Showing posts with label First Lady. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Lady. Show all posts

October 11 – Happy Birthday, Eleanor Roosevelt!

Posted October 11, 2019

First Lady Of The United States!

In the U.S., we now do a lot of "US" anagrams, and the anagram that fits Eleanor Roosevelt's "job title" is FLOTUS, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

(FDR was POTUS - President Of The United States - of course!)



Even better, maybe, would be the anagram FFLOTUS. That's because:

  • Eleanor Roosevelt was the FIRST First Lady to hold regular press conferences.
  • She was the FIRST First Lady to speak at a national party convention.
  • She was the FIRST First Lady to write a monthly magazine column.
  • She was the FIRST First Lady to host a weekly radio show.
  • She was the FIRST First Lady to write a daily newspaper column!
Eleanor Roosevelt was controversial during her lifetime - although she was highly regarded in her later years - because she pushed for human rights for marginalized groups and because she sometimes publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. Here are some of the issues she tackled:

Civil rights for African Americans and Asian Americans.
Fairness towards women in the workplace.
Warning against prejudice against Japanese Americans, after Pearl Harbor, and opposing the Japanese American internment camps.
Increased roles for women and minorities in the armed forces.
Human rights for refugees.
Participation in the United Nations.




Some of the ways she worked on these things included:

Over the course of more than three presidential terms, she invited hundreds of black people, individually or in small groups, as guests to the White House. She lobbied for funding for a predominantly black school for girls, and she tried to win hearts and minds in making lynching a federal crime. (She failed to win enough hearts and minds to accomplish that last item.) She launched an experimental community for unemployed miners and their families (this was another failure), became the first U.S. delegate to the U.N., and chaired Kennedy's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. She helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She did a LOT more stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Amazing!



I mentioned that Eleanor Roosevelt was well respected in her later years. It turns out that Gallup took polls of Americans to find out who they most admired, and Roosevelt polled #1 for women 13 out of her last 14 years! And in 1999, the last year of the 20th Century (by some counts, at least), Eleanor Roosevelt polled at #9 out of ALL people, men and women, in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century!






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December 22 - Happy Birthday, Lady Bird Johnson

Posted on December 22, 2017

She's just famous because of her husband, right?

Like other FLOTUS (First Ladies of the United States), Lady Bird Johnson seems like a detail of her husband's biography. Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President, was the one who actually DID things of historical importance. 

Right?

As often happens, the answer is both negative and nuanced.

No, she is not just a footnote of her husband's story. As a matter of fact, without Lady Bird, LBJ might never have become president!

 (Note that both Lyndon Baines Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson had the same initials. But when I say "LBJ," I mean Lyndon.)

The two LBJs.

Also, Lady Bird is not just a footnote because she made her own contributions - including, notably, the beautification of America's roads.

But of course, LBJ is the more famous of the two. Let's face it, during Lady Bird's lifetime, she was expected to take a supporting role.

But let's bring her into the limelight!

Born on this date in 1912, and named at that time Claudia Alta Taylor, Lady Bird got her unusual nickname from her nursemaid, who always said that she was a pretty as a ladybird. Lady Bird's siblings and father called her Lady (her mother died when she was young), and her classmates sometimes teased her by calling her Bird - but Lyndon Johnson also called her Bird!

 Lady Bird Johnson was well educated for a woman of her time, and she had a good head for business. She had some inheritance money and was able to pay the costs of her husband's first campaign for Congress; she ran his office while he served in the Navy; she invested their earnings so well that she was able to turn a comfortable income into wealth - thanks to her investments, the Johnsons became millionaires. 

 As to that claim that Lady Bird Johnson made her own contributions while serving as First Lady, she actually did some "firsts" while doing so. She was the first FLOTUS to interact directly with Congress, the first to hire her own press secretary and chief of staff, the first to make a solo tour on the election trail, and the first to hold the Bible as her husband took the oath of office. 

 People often point out that she invented the modern role of a First Lady.

 Lady Bird was able to make a difference with Southerners and helped to get John F. Kennedy elected President (and her husband as Vice President) in seven Southern states. Much later, as FLOTUS, she traveled on her own train through eight Southern states promoting the Civil Rights Act, giving 45 speeches in just 5 days!

 The Highway Beautification Act Lady Bird promoted limited billboards and emphasized planting roadside areas. The act also called for the removal or screening of junk yards. 

 This effort always reminds me of the book Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney. In this fictional book, a woman plants lupine everywhere she goes in Maine in an effort to make the world more beautiful. 

 By the way, beautiful roadsides do make a difference when you're traveling, for sure. I remember traveling in some places of the world where there were junked cars and litter along the sides of the roads, and it totally spoiled what the natural beauty of the landscape. Even sparsely vegetated places have a kind of barren beauty if they aren't all junked up!





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March 17 – A Power Couple Weds

Posted on March 17, 2015


They were young—just 23 and 20 years old. They were distant cousins, so they already had the same last name. They both admired the President of the United States, who was also related to both of them, and who also shared their last name.

And they became important, and influential, and powerful, each separate and together.

On this date in 1905, Franklin D. Roosevelt married Eleanor Roosevelt. President Teddy Roosevelt walked the bride down the aisle.

(Eleanor was an orphan.)

They were born to wealthy families, but they did so much more, accomplished so much more, and influenced their nation and the whole world so much more than most people who are born to wealth.



Here's a teeny glimpse of just SOME of their accomplishments:
  • FDR was the longest-serving president in the history of the U.S.; he won a record four elections (although his last term was cut short by his death).
  • FDR was stricken with polio and lost the use of his legs; he worked with a Georgia spa and resort called Warm Springs to turn it into a center for the aid of polio victims.
  • FDR also served as Governor of New York, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and as a state senator in New York.
  • FDR was president during the Great Depression and during World War II; his “New Deal” policies and wartime leadership helped shape the country and the world.
  • Eleanor was the longest-serving “First Lady” and shaped the role of the position.
  • Eleanor did a lot of public service, advocating for women's rights, civil rights for racial minorities, and even starting an experimental community for unemployed miners.
  • Eleanor was the first “First Lady” to hold press conferences, write a newspaper column, and speak at a national convention.
  • Eleanor became one of the United Nations' first delegates and chaired the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women for then-President John F. Kennedy.


Also on this date:

 





















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