She has published six books. Most recently editing in 2016 a companion to first ladies. Blackwell companion to american history. Monographs include reds in america, stolen secrets and the dawn of the cold war, loans and legitimacy, the evolution of soviet american revelations and the subject of tonights presentation which is for sale right outside. First Lady Florence harding, behind the tragedy and controversy. Dr. Sibly serves on the Editorial Board for american communist history and on the historical raisery committee for the United States department of state. She received her ph. D from the university of california santa barbara. Her commentary has appeared recently, to name a few, in time, the guardian, usa today and Canadian Broadcasting Company and the new yorker or the new york post, my apologies and heres something you dont hear about historians every single 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 dr. Sibly and her book that we are welcoming her back, plug for next year, for next march as a fullday conference well be having on southern first ladies, but thats for next year. For tonight, lets Learn Together about a northern first lady, please join me in welcoming dr. Katherine sibly. [ applause ] thank you so much. I am so happy to see you all here to learn about Florence Harding, why is she up here . Because i know that you think, she, Eleanor Roosevelt, broke the mold, right . We all know she broke the mold. Let me give you another example of her just to confirm, there she is. She broke the mold, yes, but who made the cracks in the mold, i ask you . Who did it . Well, the subject of our talk tonight Florence Harding. So Florence Harding i will suggest, created a model for other first ladies sorry, ill get used to this for first ladies to carve out culture in a way that eleanor and others really were others wouldnt, and it was path breaking and something others would follow. She helped pave the way for the activism that we have seen growing over the last century since she was empowering and it is almost a century, if you think about it. So she was well recognized for her boldness in the nations affairs. She was, of course, the first first lady to vote for her husband. I dont have to do that. I forgot. I have this nice little gadget. I have a picture for voting actually, i dont want. I have a picture of what she thought people were voting and she came into office at a time when first ladies had never voted for their husbands before and she was the first to do so and it was exciting and others were concerned about that. In other areas as we will see tonight she stepped outside the traditional box for women in her time and i do see a number of people wearing red tonight. Congratulations. It is International Womens day, isnt it . Here she was, a woman that for her time was a very unusual woman. She was a single mother and an independent income earner. She worked full time at her husbands newspaper, and she was outspoken as first lady on behalf of veterans, africanamericans and women, and she was concerned about animals and their treatment and she was also someone who was very interested in womens political activism, and she took advantage of the celebrity culture of her time, the movies, the films and the new interest in that to bring herself to greater prominence. Ironically, of course, shes remembered as kind of a tragic if not tragic, a laughable figure and a figure of scorn for many of us, how we understand her and this is fun for me because ill show you theres another side to florence and i hope you will find this intriguing and shes significant because she shows the changes in the first lady since the early 20th century, and the ways that she took over that office and was a transitional first lady for her successors i think is quite striking. We can compare her with her predecessors and this is Edith Roosevelt who was a very private first lady. She guarded her familys privacy and she guarded her own. She would not shake hands with people and she would hold bunches of flowers, and i dont know if she didnt like germs, but she didnt like shaking hands. She was the opposite of florence in that way, as you will see. However, she was the first first lady to have a social secretary. She was someone who, therefore, made the office more professional because she realized the letters were coming in and someone needed help with that, and she also remodeled the white house and she was the first to use that term and this was one of the rooms that she remodelled and she did a lot of interesting additions at the white house and renovations and shes followed by a first lady who was an activist. Nelly taft, and nelly taft wasnt much of an activist because she got sick and she was someone who had been very concerned about the plight of underprifl emed people back when she was in the philippines with her husband and she was someone that worked out to reach out to the filipinos and to encourage education for the children there during the time the american his a colony in the philippines and her husband was the first governor general. In addition to that, she was concerned about working women in the United States and protested on their behalf and she was the first first lady to arrive with her husband to the inauguration which was a striking departure, as well. Unfortunately, she had she came down with she basically had a may flower and she was silenced for the last couple of years and she wasnt heard from, and she was very sad and she did recover, and we know her for this, and everyone knows she had to plant the cherry trees and you better get there soon, three weeks only, i would say. She left a lovely legacy for us and also left other legacies and one was her husband and he needed a bath once and again and you will see the tub is big enough. Sorry. I couldnt resist. This was in the philippines, possible owe an animal there. So but one of the things she did do when she recovered along with the flowers that she helped to plant the beautiful cherry blossoms. She was very concerned and she doesnt get credit for this too often and most of the time we associate this with her successor ellen wilson, but it was ellie taft who was concerned about the working conditions with women especially in washington. She was concerned about working women and that was mostly factory workers and at the time she was in washington she had a closer view of the plight of these office workers, and dark conditions and very few restrooms and she went out of her way to try to help them. By the time they were only in for one term and there was a contested election and a threeway election in 1912 and so that was the end of tafts career. He was quite relieved and she had egged him on and this was carried on by ellen wilson and she was not able to see it happen, nelly in her time, unfortunately. When we think of her successor, you probably forgot about ellen wilson and went right to edith in your mind because shes the one we remember and she was the unprecedented activist activist might want be the best word, usurper was a better word. Her husband was ill and she took over for a while and i wanted to tell you about ellen who came before edith. He was longtime wife and first confidant and the first first lady to earn her money as a painter. She was a very good painter and she was someone who could have been a professional. In those days, even today women painters are often given less attention than men and she was not able to do that full time and one of the things she did do was she raised money and actually gave the money away to charity and it underlines that she was someone who made her own income. Now she also was an activist. These women, nelly and ellen are very much like florence in their activism as you will see, one of the things that she was concerned, this is anally in washington and a sad, depressed part of washington and very underprivileged and this is where africanamericans lived in slums. She was concerned and ellen wilson wanted to change this. She wanted to help them and it was called the alley bill and unfortunately ellen died about a year and a half into the presidency of wilson and so it was there was a time to put it into place and it wasnt fully funded and when we think about the wilsons we think about the southern often racists and especially woodrow, but ellen was not and she was someone who wanted to help africanamericans and there wasnt a full opportunity for her to do that because she died of brights disease and her husband quickly, or want not cso quickly, and he marry edith and there she is. You might think she would have been an activist. She was a strong role and a close confidant of her husband, and he shared everything with her, war secrets and thing he shouldnt have, and she was not an activist and she didnt care about womens causes and mostly she cared about her husband and wanted to help him, and that wasnt so bad. One of the things she did do as a war measure. Did you know this . I dont want to say she planted sheep, but she planted things for sheep on the white house lawn. They mowed the lawn, munch, much, mumuch munch, munch, and they produced wool. At that time people were used to going on the white house grounds and they couldnt go if the sheep were there and this was important as world war i develops and she was helpful in telling soldiers how to live, but ironically, this is at a time when women were being arrested in the streets of washington, right, for people like Margaret Sanger for providing Birth Control information, but here, she was helping men stay safe, and i guess that was good one of the things she was not sympathetic about, womens suffrage and she thought it was appalling and didnt want anything to do about it, many people believed that edith supported it and she did not, and not until the end of the administration when it seemed it was going to happen and she thought they were demoralizing to the war cause and they should go away. She did not welcome them at all. Oops, sorry. Let me show you one more picture. Her crowning glory, edith was going to france at the end of the war and being a part of the wonderful effort to solve the war with the treaty of versailles and they didnt go much as people desired because when they got home, he went around the country trying to sell the message and he ended up having a stroke all over the country and he had medical illnesses before and he probably had strokes before and this was debilitating and you probably know the story, he went home and she told his doctor along with the rest of the country that he was fine and running things as before only they had to work through her, and she set a precedent for first ladies which had never been duplicated. While saying she ran the country was too strong, what she did was she stopped anyone else from running things and she stopped him from getting access to people in the senate, for instance who needed his advice and wanted his influence that would have brought about the league of nations. He wanted all or nothing with the league and others said we can compromise and get measures through and he said absolutely not and perhaps if he had voices closer to him and he might have moderated, who can say . But she kept people away who might upset him and she didnt want to tell them how sick he was because this could lead him to give up and die. In the end, im belaboring the point about her because she did not set a precedent for first ladies and on the other hand, florence and now were reaching her did. There she is. Heres Florence Harding and plenty of room for everyone to come and have easter egg rolls and all of that. So let me just take and continue the activism later or activity on the white house grounds. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She was someone who had a very serious ailment. She h she had nephritis that plagued her her adult life. She had to transcend this illness which eventually affected her when she was at deaths door in 1922. Let us take a little minute and go back and take a look at her history and her time, okay . She was a young woman, very successful pianist and wanted to go off to a conservatory and her father called her home and she ended up out of spite marrying the boy next door who was a fair neerdowell, and it was not that they got married in the first place, they got married awfully young. Of course, they did, but its not clear they were ever married. There was a baby, but he was not much of a father so she divorced him and then she had to, as i said, right . She was an independent woman and she had to support herself and she taught piano and that may have been how she met warren because her sister took piano. She also could have met him in the skating rink, that was fun. People said she robbed the cradle because he was five years younger. Really she didnt rob the cradle. She had a newspaper, and it was called the pebble, and he changed the name to the marion star and she was involved not so much in journalism, having read her letters, i could say she could write, but she was more of a circulation manager because it wasnt collecting money at the time and she had the news boys and one of them was norman thomas. You ever heard of him . He read for the precedence on the socialist ticket and he was horrible. Im sorry to say. I dont know, maybe because she didnt have marshall to beat. Where was her son, she could have taken care of him and left them alone and they fell in love and it was a lovely story up until she got sick in 1905 and then it wasnt so lovely because he had an affair, as you may know with Kerry Phillips and well have more about that later and without her there was no question that he would not have stayed in marion as a newspaper editor she really encouraged his ambitions. I dont want to say she made him and she did have a nickname called the duchess and people called her his boss. The lieutenant governor, and eventually senator and the first time that senators could be elected by popular vote in 1914 he ran and was elected and he probably would have been perfectly happy and then there were other opportunities. And florence and warren are living in washington and warren wanteded to continue being a senator, and it looked like he was going to lose his position, and run again, run for president , right . So he did, and here he was, thats because florence was given a terrible prediction from madam marcia who was her psychic just like nancy and this said that warren was going to die in the white house and guess what . He did. So you might have thought didnt that discourage her, and she was very much a believer in astrology, but she transcended that and were still going to do this for the good of the country and well have this happen so they did. They ran for the white house and she had some good friendses who supported her, people shed met when she was a senate wife. I dont know if you recognize this young woman. Florence was in her mid50s and evelyn walsh mclean, the hope diamond heiress, was only 29. They became fast friends and evelyns husband was a figure in washington, as well. They became very close and vacationed a lot together, but what you probably remember about the campaign, if you dont remember if you remember anything was the porch right . The front porch. It sounds so quaint, doesnt it . They didnt have to go anywhere. They did do campaigning away from the porch and they welcomed the crowds there and all kinds of people came and all kinds of groups, women, men, africanamericans and even some movie people came, and i want to play you just a little bit of a clip of harding and maybe you can hear from this how he was so appealing at this time. I mean, of course, we all know he was appealing because gosh, you cant quite tell her, but you know he was a handsome guy and he was dropdead handsome, of course, and running at a time when people were very upset at the democrats, right . Because everyone, the league of nation his failed and people didnt want any more of the internationalism and they were turning away from the foreign problems and he offered this kind of brand of midwestern openness and really once again kind of america first. So let me just play a little bit of this, and ill just have to go to the next slide and i will be able to do it. Im just going to play a twominute clip. My countrymen humanity is in a cataclysmic war. Fever has landed men irrational and sometimes there has been barbarity and people have wandered far from faiths path. Here in the United States we feel the reflex. [ indiscernible ] not surgery, but serenity, not the dramatic. Well, you heard, i think that heard normalcy in there, did you hear hear that . Thats his word, right . I think he kind of created it and its sort of a trademark of the harding era. Now, hang on. I think i have to go to the next one. Oh, no, that wasnt it. Lets just go down. There we are. Okay. Oh, thank you. Thats it. Well, of course, you knew the sheep were coming back, didnt you . You cant escape. Dont worry, this is the end of the sheep because when they are done. We dont need sheep on the white house lawn. We want, not sheep, but shade. You could do a better job with that, and basically the idea was to welcome people back. Thats what florence wanted was her calling. She herself had slipped once in the mud and had been shooed away by the policemen so she really wanted to bring people back into the white house, into the lawn and what they would do for hours and days at a time, i mean, day after day, hour after hour they would have a time when they would be outside of the white house and shake hands with people. Can you imagine that today, just the president and the first lady out there shaking hands. I dont know what the point of it all was. I guess it was to connect and she thought this was what you were supposed to do and she was someone who wanted to reach out to people and more importantly than that, one of the things i want to emphasize about her is she had the white house and the position of first lady into the vehicle to promote causes and this was a difficult dance for first ladies because we still expect them, i think, a bit to be on the pedestal and sort of like i guess you could say why dont you go on to this picture as a queen of subjects coming to her, being loyal, but to go back just a second, you see, she was the first first lady to fly in an airplane. She had some spirit and you saw with her having to leave her first husband and the neerdowell and working in the business with her husband and later her second husband and she was someone what wasnt going to be there greeting people. After a while, she wanted to take active and take her position further and one of