Husband, president Grover Cleveland. To help us understand the sensation sweeping the country, we begin our story inside 1600 pennsylvania avenue. For the first and only time in our countries history. Watching Frances Cleveland into instant celebrity. This is the modern white house. It is the same basic layout as it would have been on june 2. When president Grover Cleveland and his bride to be came down what was then about large staircase to the family quarters at the west end of this corridor. They would have proceeded on the hallway, the music started up at the east side behind us here, where the United States marine band was assembled. The famous John Philip Sousa played the wedding march as the happy couple can down the hallway. Came down the hallway. They would have passed through these doors, these very same mahogany doors. They would have come into the room, a different chandelier here, they would have stood under the chandelier. Said their vows. An enormous amount of flowers in the room brought from the white house conservatory. A large table where the sofa is now is a stream of potted plants and potted plants underneath. Flowers were hung suspended from the moldings. The mantelpiece was covered with flowers. The fireplace was full of red begonias. To give a feeling of flames and the fire. It was a very brief ceremony, 7 00 p. M. An evening ceremony. The assembled throng just went down to the eastern promenade, for the bride probably to show off her dress. They went down that same hallway we were just in, to a wedding dinner in the state dining room. Those are the strains of in 1890s recording of John Philip Sousa in the marine corps band playing the wedding march they performed at the white house nuptials of francis and Grover Cleveland. Good evening and welcome. Tonight, the story of francis. Frances cleveland, the youngest first lady to ever serve in that role. Meet our guest for the evening. The author of a biography on lets start with the press and the coverage. Without that there would be no celebrity. The press corps, describe what it was like for the nation in the 1880s and how this business of covering president s was coming into its own. Think about the 1880s, it is probably what i would call the age of newspapers. Every city had multiple newspapers and every one of those was looking for a way to make money. The best way was to get the best story. Whoever could find out where frances was saying, what she was wearing, what she was doing, what she looked like, that would help sell papers. It did not hurt that they made a little bit of it up. It was not quite a secret by the time june 2 came across. You say the word was beginning to leak out and investigations into who she might be and what the circumstances could be. They were really priming. Absolutely. From the time cleveland came into office in 1885, there was all this speculation about who could possibly be his bride. It would waver between some of the women who would help his sister and her receptions at the white house, and then this competition in the mind of the public between whether or not it was francis or her mother, emma. People were convinced it was not frances, she was way too young. Right about this time, they used to call it Decoration Day, cleveland sent out the wedding invitations. At the Decoration Day parade in new york city, frances was introduced to the public. The president was not very we have one ofess. Many quotations about the ways that he described them. Here is one way you would refer to them ghouls of the press. The view of the press as an enemy was something he picked up on. He said i begin to the fear of estimates of newspaper correspondents will find its way to our retreat and her presence will increase this probability. This is about their honeymoon. He had some naive concept that they would be able to sneak away for a honeymoon on their own. He wrote when they were going at the end of the summer. She thought that he had been able to outsmart press, because they had arranged for a special twocar train, on a side rail, and they figured they could get off to an area around maryland on some privately owned property. There was a telegraph agent who was bribed and revealed what the destination of the trade was. Train was. Because it was pouring rain that night, when they got the train station, they had to take a carriage from the station to to their actual honeymoon location, the carriage got bogged down in the mud which gave the press even more time. They were staked out there by the time they got there. It gave rise to a new term keyhole journalism. And another term, which was associated with joseph pulitzer, looking in the keyhole to see if you could see what was going on in their private lives. In your book, i read that they finally try to concede and gave an interview during a honeymoon. How does that work to keep the interest down a little bit . He had what he called the respectable papers, then the not respectable papers. I assume the respectable papers were those whose views coincided. He invited reporters from the socalled respectable papers to come into the cabin where he and frances were staying. They had stacked telegrams from wellwishers on the table. They shared some of those. Very nicely staged, very choreographed. They allowed the press to see some of these papers, allow them to see him and her engaged to each other. It was their way of saying, now can you leave us alone . Not only the age of news papers, but the beginning of the age of consumer branding. As we said in our introduction, there was widespread use by the president and first ladys image image to sell all kinds of products. That is how you first learned of this young first lady. Looking back at the history of branding in america. If you are to use the president s image today, you would quickly get calls from lawyers about doing that. Were there any rules whatsoever about the use of the first couples . No, and that is why these Companies Get away with it. Several supporters of cleveland in congress were trying to get that type of legislation passed, to not use their image without the way he would veto legislation was to edit it. He had enough detractors that even though they liked frances, they do not want to give them anything he wanted. They could not get these laws passed. Here is a bit of Frances Cleveland she had about her frustration. Where is this from . That was a letter she wrote to the editor of country magazine. He had run an ad for this company. She had become friends and asked him to arrange for that to happen. We have to explain how this 49yearold president and the 21yearold ride ever became a couple. Tell us the story of grover and Frances Cleveland. Grover was law partners and friends with francess father. Theveland supposedly gave him first the baby carriage and became a fixture in the house. As she grew up, she started to call him uncle cleve. Her father was tragically killed when she was 11 in a carriage accident. He was not a good money manager, some people who knew more about the Family History said he was a he owed moreue. Money than he had in his the state. Estate. Cleveland stepped in as executor and money manager to help handle the affairs and work with emma ncess education. I read all of these short biographies, and it tells a story that he became interested after getting into the white house on a visit from the mother and daughter, but your tale goes back further. All the time that she was in college, he was sending loads of flowers to her and writing letters constantly. Did he have his eye on her for quite a while . I think he did. One thing that is interesting, people know little of her history. Her alma mater will tell her about the special train them that would come so he could come visit her. He did write her letters and send flowers. She also accompanied him on Campaign Appearances when he ran for governor of new york. This is definitely well three prewhite house years. Her family was receptive of this relationship. What was the public reception about the age difference . You had some language that call them beauty and the beast, because they did not like him and he was portly, not necessarily the handsomest man in the world. She was an absolute stunner. Dark hair, blue eyes, tall, very goodlooking. There were people that thought there was something strange about it, but they fell immediately in love with her. They kind of accepted him as part of the package. Gary robinson on twitter asking how they met and asks this question you have spentim . A lot of time reading her correspondence. Can you answer that question . I think she started out as most people do, thinking the marriage was romantic. But the age difference was significant. Over time it matured into a deep caring. I would say it was a respectful and caring kind of love. Grover cleveland had some very specific views of women in society and what he wanted from a wife. Yes. Would you explain it . In that time, there was still this attitude of spheres of influence where women were supposed to stay pure and take care of the home and children. That is exactly where he wanted frances to be. He did not want her pretty little head upset with notions about being first lady or the demands of being in the white house or the wife of a president. He did not think that women should vote or work outside the home. This program, this series if you have been watching along the way, it is interactive. There are a lot of ways to do that. You can send us a question on facebook. There is already a chat going on for a little while about Frances Cleveland. You can also find our Facebook Page and be part of that. You can send us a tweet with the firstladies. The good old fashion way, can make the phone call. Here are the phone numbers. We will be working your questions in throughout our 90 minutes on Frances Cleveland. Also Something Special for you, an opportunity to go inside the smithsonians collection. You will meet lisa, the first ladys curator at the smithsonian, to go behind the scenes a look at some of the Frances Cleveland items they have in storage here. Not open to the public. We will be taking you for the first of several looks at the smithsonian collection right now. We are here at the political history storage room. The collection is too fast to be vast to be on display at one time. Objects not currently on the floor are stored in here. At any point, they can be used for exhibition or lend to another institution. This is her Wedding Dress. Frances cleveland was an incredibly popular bride. She married the president in a white house ceremony, the only white house ceremony for a first lady. The bodice, filled in with a neck piece. This goes around it and creates a softening effect. It was a longsleeved dress. And this wonderful long train on the underside, trimmed in lace. Even the underside of his clothes you dont see had this beautiful trimmed. And this sweeping train. The collection contains more than clothing. At their wedding, we have public and personal pieces. One of my favorite things in the entire collection, this cake box. Each of the guests at the wedding were given a satin covered box, painted with the bride and groom initials, to hold a piece of wedding cake. Before the wedding, grover and frances signed a card for every cake box. Inside, wrapped in lace. There would have been a piece of cake. This particular cake box was given to the minister who performed the wedding. Byron sunderland. The minister at the First Presbyterian church in testament , d. C. To the public fascination of Frances Cleveland. This is a piece of sheet music, the clevelands wedding march, composed in honor of the wedding, it was not the wedding march played at the wedding. You can see, it is decorated with pictures of mr. And mrs. Cleveland. These are the images of the clevelands together that will be part of Popular Culture for the next 12 years. We are back to our set here. I want to introduce our second guest for the evening, returning from an earlier first ladies program. A historian for colonial williamsburg, steeped in first ladys history. Welcome to the conversation. Let us talk about the election. Anybody who thinks there is hard knuckle politics today, look at the election of 1884 that brought Grover Cleveland into the white house. Pretty rough stuff going on. What was it like . Politics in the 1880s is brutal. We think about earlier elections where they are taking swings at each other like jefferson and adams. Maybe in the 1800 election. Politics in the 1880s, you ar lkeddy take about newspapers, it is personal, it is visceral and because of the way Political Parties have developed, they are able to take these swipes at each other that really we would find surprising today. In 1884, all of these things would come out in the 1884 election. Two candidates cannot be more different from each other. Grover cleveland on the one hand who probably has very little political experience of this sort. He was mayor of buffalo in 1881. Elected governor of new york in 1882. Two years later, he is the democratic nominee for president. That is all the Major Political experience that he has. He has developed a reputation of being honest and trustworthy and a reformer. On the other hand, you have got a guy named john blaine, the continental lawyer from maine. If anything, he has too much political experience. He has been speaker of the house, a senator from maine, one of the major figures in the Republican Party. He has a reputation for probably having private virtue, a good family man, but also tainted by public corruption and an inside the beltway guy. The whole campaign of 1884 ends up revolving around these things. Personal politics. The greatest strength of Grover Cleveland, the greatest opportunity that the democrats had, is the reputation of cleveland as being a man of public virtue man as any good political operative. They went straight after probably his most weak points, the illegitimate child. The refrain for anybody who studied history, ma, ma, wheres your pa . Gone to the white house, ha ha ha. What was the story . A woman gave birth to an illegitimate child in buffalo, new york. Given the way buffalo was at that time, a lot of breweries and immigrants and massive growth, an illegitimate child was not all that unusual. Maria named him oscar. Cleveland. He stepped up to the plate and said he would take responsibility for her and the maria. Had problems with alcohol and was not taking care of him. An opportunity developed for him to place the child in the home of the family, mr. And mrs. James king. This young man started his life as Oscar Cleveland became james king junior. It was all pretty quiet, until they uncover the dirt and found out that cleveland had assumed responsibility for this child, therefore the assumption that he also was father of the child. There were some efforts to cover it up initially. Then the famous line that cleveland says is, tell the what do we learn about cleveland from this . He understands the virtue of making a story a nonstory. Admit to it and move on. That is sort of how it works. Stories go back and forth about why he does it. Either he is telling the truth and it is his child, all evidence, the scant evidence that we have is that there is a possibility it is his child. Also the possibility it is the child of francess father. The other part is to admit to it, make it a nonstory, say that it is true and move onto let us next. That is what happened in essence. How did francess family react to this . It affected uncle cleve, the man she was eventually betrothed to. At the same time it could have what was fathers child . Their reaction . The reaction was interesting, considering as we have been talking about cleveland was very obviously courting frances at its 1884. She has been getting lots of flowers and going amounts of campaign trips. Apparently there is a story where one of her classmates came into her dorm room and happened to see a picture of cleveland of the desk and wanted to know who it was. Frances referred to him at that point as the mayor of buffalo. I dont know why it wasnt the governor of new york. Her comment was a man more sinned against than sinning. Emma wrote a letter to frances saying she hated to see cleveland going through all this trouble with this boy. There is never any discussion in those letters about who they thought the father was. We will take some calls and come back and talk about the Cleveland Administration and its isnificance in history. Al from maryland, you are on. Thank you, first of all i have been a viewer of cspan from almost the beginning. You do a wonderful job across the board. I live in allegheny county, maryland. One county east of garrett county, which is where the clevelands honeymooned. Several years ago i had to do some research on the president s who visited this area, and i dug out my notes on the honeymoon of Grover Cleveland and frances. I wrote down a few notes on want to share with you. After the white house ceremony, apparently late that night or the next morning, they boarded a private railroad car and arrived in deer park, maryland, which is in presentday garrett county. They honeymooned here for about six days stayed at what is now known at the clevelandscottage. The press followed them up from washington and Railroad Detectives had to surround their honeymoon cottage so reporters would not bother them. They climbed trees, they tried to spy on the couple using binoculars, they would bribe the servants to try and get a jury of what they were eating, where they were going. According to accounts, they went trout fishing several times in a stream known as deep creek. They caught almost 50 trout. They attended Church Together in downtown oakland, that has since been known as the church of the president s. On their departure back to washington,