issue. This after she stood next to him as he had been fitted and awarded and fawned over by europe. Its not like she who had been with him every step of the way didnt know his International Status and importance. Edith wilsons insistence to keep him and all americans indeed all the world in the dark was what wilsons biographer John Milton Cooper labeled a coverup. According to ediths biographer Christy Miller wilsons declining health caused behavioral disturbances. That would have huge implications in the league of nations. Now i am not an apologist for edith wilson, but her not engaging with or speaking to the press was completely in keeping with how she had dealt with a press from the very beginning. Why should she change . Well, of course the reason to change is because it was absolutely an emergency situation. Prioritizing her husbands health over the countrys welfare and her reluctance to speak out have been interpreted as a power grab. It was at the very least a terrible series of decisions for the country. Christy miller found that Edith Wilsons actions had a long reach influencing even the 1967 passage of the 25th amendment dictating that the Vice President and no one else. Would govern if the president is incapacitated. Why why did edith wilson lie to the press . To conclude i will suggest three reasons, although there are undoubtedly more. First edith and Woodrow Wilson were products of their times. A lady did not engage with the third state. Second unlike other first couples edith did not have the deep understanding of politics that nearly all other first ladies had by virtue of a long marriage and a shared political march toward the white house edith knew arguably less than any other first lady except Young Francis cleveland because edith had been married to wilson only three years and seven months before his illness began. Third edith and woodrow married late in life and for the second time and they were still pretty much in their honeymoon phase her focus never wavered from protecting him. The repercussions from her decisions touch how we view the sphere of action of the first lady and act as a warning to every first lady down to our own day. Power and the first lady have been an uncomfortable pairing ever since edith wilson. Of course first ladies, are neither elected nor appointed but Many Americans are made uncomfortable by the proximity of family members to the president. While he the president is grateful for the support of family members that he can trust and ideally who can and will tell him honestly when something hes contemplating is a bad idea. It is simultaneously true that those same family members have the most to protect. The most to lose the most reasons to forego transparency and the greatest likelihood of making terrible decisions, even if out of an abundance of love. Thank you. Thank you so much stacy such a set of enlightening and really enjoyable presentations. We have a whole new i think sense of edith wilson. Thanks to our the wonderful research of our our speakers tonight, and im looking forward to your thoughts those of you who are listening with us tonight if you would like to send in your questions if you havent already we have well just about 10 minutes. Um, we would absolutely love to entertain them. And of course, we will also probably have some questions amongst ourselves, so i would love to hear if there are any questions we would certainly like to them for the speakers. Fold down a second. I think i have a text message. All right. Shall i ask a question while youre looking for that nancy . Ah, no, actually, i will ask the question if you will allow me which is historians say that because it is control access to Woodrow Wilson she and didnt really allow the Vice President to have much access to wilson that chief facilitated the defeat of the league of nations, and i am interested in the panelists fox. Is that an unfair assessment or how do you feel about them . I i think it is because i think the cards were stacked against wilson. And you cant just look at wilson, which or what she did again in as i see her in her role is chief of staff. She told the Vice President , you know, youre pretty much the hostess now you and your wife can take over that function and i will do the rest but in my opinion its in my opinion the treaty of her sign league of nations was going down no matter what it the question of. I think large leading both republican supporters in lockstep and also ultra progressive democrats who are tired of war and violence and it was going down and it was he had lost the whole congress. It had gone republican. I think he i think wilson takes a chance. And edith wilson supports it in it that if you are so strong. Maybe youll break the opposition but i think the tag was turning against him the Progressive Movement america on the world stage and i she even told him though, but she she stepped in and said, i think you should compromise. It was one time. She came forward and said i think you should the more i study it the era is coming and the kind of the continuing continuing battle between lodge and his philosophy which will dominate much of the 20s and wilson. I dont think it would have i dont think it was totally his fall. They dont think it would pass. Thats thats my considered opinion after study this so many years. I totally agree with mary but also to be fair the Vice President wanted no part of it. The Vice President was Thomas Marshall. He was put on the ticket to get the Electoral College votes of indiana. He was a little bit of a clown he, you know was great with the oneliner. He was super charming at parties. He wanted to know part of the presidency, and he certainly wanted no part of being seen as you server and before the 25th amendment when it was so muddy about what happened with an incapacitated president. He was in danger of being seen as taking power that he was not entitled to and so he made it clear from the very beginning that he entertainers. Let me know if he really is a death star and im gonna need to take over the presidency, you know, please keep me in the loop and they werent great about that because they thought he was a clown but its not like Thomas Marshall was stepping up and saying give me the responsibility. Ill take it on. Yeah, just to buttress that point remember Theodore Roosevelt who you know was chomping at the bit to be president from a fairly young age. When mckinley was assassinated. He was scarce. He didnt appear in buffalo until you know, the president was at that store. So it he the Vice President in Wilsons Administration had a tough road ahead to hoe in that way. Right, and i i always say if i could write about these three men not have here Teddy Roosevelt Woodrow Wilson and and henry cabot lodge. I know its very operatic and dramatic, but id call it Something Like got a dominant twilight of the gods. This was a colossal battle an American History, and i hope now with the suffering in ukraine. We understand that wasnt just isolated. Into 1916 18 19 20. Its a battle of whats americas role in the world stage and wilson has made that colossal jump to weve got to get out there. It sounds so tinny make the world safe for democracy, but its happening right now in ukraine, and there was a Great Movement in American History not to go in that direction that he was wrong that he had gone way past. What an american president you do and thats thats the lodge end of things but it was it was colossal battle and i keep thinking that i know both of you both my fellow historians must know this the when henry when chancing or sergeant comes into the white house to do the painting wilson, and hes entertained by edith and woodrow and they they say whats wrong with me. Hes acting like crazy and then he has been sending by henry catalog to paint something demonic and animal like and wilsons portrait. And he goes back to lodge and he goes theres nothing animal like or darker evil about this man, but thats the thats the level of visceral hatred on all sides in this. We certainly its grown women have seen visceral hatreds of president s. Im gonna jump in here if i may i think thats what a thank you. I just want to be sure that if we had any questions from the audience we could hear those nancy. Has anyone i i do have one and i also just wanted to mention before um, before you go on that if people are because i know were running close on time if people are interested in learning more about edith and about other southern first. Ladies. This book is a wonderful resource and several of our panelists are involved with it. So i i hope very much you will consider. Its probably backwards, isnt it . Anyway, thank you. A question that we have is to what extent have changing ideas about women over the course of the past . 100 years shaped or reshaped our view and leaders was thats an really interesting question. I think that theres a couple of things there. I think that were more willing to admire her ambition. Rather than downplay her ambition, but i also think that in general and i applaud this movement. We are all getting away from the hall of fame model of history right that theres just this hagiography of the grade and the good which first of all is very male centric because they were the ones who were able to hold the offices that you know, let you into the hall of fame, but also its really bad history, you know, i mean, no thinking of these people say plus its kind of boring saints are boring. So i think that the idea of a flawed complicated maybe well intentioned but making bad mistakes with large consequences is a story. We want to hear more of and were less driven to just put our historical figures up on pedestals. I hope thats the case. And i say quickly. I dont know if things have changed that much. I still see female leaders. I think of nancy pelosi pummeled pummeled and not given the credit. Shes shes due. She does more than anybody else and shes at the bottom of the heboyz. Im right across across the border from governor whitner. Where weve got militia men trying to murder her. Shes a tremendous leader. Theres still a dark cast in american thinking that women cant be leaders and we have to still be somehow feminine good and sweet and i i think it haunts all of us to this day and until i had started thinking about edith wilson. I didnt realize how much of impacts all of us. I hope its changing. You know, i hope it changes the next 30 years. I just wanted to bring up something. May i ask a question nancy . Is there time absolutely to kind of build on what youve built up and saying youve all been saying and id love to hear what you have to say about this all of our panelists, but you would alluded to this briefly mary in your presentation and i think rebecca what you were saying as well builds on this which is looking at these first ladies not necessarily and hate geographic way, but looking at them, you know, its a complicated people and i certainly seen that with florence harding. Shes you know, she was definitely had some flaws as people do but one of the issues that are not one of these issues that came up was of course the background and you have alluded to this of edith as a southern woman, and of course she rushed as a young as a girl to teenager to the Robert E Lee Statue being raised in richmond, and of course she continued to have you know, really problematic views or her whole life. So i wondered if anyone wanted to comment on that. This is obviously a talk with this very much in our minds and i appreciate her and what you said that certainly, we do. You know, thats not all that she is but its a piece and i think it would be you know, id love to hear maybe start with you if we could say see what you think about that in this moment and anyone else rebecca any that of course married and wentzel come to join into me. Ill be quiet until you tell me to talk. Stacy your muted. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, no, and im unmuting only to say that i dont i dont have a lot to say on this topic. Theres about those relations. So go ahead rebecca mary. Yeah. I mean, i would say that not only was she a southern woman. She was a southern woman who was raised during reconstruction, and i think that that is vital to understanding who she was so she her family was plantation slave owning they were descended from pocahontas. They were the first families of virginia. They were that james river basin wealthy planters and then when they lost the civil war and they had to pay their labor they lost their plantation and they came down in the world. So not only did she have a southern sensibility in terms of how she was raised and these lost cause narratives that she was absolutely raised with but she believed that she deserved a different childhood than she had and that comes clear very clear in her memoir and so its not just the region it is the time as well and you you cringe at her description of how the happy slaves were, you know, well taken care of and how distraught they were after they were freed and its and she wrote that her memoir in 1938, right . So it she was a rebel confederate in sensibility till the very end and one thing that surprised me about her and this is something we have to remember and her time period the three hated groups catholics and. She hated catholics. That thats another southern thing. We now think white people are happy together. No, they wont there were kinds of white. She was the she was the good wife. The way you just described her coming from that english anglosax and purity. She she cannot contain her dislike of the catholic church. He hates tamil tea. She hates all these irish catholics. Wilson has brought into its administration. He she doesnt like the irish catholic. Secret service, man. She will not go meet the pope. So im not meeting the pope. She laughs at the french and the belgian soldiers with the ruined faces. She is taken around to all these catholic cathedrals that are destroyed and she she just shakes her head. She doesnt care, but she has to change she has to change because wilson helps the catholics and Central Europe the and Catholic Central and southern europe. Yes armenians. He helps everybody and after he dies and shes exhausted. She goes to a great catholic monument. She goes over to muslim michelle. I got to get Something Back and shell spend much of the for life talking to polls and checks. Im irish on one side. Im a pull and check on the other. They love wilson to this day and she had to go listen to all these catholic people who loved him for saving their nation and to her credit. She came around to al smiths candace in 1928. She wrote about how she thought that the antique catholicism against him was bigoted and unfair so, you know, she did evolve. He evolves that was like its so terrible to say blacks were hated were hated catholics were hated hatred always is so much whiter than just one group. And i think thats by the end of her memoir. Im like going i got to put this down and then i realize what just how you described it that world. She came out of catholics for hated and she had to grow out of that the way wilson had to grow out of hating catholics bringing catholics and , and she was administration and too bad. He took that backward step on segregating washington dc and thats what thats whats interesting to me is the relationship between the first the president who influences who and which way does it go . So what role does edith upbringing as rebecca and you mary have described it play in wilsons own actions in allowing for example, the resegregation of washington dc. This is an interesting. This is why i like studying both, you know, both parts of the couple to see how that happens. What a question because i keep saying to myself. Was it edith or was it . Macadoo . Oh, i think it started ellen. I mean policy started before eat it. So you go to the wilson house in washington dc. Theres a wonderful lady who does a wonderful tour and shes struggling with all these questions and i took the tour in october. Shes stunning. So go there theyre doing all the displays and edith and racism and stuff and thank you. Thank you. These are wonderful recommendations. Im thinking about this stuff. You need to wrap things up or do it. Its been a wonderful panel, and i know i so enjoyed it and learned so much and she is such a device person in terms of how people feel the better and i good afternoon, and welcome to our first inperson public program. After several years of entirely virtual offerings