First ladies The ever-changing role, from Martha Washington to Melania Trump
Book - 2019
"Betty Boyd Caroli's First Ladies observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure ... This [is a] expanded and updated fifth edition ... covering all forty-three women from Martha Washington to Melania and Ivanka Trump and including the daughters, daughters-in-law, and sisters of presidents who sometimes served as First Ladies. Caroli explores each woman's background, marriage, and accomplishments and failures in office. First Ladies is a portrait of how each First Lady changed the role and how the role changed in response to American culture. These women left remarkably complete records, and their stories offer us a window through which to view not only this particular sor...ority of women, but also the role of American women in general."--Provided by publisher.
- Subjects
- Genres
- Biographies
- Published
-
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press
[2019]
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- Fifth edition
- Physical Description
- xx, 423 pages, 34 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN
- 9780190669133
- Setting precedents: the first presidents' wives (1789-1829)
- Young substitutes for first ladies (1829-1869)
- Three exceptions: Sarah, Childress Polk, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Julia Dentt
- The limited promise of the "new woman" (1877-1901)
- The office of first lady: a twentieth-century development
- The paradoxical 1920s
- Breaking precedents and reaffirming old ones (1933-1961)
- The turbulent sixties
- New dimensions to the job of first lady (1974-1993)
- A new generation in the White House (1993-2017)
- The ever-changing role of first lady.