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Teaching a First Ladies Curriculum in the Classroom

Edith P. Mayo

As we move into a new millennium, we find our students'  knowledge of the American past at an all-time low. Major  studies continue to show that girls, as they mature into their teens, experience a lack of confidence and self-worth that has a direct and negative impact on their grades and lowers their expectations for their personal futures. These findings should galvanize us to seek ways in which to encourage both personal and academic achievement for rising generations of young women. History, as currently taught in the classroom, has long disparaged and marginalized the contributions of women, and this cannot be separated from the alarming statistics about plunging levels of achievement and lack of self esteem. We must seek methods of teaching the past that highlight the importance of women's rich cultural heritage, as well as their contributions to our nation's past, by developing curricula that present positive role models inclusive of both women and men.

An innovative approach to this problem is to include a classroom curriculum developed around the lives of our nation's First Ladies. First Ladies present excellent role models for young women and are familiar historical figures with inherent positive appeal. While most people do not recognize the names of earlier First Ladies (nor, for that matter, do they recognize the presidents' names), the First Lady's role is instantly recognizable, and one with which people can easily identify. The familiarity of the First Ladies is important as a historical anchor in an ahistorical time, a hook on which to hang other historical facts and concepts. Furthermore, presenting First Ladies as a core curriculum offers us historical figures through which to examine a much larger context--the evolving social and political roles of women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The First Ladies' lives provide a unique historical window to the realities of women's lives at any given period in the American past. It is often difficult for young students from a technologically saturated present to imagine the life of a woman in the early days of our nation. A biographical approach--learning the personal stories of Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, or Dolley Madison--provides students an experiential account from a first-person viewpoint and helps them comprehend the crucial economic role of the household, the hardships of travel, the difficulty and time intensity of preparing food and making clothes, and the frequent deaths of children and family in an age before modern medicine. This personalized access renders history more immediate, countering the image of the past as remote, unfamiliar, and anonymous.

Learning history through First Ladies' lives also offers firsthand and personalized opportunities to understand major social and political movements, as many First Ladies actively supported reform causes of their day. Early First Ladies were usually avid supporters of the American Revolution, taking personal and political risks along with their husbands. First Ladies of the mid nineteenth century were certainly aware of the reforms of their era, as well as the impact of those reforms on their husbands' presidential and administrative policies, and often lent their support or opposition. Abigail Adams wanted women included in the political rights of the new Constitution. Mary Lincoln was a strong  supporter of the abolition of slavery. Sarah Polk lobbied in the halls of Congress for her husband's policy for the annexation of Texas. Lucy Hayes in the 1870s was derided as "Lemonade Lucy" for her support of the temperance movement and for banning alcohol in the White House. Ellen Wilson supported progressive legislation on slum clearance. Edith Wilson, the president's second wife, opposed women's suffrage. However, Florence Harding, who had been a partner in her husband's newspaper business, was an ardent advocate for women's right to vote and women's professional careers. Eleanor Roosevelt was centrally involved in the labor, civil rights, and women's movements, as well as the shaping of New Deal social policy. Jacqueline Kennedy actively advocated government support for the arts and culture. Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter staunchly supported the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and brought the modern women's movement into the cultural mainstream, while Mrs. Carter and Hillary Rodham Clinton were actively involved in policies shaping health care in this country.

The study of First Ladies has become an important scholarly field in its own right. Throughout our history, the First Lady has been a central figure in extending political roles for women and gaining acceptance for women in public life. As the most visible women in America, the First Ladies have evolved from the president's social and ceremonial partners to advocates of social causes and political allies in their own right. This evolution places the First Lady at the center of both presidential history and women's history. More mature students see the conjunction of women's private and public lives--a major area of study for women's history scholars--most clearly in the lives of presidential spouses. Additionally, the study of First Ladies brings a fresh perspective on White House operations, the office of the president, presidential campaigning, and the perception of the presidency in American popular culture.

One such example centers on changing American political campaign styles. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, prospective First Ladies such as Caroline Harrison, Ida McKinley, and Florence Harding took part in the famous "Front Porch" campaigns, while political campaign advertising in two of the three Cleveland presidential campaigns made good use of Frances Cleveland's popular appeal. By the mid twentieth century the role of First Lady as Campaigner had become institutionalized by the active campaigning of Eleanor Roosevelt, the involvement of Mamie Eisenhower and Patricia Nixon in the campaigns of the 1950s, and the Lady Bird Johnson "Whistlestop" campaign in 1964. Such involvement by prospective First Ladies has forever altered the landscape of American political campaigning. 

An extensive body of knowledge now exists to support the use of a First Ladies curriculum. Much serious scholarship has appeared on presidential spouses in the past decade. Several factors have contributed to this growing interest: the growth of the presidential libraries system, which has made the papers of modern First Ladies more accessible; a series of conferences on First Ladies in the mid 1980s that focused attention on these women and their importance to the institution of the presidency; and a concentration by historians on the intersection of women's private and public lives. Recent scholarship suggests that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, the First Lady's role has been marked by growing visibility, expanding influence and political power, and the advocacy of social causes. New work by historians has also strongly suggested the pivotal role played by early First Ladies in creating, shaping, and maintaining the social networks within the nation's capital through which politics and diplomacy were conducted in the early republic. The new First Ladies exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History emphasizes the mingling of political and ceremonial roles in the presidency. It further suggests that the location in the White House of both the president's home and political offices has enabled First Ladies to be more than ceremonial partners if they chose.

New scholarship on Eleanor Roosevelt, for instance, demonstrates her influence on New Deal social policy while in the White House and on the political networks of women who were also engaged in this work. It also highlights her central role in shaping the Democratic Party agenda in the postwar period and her own personal political achievement in shaping the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

Building on the newly refocused image of First Ladies as vital actors on the American scene and the scholarship now available in this field, women's history scholars seek to develop an innovative core curriculum on First Ladies for use in America's classrooms. This curriculum development, much of which is explored by the contributors to this volume, includes units of study, suggested readings, access to Internet sites, and lesson plans for students from middle school through high school.

A remarkable resource for information about First Ladies is the National First Ladies' Library in Canton, Ohio. Its web site is located at <http://www.firstladies.org/> and features a bibliography by Carl S. Anthony containing forty thousand books, articles, essays, and other printed materials by and about First Ladies. Making this resource available through the library's web site ensures the widest possible distribution--free of charge--to students, teachers, and the public.

In addition, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History is currently developing a web site on its First Ladies collection and exhibition, which will be available in late 2001. This site will offer information and insights about the exhibition, First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image, as well as further research on the importance of the First Lady’s social and political roles. Many presidential libraries are also developing electronic archives for public use.

Development and use of a First Ladies curriculum based on these findings will introduce into the mainstream this innovative historical record into America's educational institutions, providing new views of the American past that include women as central actors. This fresh approach to teaching First Ladies and their legacies celebrates the rich heritage of all American women and plays an essential role in restoring and mainstreaming that heritage to current and future generations. It will empower young women as they enter the new millennium and face exciting challenges in their personal lives and professional careers. Finally, it will encourage the public and the pundits to view the White House and the presidency as a complex institution reflective of American social and political practices.  

Edith P. Mayo was curator of political history and women's history for more than thirty years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, where she developed the permanent exhibition From Parlor to Politics: Women and Reform in America, 1890-1925, and completely reconceptualized the Smithsonian's famous First Ladies exhibition, First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image (1992) and wrote the accompanying catalog. She is currently developing a traveling exhibition on women business entrepreneurs, Enterprising Women, for the Radcliffe Institute for Research of Harvard University.