First Ladies Research Paper

Words: 1924
Pages: 8

For historians, First Ladies are a topic of great discussion and intrigue. “Serious academic inquiry into the lives and work of the first ladies is a relatively new endeavor.” First Ladies have evolved since the founding of the United States; they have gained more influence and their duties have expanded into that of an advocate. Writing about First Ladies before the twentieth-century is especially hard, because of the lack of materials focusing on their actions during their time in the White House, this has led to an extensive focus on the lives of the First Ladies of the twentieth-century since there is a vast amount of material on them. Four of the most influential First Ladies of the 1900’s were Edith Wilson, Lou Henry Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, they all changed the position of First Lady and have been focused on by historians extensively, and they all have different ways of researching and documenting them.
The writing style of authors writing about each of the above stated First Ladies differs greatly. Barbara Klaczynskas biography about Edith Wilson which focuses on her life and her time in
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This was a great shift from the usual stance of the position, “Unlike any first lady before or since, she served as gatekeeper, decision maker, secretary, and advocate for her husband.” This is contrary to the historical benchmark of the First Lady being a figure head as described in Nancy Young’s piece about Lou Henry Hoover, The Historiography of Lou Henry Hoover, who states, “First ladies, and the public view of them, provide a barometric reading of attitudes toward women’s “proper” role in society at any given moment in time.” This reinforces Wilson being different, because during the time she was in office women just had just