Frances Folsom Cleveland was a celebrity first lady unlike almost any before her, and the mass production of her image to sell a variety of goods by the American Consumer industry in the mid1880s angered both her and her husband, president Grover Cleveland. To help us understand the Frances Cleveland sensation sweeping the country, we begin our story inside 1600 pennsylvania avenue as a curious nation waited for the details of a 49yearold bachelor president marrying his 21yearold bride inside the white house for the first and only time in our countrys history, launching Frances Cleveland into instant celebrity. Youre standing in the cross hall of the modern white house. Its the same basic layout as it would have been on june 2, 1886, when president Grover Cleveland and his bridetobe, Frances Folsom, came down what was then the large staircase to the family quarters at the west end of this corridor. They would have proceeded down the hallway. The music started up at the east side behind us here, where the United States marine band was assembled under the baton of the famous John Philip Sousa. They played the wedding march as the happy couple came down the hallway. So they would have passed through these doors, these very same mahogany doors. They would have come into the room. There was a different chandelier here. They stood under the center of the chandelier and did their wedding vows to the assembled group. It was an enormous amount of flowers in the room that had been brought from the white house conservatory. There was a large peer table where this sofa is now that was strewn with potted plants and there were potted plants underneath, and flowers were hung suspended from the moldings. The mantelpiece was covered with flowers. The fireplace was filled, they said, with red begonias to give the feeling of flames in the fire. It was a very brief ceremony, at 7 00 p. M. It was an evening ceremony. The assembled throng then went down to the east room for what they called a promenade, which i think was an opportunity for the bride to show off her dress, probably, to greater ease than could have been taken place in this room. And then they went down that same hallway that we were just in to a wedding dinner in the state dining room. Those are the strains of an 1890s recording of John Philip Sousa and the marine corps band playing the wedding march they performed at the white house nuptials of frances and Grover Cleveland on june 2, 1886. Good evening, and welcome to cspans, first ladies, influence and image. Tonight, the story of Frances Folsom cleveland, the youngest first lady ever to serve in that role. And to tell us about her, meet our guests for the evening. Annette dunlap is the author of a biography on the first lady called, frank the story of Frances Folsom cleveland. Well, lets start with the press and the coverage, because without that, there would be no celebrity, of course. Thats for sure. So the press corps, describe what it was like for the nation in the 1880s and how this business of covering president s was beginning to come into an age of its own. Well, if you think about the 1880s, it was probably what i would call the age of newspapers. Every major city had multiple newspapers, and every one of those newspapers was looking for a way to make money. And the best way to make money was to get the best story. So whoever could find out where frances was saying, what she was wearing, what she was doing, what she looked like, who she was seeing, that was going to help sell papers. And it didnt hurt if they made a little bit of it up, either. Well, it wasnt really quite a secret by the time june 2nd had come across. You tell a story in your book that the word was beginning to leak out and there were all sorts of investigations into who this young woman might be and what the circumstances could be. So they were really priming the pump, it sounds like. Absolutely. Well, from the time that cleveland came into office in march of 1885, there was all of this speculation about who possibly could be his bride. And it would kind of waver between some of the women who would help his sister, rose, with her receptions at the white house, and then there was sort of this kind of competition in the mind of the public between whether or not it was frances or her mother, emma. And so people were pretty convinced that there was no way he was going to marry frances. She was way too young. It had to be emma. And then, right about this time, what they used to call Decoration Day, now we call it memorial day, in 1886, cleveland had sent out the wedding invitations. Frances, her mother, and her cousin came back from europe, and at the Decoration Day parade in new york city, frances was sort of introduced, if you will, to the public. Well, the president was not very fond of the press. We have one of many quotes about the ways that he described them. Heres one way that he would refer to them, oh, those ghouls of the press. And this view of the press as the enemy was something that frances quickly picked up on. Heres one thing he said. I begin to fear that the pestilence of newspaper correspondence will find its way to our retreat. And mrs. Clevelands presence will, i presume, increase this probability. This is about their honeymoon. Now, he had some naive concept that theyd be able to sneak away for a honeymoon on their own. How did it all turn out . Actually, that was what he wrote when they were going to take their first vacation at the end of the summer, but he thought that he had been able to outsmart the press, because they had arranged for a special twocar train. It was going to be on a side rail. And they figured that they could get up to an area around what is now deep creek, maryland, on some privately owned property, but there was a telegraph agent who was able to be bribed and reveal what the destination of that train was. And because it was pouring rain that night, and when they got to the train station, they then had to take a carriage from the statin to their actual honeymoon location. The carriage got bogged down in the mud, which gave the press even more time, and the press was actually staked out there by the time they got there. It gave rise to a new term, keyhole journalism . Yes, absolutely. And it also tied with another term called paul pry journalism, which was actually associated with joseph pulitzer, which was the idea of looking in the keyhole and seeing what you could see, what was going on in peoples private lives. Now, i think in your book i read that they finally conceded, or tried to concede somewhat and gave an interview during the honeymoon. How did that work to keep the interest tamped down a little bit . Cleveland sort of ranked the press. He had what he called the respectable papers and then the notrespectable papers. And i would presume the respectable papers were the people whose views coincided thought his views were good. But what he did was he invited reporters from the socalled respectable papers to come in to the cabin where he and frances were staying. They had stacked these telegrams from wellwishersn really, of this young first lady, looking back at the history of branding in america. Thats right. What today, if you were to use the president s image, you would quickly get calls from lawyers about doing that. Were there any rules whatsoever about the use of the first couples image . No, and thats actually why all of these companies were allowed to get away with it. And there were several supporters of cleveland in congress who were trying to get that type of legislation passed, that you couldnt use someones image without their permission, but Congress Kind of didnt like cleveland. The way that he would veto legislation was to edit it, and then he would veto it, and so he had enough detractors that even though they liked frances personally, they didnt want to give him anything that he wanted. And so they couldnt get these laws passed. Well, heres a bit of Frances Cleveland and a quote that she had about her frustration with being used in this way. She said, these people sent me a box with their perfumes, for which i thanked them, and now theyre advertising their face powder as being used by me, also. Can you have it taken out . Where is this from . That is a letter that she wrote to Richard Watson gilder, who was the editor of century magazine. And so he had run an ad for this company, and she had become friends with him, and so she asked him if he would please arrange for that to happen. Well, we have to explain to people how this 49yearold president and the 21yearold bride ever became a couple, so tell us briefly this story of grover and Frances Cleveland. Okay. Grover cleveland was law partners and friends with francesfather, oscar folsom, and when oscar and his wife had frances, emma folsom, cleveland supposedly gave them the first baby carriage and sort of became a fixture in the house. As frances grew up, she started to call him uncle cleve. And then her father was tragically killed just a couple of days after her 11th birthday in a carriage accident. And oscar was not a good money manager. Some people who knew a little bit more about the Family History said he was a little bit of a rogue or a rake. And he actually owed more money than he had in his estate. And cleveland kind of stepped in as executor and money manager to help handle the affairs and then sort of work with emma to oversee franceseducation through high school and into college. Now, my takeaway was that his interest, i read all of these short biographies, and it tells the story that he became interested after he got into the white house on a visit from the mother and daughter. But your tale goes back farther. All of the time that she was in college, he was sending bucketloads of flowers to her and writing letters constantly, so, in fact, did he have his eye on her for quite a while . I think he did. One of the things thats really interesting is people that know a little bit more of the history, grew up in the Wells College area, which is francesalma mater will tell you about the special train that came to the depot there so that grover could come and visit her. He did write her letters. He did send her flowers. But she also accompanied him on Campaign Appearances when he ran for governor of new york in 1882. So, yes, it is definitely well prewhite house years. You say that the family, her family was really very receptive of this relationship, but what was the public reception about the age difference between the two . You had some language that called them beauty and the beast, because they didnt like him and he was, you know, 47, or 49, he was portly, he wasnt necessarily the handsomest man in the world, and she was an absolute stunner, dark hair, blue eyes, tall for that age, very, very goodlooking, and there were people that thought there was something a little strange about it. But for the most part, because they fell immediately in love with her, they kind of just accepted him as part of the package. Gary robinson on twitter asks how they met, which weve just explained, and asked this question. Did she love him . Youve spent a lot of time reading her voluminous correspondence. Can you answer that question . She loved him. I think she started out, as most people do early in a marriage, thinking that it was romantic, but the age difference was pretty significant. And over time, that love matured into a deep caring. So over time, i wouldnt say that it was a mushygushy kind of love, but i would say that it was the respectful and caring kind of love. Also, Grover Cleveland had some very specific views of women in society and what he wanted from a wife. Yes. Would you explain it . He pretty much, in that time period, there was still this attitude of spheres of influence, where women were supposed to stay pure and take care of the home and take care of the children, and thats exactly where he wanted frances to be. He didnt want her pretty little head upset with notions about being first lady or being affected by all of the demands from being in the white house or being the wife of the president. And he also didnt think that women should vote or work outside the home. This series, if youve been watching us along the way, as youll know it is interactive and theres lots of ways to do that. You can send us a question on facebook. There is already a chat thats been going on for a little while here about Frances Cleveland. And you can find cspans Facebook Page and be part of that. Also, you can send us a tweet, and you have to use the hashtag firstladies to do that, to get into our twitter stream here. And, finally, the good oldfashioned way, you can make a phone call, and here are the phone numbers. If you live in the eastern or central time zones, 2025853880. If you live out west, 2025853881. And we will be working your questions in throughout our 90 minutes on Frances Cleveland. We also have Something Special for you tonight. We had an opportunity to go inside the smithsonians collection. And you are going to meet Lisa Kathleen graddy, who is the first ladies curator at the smithsonian, to go behind the scenes and look at some of the Frances Cleveland items that they have on storage here, not open to the public, so this is really special for you tonight. Were going to be taking you for our first of several looks at the smithsonian collection right now. Were here at the political history storage room. The collection is simply too vast to all be on display at one time, so objects that are not currently on the floor are stored in here. And at any given point, they can be used, pulled for exhibition purposes, or lent to another institution. This is Frances Clevelands Wedding Dress. Frances cleveland, of course, was an incredibly popular bride. She married the president in a white house ceremony, the only white house ceremony for a first lady. This is the bodice. Its filled in with a neck piece that goes around it and creates a softening effect. And it was a longsleeved dress. And this wonderful long train. This is the underside trimmed in lace. Even the underside of these clothes that you dont see have this beautiful trim and this sweeping train. The first ladies collection contains more than clothing. And for the clevelands wedding, we have both public pieces and personal pieces. One of my favorite things, i have to say, in the entire collection is this cake box. And each of the guests at the wedding were given a little satin covered box painted with the bride and grooms initials to hold a piece of wedding cake. And before the wedding, Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom actually found time to sign a card for every cake box. You can see inside, wrapped in lace, would have been a piece of cake. And this particular cake box was given to the minister who performed the wedding. His name was byron sunderland, and he was the minister at the First Presbyterian church in washington, d. C. And attesting to the publics fascination with Frances Cleveland and this wedding, this is a piece of sheet music, the cleveland wedding march, composed in honor of the wedding, because it was not the wedding march played at the wedding. And you can see its obviously decorated with pictures of mr. And mrs. Cleveland, and these are images of the clevelands together will be part of Popular Culture for the next 12 years. And were back to our set here. And i want to introduce our second guest for the evening, returning to us from an earlier first ladies program, taylor stoermer, who is a historian for colonial williamsburg, but very steeped in president ial and first ladies history. Welcome to the conversation. Thank you. So lets talk about the election, because anybody who thinks that theres hardknuckle politics today, look at the election of 1884 that brought Grover Cleveland into the white house, pretty rough stuff going on at that time. What was it like . Politics in the 1880s is brutal. I mean, we do think about earlier elections that in American History in which theyre just taking swings at each other, like jefferson and adams, maybe, in the 1800 election, but politics in the 1880s, because of what you already talked about, with the growth of newspapers, is personal, its visceral, and because of the way Political Parties have developed, they are able to take these swipes at each other that really, i think, we would find surprising today. So in 1884, all of these things are coming out in the 1884 election, because you have two candidates who couldnt be more different from each other. You have Grover Cleveland on the one hand who probably has very little political experience of this sort. He was mayor of buffalo and elected mayor of buffalo in 1881. He was elected governor of new york in 1882. And two years later, hes the democratic nominee for president. Thats all the Major Political experience that he has. But he has developed a reputation of being honest and trustworthy and a reformer, whereas on the other hand, youve got a guy named john blaine, who probably james. James blaine, james g. Blaine, the continental liar from maine, who if anything has too much political experience. Hes been speaker of the house. Hes a senator from maine. Hes one of the major figures in the Republican Party. Yet he has a reputation for probably having private virtue, a good family man, but hes also tainted by publ