The 2016 election evoked many and diverse reactions to outsider Republican candidate Donald Trump's victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton from fear and dismay, to disgust and even elation that change was coming for a vocal segment of the electorate that felt left behind by the whirlwind economic, political, social, and cultural changes of the 21st century. That a candidate with virtually no experience in either public service or politics was able to tap successfully into the fear and resentful anger of the "forgotten men and women" of rural areas and former booming manufacturing towns and win the presidency shocked many from ordinary citizens to the politicians, journalists, and advocates of the upper crust of society. So it's not surprising for me that Hillary Clinton, like others who shared the shock and dismay at the culmination of a vitriolic and nasty campaign and was at the center of it all with Trump, titled her latest memoir What Happened. (Even without any punctuation at the end of the title, it can read simultaneously as a serious, level-headed analysis of the 2016 presidential election cycle combined with an underlying sense of disbelief and shock at the election's outcome.)
Where to start in analyzing 2016? Clinton begins her story with a chapter titled "Perseverance," chronicling her and her husband's decision to attend President Trump's inauguration this past January along with the Bushes and Carters. Utilizing the common narrative mechanism of a flashback, Clinton rewinds from the inauguration to tell the story of the 2016 campaign, which started way back in 2015. While the 2016 campaign was undoubtedly the cornerstone of What Happened, the book feels timeless in certain parts where Hillary remembers her roots and the lessons her parents (especially her mother, the late Dorothy Howell Rodham) taught her regarding hard work, spirituality, community, and perseverance in the face of adversity and how her present relationships reinforce those lessons. While the evocation of some of these latter abstract ideals are common tropes in both fiction and non-fiction alike, evoking a semi rags-to-riches ascendancy narrative especially popular with influential politicians and others, these relationships provide a secure anchor for the story and an authentic voice for the author.
While I'm tempted to join in the chorus of those who ask why this authentic and rawer version of Hillary revealing her deepest troubles, hopes for the future, and closest relationships was not present in the election (thereby serving as a positive and humanizing influence that could have benefited her campaign), I also agree with Hillary's statement about campaigning that evokes a fine balancing act between intimacy with voters and a projection of strength on the other (Jalalzai, 2010). Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So like any other imperfect politician since the beginning of time, she leaned more towards guardedness in her campaign. This balancing act of politics is nearly impossible for women candidates to navigate successfully. The former concept of too much intimacy with voters can be construed as weak and too much guardedness as cold and off-putting (Jalalzai, 2010). Combine these double standards that most women candidates have to deal with with the national stage (and the larger degree of news coverage and scrutiny), presidential politics, partisanship, misogyny, social media, fake news, foreign meddling in democracy, resentment politics, campaign missteps (on both sides) and high-level investigations (to name a few) and you get an idea of how Clinton felt and the forces and obstacles she saw blending together into a toxic stew in 2016.
I'm not saying that she provides an un-biased portrait of the election (it is colored unsurprisingly by her own left-leaning political views and own unique experiences in her 40 year career in public service, from First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State and two-time presidential candidate that made her anguished responses to news stories like the email scandal seem somewhat dramatic or overblown), but her analysis seems grounded in fact and is thought-provoking. In other words, a kind of rational voice that voters from all sides need to see and understand. While I appreciated the analysis of the forces, both domestic and foreign (positive and negative), that shaped a campaign in the digital age, what was most important for me is that she finished her book offering clear-headed advice on how to address the national divisions that are having important reverberations here and around the world in America's foreign policy. This prevents the book from seeming too much like a rehashing of grievances instead of an insightful memoir of a contentious election in the provision of a message of hope for the future in which America confronts these issues and attempts to transcend political divisions for the common good. (Yes, that is cliché, but readers (like myself) need some positivity to counter and cope with the negative forces at work today.)
She provided a wide range of suggestions to readers to help bridge these divides (and strengthen American democracy as a whole) including the reinvigoration of public service organizations and civil society to provide opportunities for people to better empathize with each other, the renewal of grassroots activism, improved digital security for critical voting infrastructure, and the critical consumption of news. Many of these suggestions are by no means new in the national conversation and are broad strokes, but seem more urgent today in the era of alternative facts, resentment, and hyper-partisanship. Overall, in What Happened, Clinton provides an imperfect (but mostly satisfying) blend of election analysis, personal reflection, and a can-do message of perseverance that come full circle from the opening chapter chronicling the January inauguration to the closing with Hillary giving a rousing commencement speech at her alma-mater, Wellesley College. It's worth a read no matter what side of the aisle you lean towards (and if you find yourself disagreeing with Clinton on some points as I did).
Works Cited:
Clinton, H. R. (2017). What Happened. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Jalalzai, Farida. (2010). Madam President: Gender, Power, and the Comparative Presidency. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 31(2), pp. 132-165. DOI: 10.1080/15544771003697643.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
On First Ladies: Hillary Clinton
{The third and last of my examinations of pivotal first ladies, highlighting trailblazing women in politics, both past and present.}
While many would regard former FLOTUS Eleanor Roosevelt as a trend-setting modern FLOTUS regarding her active domestic and international policy making, another modern FLOTUS has done something just as unprecedented as policy activism recently (Caroli, 2010; GWU, n.d.; NFLL, n.d.). This new trend-setting FLOTUS is Hillary Clinton, whose time as FLOTUS was in many ways modeled after that of Eleanor Roosevelt in terms of active policy making (NFLL, n.d.; Winfield, 1990). However, Hillary Clinton made history of her own in building off Eleanor’s legacy as a pioneering FLOTUS and international representative in propelling herself to various public offices, both elected and appointed, after her tenure as FLOTUS (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.; People Magazine, 2000; Watson, 2001; Winfield, 1990). Just as Eleanor Roosevelt’s active tenure as FLOTUS generated controversy in her challenge to “traditional conceptions of acceptable roles” of first ladies, Hillary’s ascendance from FLOTUS to the offices of Senator and Secretary of State (and nearly to the office of president) marks a similar historic turn for the first ladyship (NFLL, n.d.; Scharrer, 2002, p. 393). Therefore, I make the argument that Hillary was the first FLOTUS to actively use the formal and informal resources of the first ladyship as a political springboard to various public offices, serving to further redefine the role of FLOTUS as an increasingly formidable political force.
Before closely examining Hillary’s tenure as FLOTUS and how that influenced her ascendance to public office, a brief word is in order about the evolution of the office of FLOTUS. A modern FLOTUS today has at her disposal more resources than first ladies prior to Eleanor Roosevelt, with Eleanor first helping to shift more attention towards the East Wing by holding formal press conferences and serving as both a written and radio commentator (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). Eksterowicz and Paynter (2000) argue that since Eleanor Roosevelt’s tenure as FLOTUS utilizing first informal “networks of friends and relatives” known as the Social Bureau to populate various committees, “the Office of the First Lady has become more professional in nature and has been moving in the direction of full integration with the President’s” in acquiring more specialized staff resources (p. 547). In 1977, FLOTUS Rosalynn Carter continued expanding the visibility of the East Wing relative to the West Wing by acquiring for FLOTUS more specialized staff to help meet the greater demands of the modern world on both FLOTUS and POTUS (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000, p. 552). This closer working relationship between the West and East Wings reveals the foundation upon which Hillary Clinton would build her expanding political career and closely related policy advocacy campaigns (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). Essentially, this closer integration of the West and East Wings mean that a FLOTUS and POTUS can develop a symbiotic relationship of sorts where FLOTUS can “develop a public policy agenda independent of the president’s and still rely on a partnership, either professional or personal” to aid in its implementation, shown especially in the recent phenomenon of staff sharing across both wings of the White House (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000, p. 549).
Hillary inherited this rich network of both formal and informal resources despite her unelected position of FLOTUS upon her ascendance to the office in 1993 and endeavored to use these resources to her advantage like previous “activist” first ladies (Caroli, 2010; Eksterowicz and Paynter, 2000, p. 547; NFLL, n.d.). Hillary served to further the FLOTUS office integration with the West Wing in her assembling of a staff that would become known as “Hillaryland” in the Old Executive Office Building (NFLL, n.d.). She further broke ground when she became the first FLOTUS to have an office in the West Wing in order to more closely coordinate with executive staff (Eksterowicz and Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). Most of these staff would then go on to work with Hillary during her tenure as Senator of New York and later Secretary of State (NFLL, n.d.). However, before Hillary could begin seeking public office, she had to raise her public profile. This she accomplished early on in her FLOTUS tenure in 1993 when her husband, President Bill Clinton, nominated Hillary to chair the President’s Task Force on Health Care Reform and to serve as one of his personal advisers (NFLL, n.d.).
Thus, this appointment revealed to the public the openly activist policy partnership between FLOTUS and POTUS reminiscent of the Roosevelts or the Carters (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). Tellingly, Hillary’s first Chief of Staff, Maggie Williams, was the first of her staff to be named Assistant to the President while working with both offices to craft a plan for health care reform that would be acceptable to both sides of the aisle in Congress (NFLL, n.d.). While the push for national health care reform stalled before Congress in 1994 due to charges that the Clinton administration’s plan would lead to “socialized medicine,” Hillary would continue to use her FLOTUS platform to build her public profile by continuing to work within government on health and related social issues like adoption (NFLL, n.d.). She would build her policy credentials among broad constituencies for her Senate candidacy by overseeing the successful initiation of programs like the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997 and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, while advocating for greater resources to address womens’ and veterans’ health issues (NFLL, n.d.). Due to her status as an advisor to the president, Hillaryland aides kept Hillary informed of legislative developments in Congress and Cabinet discussions (NFLL, n.d.).
Not unlike Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary used her domestic policy advocacy to expand her policy agenda to the international arena, giving Hillary powerful foreign policy credentials preceding her Senate candidacy (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). Making frequent use of the travel resources provided to POTUS and FLOTUS, Hillary would go on to establish networks with other women national leaders, speak out for gender equality in the social, economic, and political dimensions of life, and advocate for “women’s rights as human rights” at the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing (NFLL, n.d.). While the policy accomplishments described above are by no means an exhaustive list, the examples highlighted here show that Hillary Clinton as FLOTUS garnered increased political capital in her use of staff dedicated both to FLOTUS and POTUS which subsequently helped her to leapfrog to elected office (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). Now, the stage was set for her initial Senate candidacy.
Towards the end of her husband’s tenure as president in 1998, a vacancy emerged in the New York Senate seat after the announcement by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that he would not be seeking reelection (NFLL, n.d.). Hillary would formally announce her candidacy for the open seat in early February two years later, something that Hillary’s role model, Eleanor Roosevelt, declined to do after the death of her husband Franklin Roosevelt (NFLL, n.d.). Many of her Hillaryland staff carried over from her tenure as FLOTUS and aided in coordinating her campaigns, such as the “listening tours” in Yonkers, New York, where Hillary would meet with her future constituents and develop further political capital and intimate knowledge about local conditions critical for policy formation (NFLL, n.d.). While she would be elected Senator of New York in 2001 and again in 2006, her continued political activism and utilization of the formal and informal resources provided to her during her tenure of FLOTUS drew fierce criticisms from socially conservative segments of society that were reflected in the media’s coverage of Clinton as “more scrutinizing…and negative” in comparison with that of her Republican opponent, Rudy Giuliani (Scharrer, 2002, p. 403-404; Sulfaro, 2007). If the opposition from some corners of the media and society were increasingly vocal during the former FLOTUS’s Senate campaigns, this was magnified in her forays into the office of Secretary of State and later in her two stints as a presidential candidate in terms of increased fears of a former FLOTUS’s influence on governmental policy making as well as the potential utilization of state resources for personal political gain (Frederick & Elder, 2016; Mandziuk, 2017; NFLL, n.d.).
Aside from utilizing the formal staff resources provided to FLOTUS since the time of Rosalynn Carter, Hillary’s ascendance to and tenure as Secretary of State (2009-2013) would prove to draw heavily from the informal resources available to both former and current first ladies, while still retaining some of her original Hillaryland staff (NFLL, n.d.). This use of informal resources, akin to the social networks first ladies draw upon, was seen in the relationships between Hillary and past first ladies such as Laura Bush and Michelle Obama (NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001). For example, as Senator, Hillary Clinton received support from Laura Bush for her gender equality initiatives in Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and her subsequent support (rumored) for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in the 2016 presidential election (NFLL, n.d.). This focus on women’s educational equality domestically and internationally was continued in Hillary’s collaboration as Secretary of State with Michelle Obama, specifically in the latter’s support of the “Let Girls Learn” program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (NFLL, n.d.). Further augmenting her clout in relation to women’s social, economic, and political issues on the international stage was Hillary’s drawing upon of the network of women political leaders from around the world formed during her tenure as FLOTUS (NFLL, n.d.). This network included notable figures such as former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, which proved instrumental in the establishment of Hillary’s women’s political advocacy program Vital Voices (NFLL n.d.). Thus, Hillary was able to use to her advantage various formal and informal networks she had formed during her original time as FLOTUS both domestically and internationally to effect change in policy issues important to her, such as women’s political and economic participation, and to garner further political capital (NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001).
Lastly, Hillary set her sights on the highest office in the land in that of POTUS ahead of the 2008 and 2016 election campaigns, before and after her tenure as Secretary of State, respectively (NFLL, n.d.). Not only does running for president require unprecedented amounts of monetary and staff resources for campaigning, but also requires a candidate to convince the voters of their leadership ability, which is often defined around stereotypically masculine standards of being a strong, decisive, and forceful leader (Anderson, 2002; Mandziuk, 2017; NFLL, n.d.). This poses special obstacles for a female presidential candidate like Hillary Clinton, who must overcome the “cultural scripts” in American politics that have framed the post of president “as a male domain,” while also defining the institution of the first ladyship as an exclusively feminine domain where a FLOTUS must subordinate her own “professional competencies” and aspirations in favor of supporting her husband’s ambitions (Mandziuk, 2017, p. 140-141). Although Hillary was the most experienced of the presidential candidates going into the 2016 election, with her tenures of FLOTUS, Senator, and Secretary of State highlighting the enormous amounts of political and other capital garnered for her, she lost both contests (NFLL, n.d.). This was despite her enormous qualifications for the office as well as her glass-ceiling shattering moment of becoming the first FLOTUS (or woman in general) to be nominated by a major party in the United States for a presidential contest in 2016 (NFLL, n.d.).
Roseann Mandziuk (2017) makes the argument that despite the enormous amounts of formal and informal resources Hillary had garnered from her time as FLOTUS, Senator, and Secretary of State that would have made a candidate competitive in a high-stakes presidential contest that Hillary’s campaigns were ultimately undermined by Bill Clinton’s campaign rhetoric. This rhetoric tended to (unintentionally) trap Hillary into the restrictions of femininity that bind FLOTUS and “further diminished perceptions of his spouse’s appropriateness to embody the presidential role” as what happened particularly in Elizabeth Dole’s short campaign for president on the Republican ticket ahead of the 2000 election (Anderson, 2002; Mandziuk, 2017, p. 150). Especially detrimental for establishing her credentials for leadership were his stories of her time as first lady of Arkansas and the United States which “exposed her violations into the realm of policy, yet also underscored her appropriately feminine interest in the softer policy issues of family and children” and serving to draw attention away from her experience in traditionally masculine domains of national security and foreign policy as Senator and Secretary of State (Anderson, 2002; Mandziuk, 2017, p. 150; NFLL, n.d.). Furthermore, while Bill Clinton, as the “prospective ‘first gentleman’” easily “can retain his role as patriarch…and dominant marriage partner without compromising his masculinity, but the female presidential candidate must sublimate her deviance and craft a performance as spouse that is both feminine and conciliatory” (Mandziuk, 2017, p. 151). Thus, even a former FLOTUS like Hillary Clinton was bound by the conflicting role expectations for FLOTUS (and for women in general) in her presidential campaign in the pressure to present her activist credentials for leadership while still not foraying into more masculine domains of policy (Anderson, 2002; Benze, 1990; Mandziuk, 2017).
In conclusion, despite not achieving the office of president, Hillary Clinton was still a history-making FLOTUS and former FLOTUS in being the first to actively use the formal and informal resources (staff, domestic and international social networks, etc.) of the first ladyship as a foundation for her forays into other public service positions, such as Senator and Secretary of State (NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001). Because Hillary was the first willing and able to use these resources provided to her as a modern FLOTUS to her advantage in order to achieve public office, Hillary serves to further recast the role of a modern FLOTUS as a political force after Eleanor Roosevelt first set the benchmark for a more active FLOTUS (NFLL n.d.; Watson, 2001; Winfield, 1990). While both formal and informal barriers remain in many areas of politics for a woman (especially a FLOTUS if she wishes to be politically active), such as monetary resources and persistent gender stereotyping within both the institutions of POTUS and FLOTUS, Hillary Clinton’s unprecedented leveraging of her FLOTUS resources nonetheless raises the profile of FLOTUS as a politically formidable figure outside the boundaries of influence defined by traditional tenets of FLOTUS femininity (Caroli, 2010; NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001).
Works Cited:
Anderson, K. (2002). From Spouses to Candidates: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, and the Gendered Office of U.S. President. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 5(1), pp. 105-132.
Benze, J. G., Jr. (1990). Nancy Reagan: China Doll or Dragon Lady? (Modern First Ladies). Presidential Studies Quarterly, 20(4), pp. 777-790.
Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Eksterowicz, A. J., & Paynter, K. (2000). The Evolution of the Role and Office of the First Lady: The Movement Toward Integration with the White House Office. Social Science Journal, 37(4), pp. 547-562.
Frederick, B., & Elder, L. (2016, May 20). Presidential Candidate Spouses May Have Record Unfavorable Ratings in 2016. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-frederick2/presidential-candidate-sp_b_10067098.html.
George Washington University. (n.d.). Question: What Did ER Do at the United Nations? Retrieved February 07, 2017, from https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/q-and-a/q29.cfm.
Mandziuk, R. M. (2017). ‘Whither the Good Wife?’ 2016 Presidential Candidate Spouses in the Gendered Spaces of Contemporary Politics. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 103(1), pp. 136-159.
National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=33.
National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Hillary Clinton. Retrieved April 10, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=43.
People Magazine. (2000). Hillary On Her Own. People, 54(21), pp. 64-68.
Scharrer, E. (2002). An "Improbable Leap": A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Hillary Clinton's Transition from First Lady to Senate Candidate. Journalism Studies, 3(3), pp. 393-406.
Sulfaro, V. (2007). Affective Evaluations of First Ladies: A Comparison of Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 37(3), pp. 486-514.
Watson, R. P. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), pp. 9-14.
Winfield, B. H. (1990). "The Legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt." Presidential Studies Quarterly, 20(4), pp. 699-706.
Friday, October 13, 2017
On First Ladies: Abigail Adams
{The second of my examinations of pivotal first ladies, highlighting trailblazing women in politics, both past and present.}
“Remember the ladies” (Eaton, 1947). The latter quote is one of the most well-known of the late first lady (hereafter abbreviated as FLOTUS) Abigail Adams and is derived from the extensive correspondence she maintained with her husband, the former John Adams from 1744-1818 (Eaton, 1947). This time-period extends to before her service as FLOTUS, during, and after (Eaton, 1947). While the above quote is not in dispute concerning its authenticity, a major debate has increasingly taken place among scholars in history and presidential studies on the extent to which the quote demonstrated that Abigail Adams was a feminist, per the definition used today (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). However, this determination of whether Abigail Adams held feminist views depends both on how one defines a feminist and the socio-historical context Abigail Adams found herself in (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). Therefore, I argue that Abigail Adams was one of the first FLOTUS feminists, or “proto-feminists,” providing a model for future first ladies in her advocacy of women’s education, financial independence, and early reproductive rights during the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era where women were largely understood to have domain exclusively in the domestic sphere (Crane, 2013, p. 208).
Before continuing my analysis of Abigail Adams’ time as a form of FLOTUS to John Adams during his service as a congressman in the First and Second Continental Congresses (1774-1781), diplomatic representative to France (1777-1780), Minister to England (1785-1788), Vice President (1789-1797), and President of the United States (1797-1801), I will lay out the parameters of my analysis (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). For the purposes of clarity, I would further argue that Abigail Adams’ status during the pre-presidential years of John Adams as what I term “second” or “third” lady provided a similar platform as that of her time as first lady because of her proximity to sources of power present in men close to or occupying the presidency (Crane, 2013; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Therefore, I will examine how Abigail used her position to advocate for women’s rights in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from her vantage point as third, second, and first lady (O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Additionally, I will put forward a basic definition of feminism upon which to evaluate Abigail Adams, based upon Elaine Forman Crane’s (2013) definition of feminism as “a doctrine based on the belief that women should possess the same economic, political, and social rights as those enjoyed by men” (Crane, p. 200). However, it is helpful to note that the term “feminist” was not coined until the 20th century; nevertheless, she showed feminist-like resistance to her proscribed role as wife, mother, and hostess (Crane, 2013, p. 203). Despite the above caveat, I will judge Abigail Adams by the substance of her extensive correspondence between her and her husband as well as close family friends, such as the feminist Mercy Otis Warren as well as her participation in activities not considered to be “feminine” while John served in powerful positions within government (Crane, 2013; Rossi, 1973). It is both the written word and the extent of her action on her principles that will reveal if she fits the mold of an early feminist FLOTUS as I examine her life’s story.
Abigail Adams was born into a deeply religious family of Congregationalists, which augmented the extent that traditional gender roles became embedded into the expectations that she held about her place as ruler of the domestic sphere upon her marriage to John in 1764 (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998). While she was somewhat limited in her mobility due to her ill health in both her childhood and adulthood as well as her later domestic responsibilities, Abigail made up for her lack of formal education with her access to her father’s and maternal grandfather’s extensive library (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Through her informal schooling, Abigail was exposed to various texts concerning philosophy, theology, Shakespeare, ancient history, government, and law that would form the basis of her later calls for equality in education between males and females to satisfy the natural intellectual curiosity she believed was present in both sexes, among other prominent issue advocacies (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Prior to the American Revolution, when John was serving in the Continental Congresses, Abigail began her extensive correspondence, which showed the depth of her interest in politics based upon the relatively frequent commentary she exchanged with John (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.).
One of the prominent opposing arguments to Abigail’s status as feminist is represented in Edith B. Gelles’s (1979) piece “Abigail Adams and the American Revolution” and Jennifer Shingleton’s (1998) piece “Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth” (Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). Both pieces put forward similar arguments that Abigail was not a feminist for her acceptance of the unequal gender hierarchies exemplified in marriage, while ignoring the instances that Adams challenged gender hierarchy within the context of gender hierarchy, such as her political activism (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). I further counter those arguments by supporting historian Karen Offen’s distinction between “individual” and “relational” feminism (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). Prior to 20th century definitions of feminism, the more common form of feminism was relational feminism, which “centered on a ‘gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organization,’ with a ‘non-hierarchical, male-female couple as the basic unit of society’” (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). I would argue that Abigail’s life, both during and outside her time as FLOTUS resembled that of a relational feminist rather than a modern day individual feminist because of the sociohistorical and sociopolitical constraints placed upon women at the time (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2-3). Essentially, like many other first ladies, Abigail Adams used the salient power given to her via the institution of marriage (especially in the context of the 18th-19th centuries) to try and make a sociopolitical impact (Caroli, 2010; O’Connell, et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).
Additionally, Crane (2013) puts forward the argument that “confined by contemporary gender mores, Abigail employed conventional language to fashion a persona acceptable by eighteenth-century standards” based upon a combination of the wife of a Roman statesman, Brutus, and an “unlesson’d” yet erudite girl of the same name in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Crane, p. 199, 215). Tellingly, Shakespeare’s Portia “disguised herself as a young male lawyer” and served capably, thus hinting at Abigail’s potential longing for a role in the public sphere like her husband first had as a lawyer (Crane, 2013, p. 215; Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). In other words, Abigail Adams’ use of the socially-accepted practices such as the art of letter writing and her extensive informal education provided just one dimension of her proto-feminist beliefs in the absence of her immediate ability to act upon her beliefs outside the constraints of traditional gender roles (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). It is in this way that Abigail proves herself to be a relational feminist (but an early feminist nonetheless) in her challenging of the status quo within the constraints of those power structures (Crane, 2013; Shingleton, 1998). This notion of working within established power structures is like Watson’s (2001) argument that first ladies have still been able to wield significant powers by using socially accepted gender roles to gain greater authority (Watson, 2001).
The earliest expression of these beliefs is in her famous March 1776 letter in which she counsels John to “remember the ladies” when forming the basis of the new government of the country to advance the legal equality of women under the law (Crane, 2013, p. 203; NFLL, n.d.). She warns John of a potential women’s “revolution” if such changes are not implemented in the new government where women do not have “…voice or representation” (Crane, 2013, p. 203: Eaton, 1947). This letter was written in the context of Abigail’s agitation for legal protections of women that would prevent men’s legally-proscribed abuse of their power over women represented in the prevailing coverture doctrine inherited from English common law, which stipulated that women could not “buy, sell, nor possess property independent of her husband” or other legal protections in general outside of marriage (Crane, 2013, p. 210). Her letter seems to have rattled John, who in a letter to his friend James Sullivan in late May 1776 worries about enfranchising the non-propertied classes (i.e. women, slaves, young people) by writing that it was “dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy…by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters” and thus open the political process to minority interests who could challenge the legal status quo (Rossi, 1973, p. 15). Other calls for legal representation and equality from Abigail come in letters from 1779 and 1782, respectively, where she writes that while women did not control government, she did not see any reason for women not to have a say in how government is conducted (Crane, 2013, p. 203). In 1782, Abigail continued to voice her complaints about being “deprived of a voice in legislation” and of being “obliged to submit those laws which are imposed on us [women]” by men in the legislative and executive branches of government (Crane, 2013, p. 207). Because she was a close confidante to her husband throughout his political career, Abigail leveraged this role often to advocate for legal and political changes to benefit women (Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947).
Outside of the written word, Abigail demonstrated her vision of an egalitarian marriage where women could be financially and legally self-sufficient whereby she assumed primary responsibility for the management of the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts while John was away first as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later in his diplomatic posts to England and France (Crane, 2013, p. 209; NFLL, n.d.). Moreover, to supplement the family income, Abigail proved a capable financial manager largely without the advice of John in her land speculation and import business ventures while facing the financial difficulties of labor shortages and inflation (Crane, 2013, p. 209-212; Gelles, 1979, p. 501). Her growing independence was reflected in her use of “my” instead of “ours” (hers and her husband’s) when talking about the income made from those enterprises in her letters to John at the end of the Revolution (Crane, 2013, p. 210). While Gelles (1979) and Shingleton (1998) make the argument that many women were forced to take on breadwinning functions in the absence of husbands and male relatives who were fighting in the American Revolution, Abigail’s aforementioned gaining of self-confidence in her semi-autonomous business role as well as the bequeathing of most of her wealth and property to her female relatives outside of what she also gave to her sons Quincy and Thomas in her 1816 will (Crane, 2013, p. 211; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). In fact, Abigail pointedly excluded her male relatives and servants in this document (Crane, 2013, p. 211). Lastly, a little-known appointment in 1775 to the Massachusetts Colony General Court to participate in questioning ladies seen as impeding the Revolution brought Abigail further outside the domestic sphere in the political as well as economic spheres (NFLL, n.d.). John seems to acknowledge her growing influence as the first FLOTUS to hold a “quasi-official governmental position” by writing that she was “a politician…elected into an important office, that of judges of Tory ladies” (NFLL, n.d.).
Moving into her time as FLOTUS (first lady versus “second” or “third” lady) and after, Abigail seems to assert herself even more, especially through the written word and (paradoxically) the assumption of traditional hostessing duties (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). Shields and Teute (2015) note the extent to which Abigail Adams used her hostess role as FLOTUS and participation in courtly rituals of the early American republic to become “a broker of patronage…a conduit of information to newspapers, a counselor to the president, and a figure whose known influence on the president caused her to be the target of petition and persuasion” (Caroli, 2010; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 228). Her monitoring of the press, speech-writing, and other functions as FLOTUS confidante to her husband enabled her to serve as the intermediary between her husband and the people outside of the political discussions contained in their private correspondence (Caroli, 2010; Eaton, 1947; Shields & Teute, 2015).
Thus, she extended “women’s purview beyond the realm of manners and liaisons to public opinion,” further asserting roles that served to simultaneously go beyond traditional gender roles while working within those structures (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 235). In addition to her assuming more confident political roles within the “culture of sensibility” as FLOTUS, Abigail advocated for equal education of the sexes in subjects that would “improve the mind” such as learning Latin and Greek (Crane, 2013, p. 201; Gelles, 1979; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998; Shields & Teute, 2015). Despite assertions by scholars like Gelles (1979) that Abigail could successfully promote this initiative because it would improve the quality of women’s domestic functions surrounding motherhood and household management (a non-controversial stance at the time), Abigail nonetheless asserted the equality in intellectual capabilities between the sexes (Gelles, 1979; Crane, 2013, p. 201; Shingleton, 1998). She writes in 1771 to a family friend Isaac Smith Jr. that while women were largely thought of in terms of being “domestick beings,” that women “inherit an Eaquel Share of curiosity with the other Sex” and that she also wanted to have equal opportunities to be a “rover” and see the world outside the domestic sphere (Rossi, 1973, p. 9).
Outside of her education advocacy, another little-known fact about Abigail was her concerns of family planning before, during, and after her tenure as FLOTUS that seem to further rebuke scholars who hold that Abigail did not resist the gender roles proscribed to her by the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Crane, 2013, p. 212). Abigail advised her close female relatives to limit childbearing, considering too many children a “form of slavery” as well as seemingly working with John to not conceive children between 1772 and 1777 (the gap between the birth of her son John and her daughter Elizabeth in 1777, respectively) (Crane, 2013, p. 212). This gap persisted despite John being home frequently from 1771-1774 and seems to imply an agreement between Abigail and John to limit the family size to four children (Crane, 2013, p. 212). It would seem that despite her socially conservative upbringing, Abigail held very progressive views for her time (Crane, 2013).
In conclusion, Abigail Adams can be considered a FLOTUS proto-feminist because of her championing of equal education, women’s economic self-sufficiency and other legal protections, and family planning in both her letters and her actions in a decidedly socially conservative era (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). While Abigail used her position in relation to her proximity to men of power, like her husband John Adams, largely within the confines of the proscribed gender roles, this should not discount Abigail’s contributions to the development (and acting out) of feminist principles (Crane, 2013; Gelles 1979; Shingleton, 1998). By asserting herself more prominently inside the domestic sphere and making forays into the public sphere before, during, and after her time as FLOTUS via assumption (and reworking) of traditional gender roles (confidante to a husband, letter writing, provision of political advice, and other supportive political tasks), Abigail also proved through her own brand of relational feminism that she could be both an assertive public figure as well as a domestic one (Caroli, 2010; Gelles, 1979; O’Connor et al., 1996; Shingleton, 1998; Watson, 2001). This paved the way for future first ladies to exert political influence in very similar ways, despite the societal constraints of the times (Caroli, 2010; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).
Works Cited:
Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Crane, E. (2013). Abigail Adams and Feminism. In D. Waldstreicher (Ed.), A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (pp. 199-217). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
Eaton, D. (1947). Some Letters of Abigail Adams. Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 4(4), pp. 3-6.
Gelles, E. (1979). Abigail Adams: Domesticity and the American Revolution. The New England Quarterly, 52(4), pp. 500-521.
National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Abigail Adams. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=2.
O'Connor, K., Nye, B., & Assendelft, L.V. (1996). Wives in the White House: The Political Influence of First Ladies. (Reassessments of Presidents and First Ladies). Presidential Studies Quarterly, 26(3), pp. 835-853.
Rossi, A. (1973). “Remember the Ladies”: Abigail Adams vs. John Adams. In A. Rossi (Ed.), The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir (pp. 7-15). New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Shields, D., & Teute, F. (2015). The Court of Abigail Adams. Journal of the Early Republic, 35(2), pp. 227-235.
Shingleton, J. (1998). Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth (Paper, Princeton University, 1998). The Concord Review, pp. 1-26. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/writings/abigail-adams-feminist-myth.
Watson, R. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), pp. 9-14.
“Remember the ladies” (Eaton, 1947). The latter quote is one of the most well-known of the late first lady (hereafter abbreviated as FLOTUS) Abigail Adams and is derived from the extensive correspondence she maintained with her husband, the former John Adams from 1744-1818 (Eaton, 1947). This time-period extends to before her service as FLOTUS, during, and after (Eaton, 1947). While the above quote is not in dispute concerning its authenticity, a major debate has increasingly taken place among scholars in history and presidential studies on the extent to which the quote demonstrated that Abigail Adams was a feminist, per the definition used today (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). However, this determination of whether Abigail Adams held feminist views depends both on how one defines a feminist and the socio-historical context Abigail Adams found herself in (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). Therefore, I argue that Abigail Adams was one of the first FLOTUS feminists, or “proto-feminists,” providing a model for future first ladies in her advocacy of women’s education, financial independence, and early reproductive rights during the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era where women were largely understood to have domain exclusively in the domestic sphere (Crane, 2013, p. 208).
Before continuing my analysis of Abigail Adams’ time as a form of FLOTUS to John Adams during his service as a congressman in the First and Second Continental Congresses (1774-1781), diplomatic representative to France (1777-1780), Minister to England (1785-1788), Vice President (1789-1797), and President of the United States (1797-1801), I will lay out the parameters of my analysis (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). For the purposes of clarity, I would further argue that Abigail Adams’ status during the pre-presidential years of John Adams as what I term “second” or “third” lady provided a similar platform as that of her time as first lady because of her proximity to sources of power present in men close to or occupying the presidency (Crane, 2013; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Therefore, I will examine how Abigail used her position to advocate for women’s rights in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from her vantage point as third, second, and first lady (O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Additionally, I will put forward a basic definition of feminism upon which to evaluate Abigail Adams, based upon Elaine Forman Crane’s (2013) definition of feminism as “a doctrine based on the belief that women should possess the same economic, political, and social rights as those enjoyed by men” (Crane, p. 200). However, it is helpful to note that the term “feminist” was not coined until the 20th century; nevertheless, she showed feminist-like resistance to her proscribed role as wife, mother, and hostess (Crane, 2013, p. 203). Despite the above caveat, I will judge Abigail Adams by the substance of her extensive correspondence between her and her husband as well as close family friends, such as the feminist Mercy Otis Warren as well as her participation in activities not considered to be “feminine” while John served in powerful positions within government (Crane, 2013; Rossi, 1973). It is both the written word and the extent of her action on her principles that will reveal if she fits the mold of an early feminist FLOTUS as I examine her life’s story.
Abigail Adams was born into a deeply religious family of Congregationalists, which augmented the extent that traditional gender roles became embedded into the expectations that she held about her place as ruler of the domestic sphere upon her marriage to John in 1764 (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998). While she was somewhat limited in her mobility due to her ill health in both her childhood and adulthood as well as her later domestic responsibilities, Abigail made up for her lack of formal education with her access to her father’s and maternal grandfather’s extensive library (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Through her informal schooling, Abigail was exposed to various texts concerning philosophy, theology, Shakespeare, ancient history, government, and law that would form the basis of her later calls for equality in education between males and females to satisfy the natural intellectual curiosity she believed was present in both sexes, among other prominent issue advocacies (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Prior to the American Revolution, when John was serving in the Continental Congresses, Abigail began her extensive correspondence, which showed the depth of her interest in politics based upon the relatively frequent commentary she exchanged with John (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.).
One of the prominent opposing arguments to Abigail’s status as feminist is represented in Edith B. Gelles’s (1979) piece “Abigail Adams and the American Revolution” and Jennifer Shingleton’s (1998) piece “Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth” (Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). Both pieces put forward similar arguments that Abigail was not a feminist for her acceptance of the unequal gender hierarchies exemplified in marriage, while ignoring the instances that Adams challenged gender hierarchy within the context of gender hierarchy, such as her political activism (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). I further counter those arguments by supporting historian Karen Offen’s distinction between “individual” and “relational” feminism (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). Prior to 20th century definitions of feminism, the more common form of feminism was relational feminism, which “centered on a ‘gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organization,’ with a ‘non-hierarchical, male-female couple as the basic unit of society’” (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). I would argue that Abigail’s life, both during and outside her time as FLOTUS resembled that of a relational feminist rather than a modern day individual feminist because of the sociohistorical and sociopolitical constraints placed upon women at the time (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2-3). Essentially, like many other first ladies, Abigail Adams used the salient power given to her via the institution of marriage (especially in the context of the 18th-19th centuries) to try and make a sociopolitical impact (Caroli, 2010; O’Connell, et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).
Additionally, Crane (2013) puts forward the argument that “confined by contemporary gender mores, Abigail employed conventional language to fashion a persona acceptable by eighteenth-century standards” based upon a combination of the wife of a Roman statesman, Brutus, and an “unlesson’d” yet erudite girl of the same name in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Crane, p. 199, 215). Tellingly, Shakespeare’s Portia “disguised herself as a young male lawyer” and served capably, thus hinting at Abigail’s potential longing for a role in the public sphere like her husband first had as a lawyer (Crane, 2013, p. 215; Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). In other words, Abigail Adams’ use of the socially-accepted practices such as the art of letter writing and her extensive informal education provided just one dimension of her proto-feminist beliefs in the absence of her immediate ability to act upon her beliefs outside the constraints of traditional gender roles (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). It is in this way that Abigail proves herself to be a relational feminist (but an early feminist nonetheless) in her challenging of the status quo within the constraints of those power structures (Crane, 2013; Shingleton, 1998). This notion of working within established power structures is like Watson’s (2001) argument that first ladies have still been able to wield significant powers by using socially accepted gender roles to gain greater authority (Watson, 2001).
The earliest expression of these beliefs is in her famous March 1776 letter in which she counsels John to “remember the ladies” when forming the basis of the new government of the country to advance the legal equality of women under the law (Crane, 2013, p. 203; NFLL, n.d.). She warns John of a potential women’s “revolution” if such changes are not implemented in the new government where women do not have “…voice or representation” (Crane, 2013, p. 203: Eaton, 1947). This letter was written in the context of Abigail’s agitation for legal protections of women that would prevent men’s legally-proscribed abuse of their power over women represented in the prevailing coverture doctrine inherited from English common law, which stipulated that women could not “buy, sell, nor possess property independent of her husband” or other legal protections in general outside of marriage (Crane, 2013, p. 210). Her letter seems to have rattled John, who in a letter to his friend James Sullivan in late May 1776 worries about enfranchising the non-propertied classes (i.e. women, slaves, young people) by writing that it was “dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy…by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters” and thus open the political process to minority interests who could challenge the legal status quo (Rossi, 1973, p. 15). Other calls for legal representation and equality from Abigail come in letters from 1779 and 1782, respectively, where she writes that while women did not control government, she did not see any reason for women not to have a say in how government is conducted (Crane, 2013, p. 203). In 1782, Abigail continued to voice her complaints about being “deprived of a voice in legislation” and of being “obliged to submit those laws which are imposed on us [women]” by men in the legislative and executive branches of government (Crane, 2013, p. 207). Because she was a close confidante to her husband throughout his political career, Abigail leveraged this role often to advocate for legal and political changes to benefit women (Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947).
Outside of the written word, Abigail demonstrated her vision of an egalitarian marriage where women could be financially and legally self-sufficient whereby she assumed primary responsibility for the management of the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts while John was away first as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later in his diplomatic posts to England and France (Crane, 2013, p. 209; NFLL, n.d.). Moreover, to supplement the family income, Abigail proved a capable financial manager largely without the advice of John in her land speculation and import business ventures while facing the financial difficulties of labor shortages and inflation (Crane, 2013, p. 209-212; Gelles, 1979, p. 501). Her growing independence was reflected in her use of “my” instead of “ours” (hers and her husband’s) when talking about the income made from those enterprises in her letters to John at the end of the Revolution (Crane, 2013, p. 210). While Gelles (1979) and Shingleton (1998) make the argument that many women were forced to take on breadwinning functions in the absence of husbands and male relatives who were fighting in the American Revolution, Abigail’s aforementioned gaining of self-confidence in her semi-autonomous business role as well as the bequeathing of most of her wealth and property to her female relatives outside of what she also gave to her sons Quincy and Thomas in her 1816 will (Crane, 2013, p. 211; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). In fact, Abigail pointedly excluded her male relatives and servants in this document (Crane, 2013, p. 211). Lastly, a little-known appointment in 1775 to the Massachusetts Colony General Court to participate in questioning ladies seen as impeding the Revolution brought Abigail further outside the domestic sphere in the political as well as economic spheres (NFLL, n.d.). John seems to acknowledge her growing influence as the first FLOTUS to hold a “quasi-official governmental position” by writing that she was “a politician…elected into an important office, that of judges of Tory ladies” (NFLL, n.d.).
Moving into her time as FLOTUS (first lady versus “second” or “third” lady) and after, Abigail seems to assert herself even more, especially through the written word and (paradoxically) the assumption of traditional hostessing duties (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). Shields and Teute (2015) note the extent to which Abigail Adams used her hostess role as FLOTUS and participation in courtly rituals of the early American republic to become “a broker of patronage…a conduit of information to newspapers, a counselor to the president, and a figure whose known influence on the president caused her to be the target of petition and persuasion” (Caroli, 2010; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 228). Her monitoring of the press, speech-writing, and other functions as FLOTUS confidante to her husband enabled her to serve as the intermediary between her husband and the people outside of the political discussions contained in their private correspondence (Caroli, 2010; Eaton, 1947; Shields & Teute, 2015).
Thus, she extended “women’s purview beyond the realm of manners and liaisons to public opinion,” further asserting roles that served to simultaneously go beyond traditional gender roles while working within those structures (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 235). In addition to her assuming more confident political roles within the “culture of sensibility” as FLOTUS, Abigail advocated for equal education of the sexes in subjects that would “improve the mind” such as learning Latin and Greek (Crane, 2013, p. 201; Gelles, 1979; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998; Shields & Teute, 2015). Despite assertions by scholars like Gelles (1979) that Abigail could successfully promote this initiative because it would improve the quality of women’s domestic functions surrounding motherhood and household management (a non-controversial stance at the time), Abigail nonetheless asserted the equality in intellectual capabilities between the sexes (Gelles, 1979; Crane, 2013, p. 201; Shingleton, 1998). She writes in 1771 to a family friend Isaac Smith Jr. that while women were largely thought of in terms of being “domestick beings,” that women “inherit an Eaquel Share of curiosity with the other Sex” and that she also wanted to have equal opportunities to be a “rover” and see the world outside the domestic sphere (Rossi, 1973, p. 9).
Outside of her education advocacy, another little-known fact about Abigail was her concerns of family planning before, during, and after her tenure as FLOTUS that seem to further rebuke scholars who hold that Abigail did not resist the gender roles proscribed to her by the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Crane, 2013, p. 212). Abigail advised her close female relatives to limit childbearing, considering too many children a “form of slavery” as well as seemingly working with John to not conceive children between 1772 and 1777 (the gap between the birth of her son John and her daughter Elizabeth in 1777, respectively) (Crane, 2013, p. 212). This gap persisted despite John being home frequently from 1771-1774 and seems to imply an agreement between Abigail and John to limit the family size to four children (Crane, 2013, p. 212). It would seem that despite her socially conservative upbringing, Abigail held very progressive views for her time (Crane, 2013).
In conclusion, Abigail Adams can be considered a FLOTUS proto-feminist because of her championing of equal education, women’s economic self-sufficiency and other legal protections, and family planning in both her letters and her actions in a decidedly socially conservative era (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). While Abigail used her position in relation to her proximity to men of power, like her husband John Adams, largely within the confines of the proscribed gender roles, this should not discount Abigail’s contributions to the development (and acting out) of feminist principles (Crane, 2013; Gelles 1979; Shingleton, 1998). By asserting herself more prominently inside the domestic sphere and making forays into the public sphere before, during, and after her time as FLOTUS via assumption (and reworking) of traditional gender roles (confidante to a husband, letter writing, provision of political advice, and other supportive political tasks), Abigail also proved through her own brand of relational feminism that she could be both an assertive public figure as well as a domestic one (Caroli, 2010; Gelles, 1979; O’Connor et al., 1996; Shingleton, 1998; Watson, 2001). This paved the way for future first ladies to exert political influence in very similar ways, despite the societal constraints of the times (Caroli, 2010; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).
Works Cited:
Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Crane, E. (2013). Abigail Adams and Feminism. In D. Waldstreicher (Ed.), A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (pp. 199-217). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
Eaton, D. (1947). Some Letters of Abigail Adams. Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 4(4), pp. 3-6.
Gelles, E. (1979). Abigail Adams: Domesticity and the American Revolution. The New England Quarterly, 52(4), pp. 500-521.
National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Abigail Adams. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=2.
O'Connor, K., Nye, B., & Assendelft, L.V. (1996). Wives in the White House: The Political Influence of First Ladies. (Reassessments of Presidents and First Ladies). Presidential Studies Quarterly, 26(3), pp. 835-853.
Rossi, A. (1973). “Remember the Ladies”: Abigail Adams vs. John Adams. In A. Rossi (Ed.), The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir (pp. 7-15). New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Shields, D., & Teute, F. (2015). The Court of Abigail Adams. Journal of the Early Republic, 35(2), pp. 227-235.
Shingleton, J. (1998). Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth (Paper, Princeton University, 1998). The Concord Review, pp. 1-26. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/writings/abigail-adams-feminist-myth.
Watson, R. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), pp. 9-14.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
On First Ladies: Eleanor Roosevelt
{The first of my examinations of pivotal first ladies, highlighting trailblazing women in politics, both past and present.}
The role of the First Lady of the United States (hereafter abbreviated as FLOTUS) has undergone significant evolution in the post WWII era (Caroli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). Post-WWII years saw the international scene reconfigured around the rise of major multilateral institutions on the international level, guided by the United States, which emerged as a major world power after WWII (Ikenberry, 2012). Therefore, institutions such as the United Nations (UN) became crucial in the foreign policy calculations of post WWII presidents after Franklin Roosevelt, who, along with former President Woodrow Wilson, advocated for the reform of the failed League of Nations to promote world peace and secure social justice (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008). Naturally, the role of the president’s spouse, the first lady, evolved with this new era of internationalism (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008). Eleanor Roosevelt, complementing her husband’s human rights advocacy, played a crucial role in her husband’s foreign policy strategy in the establishment of the UN in 1945 and the passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008).
I make the argument that Eleanor Roosevelt was the first FLOTUS to take on a role as an explicitly active international policy advocate, thus providing a template for future first ladies, such as Hillary Clinton, to engage effectively in foreign policy and diplomacy. First, I define an “active” FLOTUS, briefly describe the resource advantages conferred upon the modern FLOTUS, before going into a deeper examination of Eleanor Roosevelt’s extensive international career during and after her time as FLOTUS (Caroli, 2010, p. 6; NFLL, n.d.). Throughout her tenure as FLOTUS, Eleanor Roosevelt served not only to recast the role of FLOTUS as an outspoken policy activist in addition to merely a partner to their presidential husband, but demonstrated that women could participate actively within the masculine domain of international relations and foreign policy as well (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; Jalalzai, 2010).
For the purposes of this post, I will utilize Betty Caroli’s definition of an “active” FLOTUS policy advocate as a baseline upon which to assess Eleanor Roosevelt’s impact on the role of the first lady as going beyond domestic influence (Caroli, 2010, p. 6). Per Caroli, an active FLOTUS is a woman who “unapologetically and unequivocally took action…advocating change through formal government policy” rather than merely serving as the “nation’s hostess” whereby bettering her husband’s political fortunes from the private sphere (Caroli, 2010, p. 6). In other words, the modern first ladies have distinguished themselves whereby providing substantive representation, which involves heavy involvement within government and the public to push certain policies, including activities like holding positions on policy committees, the lobbying of legislatures, and assembling and mobilizing issue networks (Caroli, 2010). Naturally, the latter requires extensive resource and other networks of influence (Caroli, 2010).
Next, I will give a brief overview of the advantages modern first ladies like Eleanor Roosevelt had at their disposal, contributing to a greater potential for FLOTUS policy influence, especially at the international level (Caroli 2010). With the expanding range of problems governments had to cope with internationally as well as domestically led to an increase in the size and scope of government (Ikenberry 2012). Running parallel to this was the gradual expansion of FLOTUS’s resources, began by Roosevelt and greatly expanded upon in 1977 by Rosalynn Carter, and accelerated with the demands of the modern world that necessitated more specialized staff as time constraints became more prevalent (Caroli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). Compared to Edith Wilson, the FLOTUS preceding Roosevelt, Roosevelt had a much larger resource network from which to draw upon for her policy priorities, including human rights and gender equality (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). These resources included extensive social networks of her powerful and wealthy friends in Washington from various organizational backgrounds and staff from multiple White House departments before Kennedy acquired for FLOTUS more specialized staff explicitly hired to assist FLOTUS (Coreli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). On the other hand, Edith Wilson merely possessed a secretary merely “to meet the demands of her limited social calendar” and was largely regarded as preferring to stay out of the public eye (Miller Center, 2011). I will expand on Roosevelt’s formal and informal resource access below in expanding on her international policy advocacy.
In keeping with the Coreli’s (2010) definition of an active FLOTUS, I will now further expand on Eleanor Roosevelt’s foreign policy experience in comparison to that of Edith Wilson. Eleanor Roosevelt proved to be a textbook example of an active FLOTUS. Roosevelt’s foreign policy experience was largely an extrapolation and synthesis of issue area causes and advocacy experience that Roosevelt took with her to the international stage in the United Nations (NFLL, n.d.; Urdang, 2008). Namely, the primary issue areas Roosevelt took up were civil rights, gender equality, and human rights (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.; Urdang, 2008). Throughout the process of advocacy, Roosevelt frequently utilized a vast network of formal and informal resources to pursue her policy goals, which no doubt enabled her ascendancy to the status of international policymaker and eventual diplomatic representative during and after her tenure as FLOTUS (Caroli 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Of the more important networks to her was the Social Bureau and her weekly press conferences with women reporters, which allowed Roosevelt greater latitude to promote her issue areas to various publics (Black, 2010). In a similar vein, Roosevelt was heavily involved with and promoted the social justice group the American Student Union, the National Youth Administration (an outgrowth of the New Deal), and the New York branch of the League of Women Voters, to name a few (NFLL, n.d.). In addition, Roosevelt took to the airwaves while serving as FLOTUS on the NBC radio show “Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Own Program”, maintained a magazine and newspaper column that allowed her extensive access to the president’s constituents, and was a prolific author (GWU, n.d.; NFLL, n.d.). Compounding her informal networks of influence in various spheres and issue areas, Roosevelt also acquired political experience in campaigning for her husband for governor of New York in 1928 and for Democrat Al Smith’s unsuccessful presidential election bid in 1928 through the frequent preparation of campaign memos and occasionally, speeches (Caroli, 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Her extensive resume on domestic issue advocacy became issues of international importance whereby the Roosevelts became heavily involved in the 1945 founding of the United Nations, as a partial outgrowth of their human rights advocacy (NFLL, n.d.). Having served as FLOTUS during WWII, Roosevelt travelled extensively to visit soldiers and refugees abroad, which impacted her greatly in terms of policy advocacy to prevent or alleviate human suffering (NFLL, n.d.). Especially critical to catalyzing her heavy involvement in the United Nations was a response to one of her many critics, Addie Frizielle, who had expressed concerns about racial integration in the United States (GLIAH, 2009; NFLL, n.d.). Roosevelt’s response foreshadowed her international human rights work and would be enshrined in key parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights dealing with political, social, and economic rights (Gardner, 1988):
While some would contest the claim that Eleanor Roosevelt was not the first internationally involved first lady, whereby pointing to previous FLOTUS Edith Wilson’s service in an unofficial capacity as president while her husband was recovering from a severe stroke, Wilson did not have the same level of domestic and international experience as Roosevelt (Miller Center, 2011; WHHA, 2014). Whereas Roosevelt possessed expansive formal and informal issue networks and other resources, Wilson limited her advocacy strictly to narrow domestic issues during WWI including serving as a model for homefront efforts (Miller Center, 2011). Meanwhile, her travels abroad limited her to Europe, where she viewed the 1919 postwar peace conference in Versailles and visited with soldiers via the Red Cross (Miller Center, 2011). Similarly, while Edith also served as a close advisor to her husband on many domestic issues, especially during her husband’s sickness, Wilson does not meet the criteria of a FLOTUS policymaker as she did not extensively lobby for the passage of policy related to her issue areas like WWI homefront policy, whereas Roosevelt was strongly involved in her husband’s efforts to establish the United Nations and later in helping to draft the UDHR (Caroli, 2010; Miller Center, 2011; NFLL, n.d.).
Going back to her acting for the president after a serious stroke, Wilson did not “initiate programs or make major decisions” but merely screened the incoming flow of paperwork for the president, which excludes her as an active FLOTUS based on Caroli’s (2010) definition (WHHA, 2014). However, this is not to dismiss her active participation as FLOTUS in primarily national rather than international affairs, as she volunteered extensively through the Red Cross and was heavily involved in fundraising for the Red Cross and other organizations and served as a close advisor to her husband (Miller Center, 2011). Additionally, Wilson’s resource networks were not as extensive as Roosevelt’s, as she usually eschewed the traditional hostess role, in which events like that give FLOTUS an avenue to network with the influential in Washington (Caroli, 2010; Miller Center, 2011; NFLL, n.d.; WHHA, 2014).
In conclusion, Eleanor Roosevelt, through her extensive informal and formal resource networks and governance experience, elevated the FLOTUS to a status of policymaker, particularly through her work at the international level (Black, 2010; NFLL, n.d.; Gardner, 1988; Urdang, 2008). Arguably, through the foundation of her domestic issue and policy advocacy activities in the areas of human rights and gender equality, Eleanor Roosevelt could become the first FLOTUS to be an active international policy maker through her contributions to and involvement in the UN and the passage of the pivotal UDHR (NFLL, n.d.; Gardner, 1988). While previous first ladies like Edith Wilson were certainly active in various ways as constrained by issues like gender role expectations and stereotypes to gain political influence for her husband in what is known as the “white glove pulpit,” Eleanor Roosevelt elevated the role of FLOTUS to a major player on the international stage through her extensive domestic and international policy advocacy (NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001).
Previous first ladies, such as Edith Wilson, primarily exerted their influence through traditional hostessing and championing of issue causes rather than actively promoting legislation or policy at the domestic or international level (Watson, 2001; WHHA, 2014). By providing a template for FLOTUS policy advocacy at the domestic and international levels, Eleanor Roosevelt was a critical trailblazer for future modern first ladies, such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, to actively participate in areas of governance previously held to be exclusively masculine (Jalalzai, 2010; NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001). In the end, while the durability of this trend in active, policy-advocating first ladies remains to be seen, Eleanor Roosevelt demonstrated the viability of FLOTUS policy advocacy on domestic and world stages (Caroli, 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Works Cited:
Black, A. M. (2010). Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962). Retrieved February 7, 2017, from http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/abouteleanor/erbiography.cfm.
Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford University Press.
Eksterowicz & Paynter. (2000). The Evolution of the Role and Office of the First Lady: The Movement Toward Integration with the White House Office. The Social Science Journal, 37(4), 547-562. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://libweb.uwlax.edu:2066/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=91bd0df3-bb99-41fa-8590-0dde98eac42c%40sessionmgr103&vid=1&hid=129.
Gardner, R. N. (1988, December 09). Eleanor Roosevelt's Legacy: Human Rights. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/10/opinion/eleanor-roosevelt-s-legacy-human-rights.html.
George Washington University. (n.d.). Question: What Did ER Do at the United Nations? Retrieved February 07, 2017, from https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/q-and-a/q29.cfm.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2012). Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton University Press.
Jalalzai, F. (2010). Madam President: Gender, Power, and the Comparative Presidency. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 31(2), 132-165. Retrieved January 01, 2016, from https://uwlax.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/3561705/discussions/posts/41793351/ViewAttachment?fileId=40785180.
Miller Center of Public Affairs. (2011). Edith Wilson: First Lady. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://millercenter.org/president/essays/wilson-edith-1913-firstlady.
Urdang, I. (2008). Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Human Rights and the Creation of the United Nations. OAH Magazine of History, 22(2), 28-31. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162169.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. (2009). Eleanor Roosevelt’s Four Basic Rights, 1944 [Letter written May 13, 1944 to Addie Frizielle]. Retrieved February 8, 2017, from https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/world-war-ii/resources/eleanor-roosevelt%E2%80%99s-four-basic-rights-1944.
The National First Ladies’ Library (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Edith Wilson. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=29.
The National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=33.
Watson, Robert P. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), 9-14. Retrieved February 01, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163435.
White House Historical Association. (2014, December 31). Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/first-ladies/edithwilson.
The role of the First Lady of the United States (hereafter abbreviated as FLOTUS) has undergone significant evolution in the post WWII era (Caroli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). Post-WWII years saw the international scene reconfigured around the rise of major multilateral institutions on the international level, guided by the United States, which emerged as a major world power after WWII (Ikenberry, 2012). Therefore, institutions such as the United Nations (UN) became crucial in the foreign policy calculations of post WWII presidents after Franklin Roosevelt, who, along with former President Woodrow Wilson, advocated for the reform of the failed League of Nations to promote world peace and secure social justice (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008). Naturally, the role of the president’s spouse, the first lady, evolved with this new era of internationalism (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008). Eleanor Roosevelt, complementing her husband’s human rights advocacy, played a crucial role in her husband’s foreign policy strategy in the establishment of the UN in 1945 and the passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 (Ikenberry, 2012; Urdang, 2008).
I make the argument that Eleanor Roosevelt was the first FLOTUS to take on a role as an explicitly active international policy advocate, thus providing a template for future first ladies, such as Hillary Clinton, to engage effectively in foreign policy and diplomacy. First, I define an “active” FLOTUS, briefly describe the resource advantages conferred upon the modern FLOTUS, before going into a deeper examination of Eleanor Roosevelt’s extensive international career during and after her time as FLOTUS (Caroli, 2010, p. 6; NFLL, n.d.). Throughout her tenure as FLOTUS, Eleanor Roosevelt served not only to recast the role of FLOTUS as an outspoken policy activist in addition to merely a partner to their presidential husband, but demonstrated that women could participate actively within the masculine domain of international relations and foreign policy as well (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; Jalalzai, 2010).
For the purposes of this post, I will utilize Betty Caroli’s definition of an “active” FLOTUS policy advocate as a baseline upon which to assess Eleanor Roosevelt’s impact on the role of the first lady as going beyond domestic influence (Caroli, 2010, p. 6). Per Caroli, an active FLOTUS is a woman who “unapologetically and unequivocally took action…advocating change through formal government policy” rather than merely serving as the “nation’s hostess” whereby bettering her husband’s political fortunes from the private sphere (Caroli, 2010, p. 6). In other words, the modern first ladies have distinguished themselves whereby providing substantive representation, which involves heavy involvement within government and the public to push certain policies, including activities like holding positions on policy committees, the lobbying of legislatures, and assembling and mobilizing issue networks (Caroli, 2010). Naturally, the latter requires extensive resource and other networks of influence (Caroli, 2010).
Next, I will give a brief overview of the advantages modern first ladies like Eleanor Roosevelt had at their disposal, contributing to a greater potential for FLOTUS policy influence, especially at the international level (Caroli 2010). With the expanding range of problems governments had to cope with internationally as well as domestically led to an increase in the size and scope of government (Ikenberry 2012). Running parallel to this was the gradual expansion of FLOTUS’s resources, began by Roosevelt and greatly expanded upon in 1977 by Rosalynn Carter, and accelerated with the demands of the modern world that necessitated more specialized staff as time constraints became more prevalent (Caroli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). Compared to Edith Wilson, the FLOTUS preceding Roosevelt, Roosevelt had a much larger resource network from which to draw upon for her policy priorities, including human rights and gender equality (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000). These resources included extensive social networks of her powerful and wealthy friends in Washington from various organizational backgrounds and staff from multiple White House departments before Kennedy acquired for FLOTUS more specialized staff explicitly hired to assist FLOTUS (Coreli, 2010; Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.). On the other hand, Edith Wilson merely possessed a secretary merely “to meet the demands of her limited social calendar” and was largely regarded as preferring to stay out of the public eye (Miller Center, 2011). I will expand on Roosevelt’s formal and informal resource access below in expanding on her international policy advocacy.
In keeping with the Coreli’s (2010) definition of an active FLOTUS, I will now further expand on Eleanor Roosevelt’s foreign policy experience in comparison to that of Edith Wilson. Eleanor Roosevelt proved to be a textbook example of an active FLOTUS. Roosevelt’s foreign policy experience was largely an extrapolation and synthesis of issue area causes and advocacy experience that Roosevelt took with her to the international stage in the United Nations (NFLL, n.d.; Urdang, 2008). Namely, the primary issue areas Roosevelt took up were civil rights, gender equality, and human rights (Eksterowicz & Paynter, 2000; NFLL, n.d.; Urdang, 2008). Throughout the process of advocacy, Roosevelt frequently utilized a vast network of formal and informal resources to pursue her policy goals, which no doubt enabled her ascendancy to the status of international policymaker and eventual diplomatic representative during and after her tenure as FLOTUS (Caroli 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Of the more important networks to her was the Social Bureau and her weekly press conferences with women reporters, which allowed Roosevelt greater latitude to promote her issue areas to various publics (Black, 2010). In a similar vein, Roosevelt was heavily involved with and promoted the social justice group the American Student Union, the National Youth Administration (an outgrowth of the New Deal), and the New York branch of the League of Women Voters, to name a few (NFLL, n.d.). In addition, Roosevelt took to the airwaves while serving as FLOTUS on the NBC radio show “Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Own Program”, maintained a magazine and newspaper column that allowed her extensive access to the president’s constituents, and was a prolific author (GWU, n.d.; NFLL, n.d.). Compounding her informal networks of influence in various spheres and issue areas, Roosevelt also acquired political experience in campaigning for her husband for governor of New York in 1928 and for Democrat Al Smith’s unsuccessful presidential election bid in 1928 through the frequent preparation of campaign memos and occasionally, speeches (Caroli, 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Her extensive resume on domestic issue advocacy became issues of international importance whereby the Roosevelts became heavily involved in the 1945 founding of the United Nations, as a partial outgrowth of their human rights advocacy (NFLL, n.d.). Having served as FLOTUS during WWII, Roosevelt travelled extensively to visit soldiers and refugees abroad, which impacted her greatly in terms of policy advocacy to prevent or alleviate human suffering (NFLL, n.d.). Especially critical to catalyzing her heavy involvement in the United Nations was a response to one of her many critics, Addie Frizielle, who had expressed concerns about racial integration in the United States (GLIAH, 2009; NFLL, n.d.). Roosevelt’s response foreshadowed her international human rights work and would be enshrined in key parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights dealing with political, social, and economic rights (Gardner, 1988):
“The only things which I have advocated are four basic rights which I believe every citizen in a democracy must enjoy. These are the right for equal education, the right to work for equal pay according to ability, the right to justice under the law, the right to participate in the making of the laws by the use of the ballot…As a matter of fact, I doubt if it does any people anywhere any harm to tell them that you believe they are entitled to certain rights and you are willing to see them obtain those rights.” (E. Roosevelt, personal communication, May 13, 1944)After the passing of her husband, Roosevelt used her experience and clout gained from her time as FLOTUS to further pursue the codification of a universal human rights document (NFLL, n.d.). This foundational work would prepare her for more extensive work in the UN (NFLL, n.d.). Appointed by President Truman, Roosevelt was one of six of an official American delegation to the UN General Assembly (GA) first in 1945 to participate in the opening session of the GA and to lobby for the GA to write and pass what became known as the UDHR (NFLL, n.d.). Assigned to chair the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1947, the former FLOTUS elevated her human rights and social justice advocacy to the international arena as foreshadowed in her “Four Basic Rights” letter (GLIAH, 2009; GWU, n.d.). As head of the Human Rights Commission, Roosevelt helped to write and edit the various articles within the document and gave her famous speech reading the officially adopted UDHR in December 1948 (NFLL, n.d.). Despite not retaining her official UN representative status after Republicans came to power in 1952, she continued her work with the UN by serving as the spokesperson of the American Association of the United Nations (NFLL, n.d.). Likewise, her international service commitment extended to her chairing the Peace Corps Advisory Board under President Kennedy and travelling extensively advocating UN humanitarian projects (GWU, n.d.; NFLL, n.d.).
While some would contest the claim that Eleanor Roosevelt was not the first internationally involved first lady, whereby pointing to previous FLOTUS Edith Wilson’s service in an unofficial capacity as president while her husband was recovering from a severe stroke, Wilson did not have the same level of domestic and international experience as Roosevelt (Miller Center, 2011; WHHA, 2014). Whereas Roosevelt possessed expansive formal and informal issue networks and other resources, Wilson limited her advocacy strictly to narrow domestic issues during WWI including serving as a model for homefront efforts (Miller Center, 2011). Meanwhile, her travels abroad limited her to Europe, where she viewed the 1919 postwar peace conference in Versailles and visited with soldiers via the Red Cross (Miller Center, 2011). Similarly, while Edith also served as a close advisor to her husband on many domestic issues, especially during her husband’s sickness, Wilson does not meet the criteria of a FLOTUS policymaker as she did not extensively lobby for the passage of policy related to her issue areas like WWI homefront policy, whereas Roosevelt was strongly involved in her husband’s efforts to establish the United Nations and later in helping to draft the UDHR (Caroli, 2010; Miller Center, 2011; NFLL, n.d.).
Going back to her acting for the president after a serious stroke, Wilson did not “initiate programs or make major decisions” but merely screened the incoming flow of paperwork for the president, which excludes her as an active FLOTUS based on Caroli’s (2010) definition (WHHA, 2014). However, this is not to dismiss her active participation as FLOTUS in primarily national rather than international affairs, as she volunteered extensively through the Red Cross and was heavily involved in fundraising for the Red Cross and other organizations and served as a close advisor to her husband (Miller Center, 2011). Additionally, Wilson’s resource networks were not as extensive as Roosevelt’s, as she usually eschewed the traditional hostess role, in which events like that give FLOTUS an avenue to network with the influential in Washington (Caroli, 2010; Miller Center, 2011; NFLL, n.d.; WHHA, 2014).
In conclusion, Eleanor Roosevelt, through her extensive informal and formal resource networks and governance experience, elevated the FLOTUS to a status of policymaker, particularly through her work at the international level (Black, 2010; NFLL, n.d.; Gardner, 1988; Urdang, 2008). Arguably, through the foundation of her domestic issue and policy advocacy activities in the areas of human rights and gender equality, Eleanor Roosevelt could become the first FLOTUS to be an active international policy maker through her contributions to and involvement in the UN and the passage of the pivotal UDHR (NFLL, n.d.; Gardner, 1988). While previous first ladies like Edith Wilson were certainly active in various ways as constrained by issues like gender role expectations and stereotypes to gain political influence for her husband in what is known as the “white glove pulpit,” Eleanor Roosevelt elevated the role of FLOTUS to a major player on the international stage through her extensive domestic and international policy advocacy (NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001).
Previous first ladies, such as Edith Wilson, primarily exerted their influence through traditional hostessing and championing of issue causes rather than actively promoting legislation or policy at the domestic or international level (Watson, 2001; WHHA, 2014). By providing a template for FLOTUS policy advocacy at the domestic and international levels, Eleanor Roosevelt was a critical trailblazer for future modern first ladies, such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, to actively participate in areas of governance previously held to be exclusively masculine (Jalalzai, 2010; NFLL, n.d.; Watson, 2001). In the end, while the durability of this trend in active, policy-advocating first ladies remains to be seen, Eleanor Roosevelt demonstrated the viability of FLOTUS policy advocacy on domestic and world stages (Caroli, 2010; NFLL, n.d.).
Works Cited:
Black, A. M. (2010). Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, (October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962). Retrieved February 7, 2017, from http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/abouteleanor/erbiography.cfm.
Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford University Press.
Eksterowicz & Paynter. (2000). The Evolution of the Role and Office of the First Lady: The Movement Toward Integration with the White House Office. The Social Science Journal, 37(4), 547-562. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://libweb.uwlax.edu:2066/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=91bd0df3-bb99-41fa-8590-0dde98eac42c%40sessionmgr103&vid=1&hid=129.
Gardner, R. N. (1988, December 09). Eleanor Roosevelt's Legacy: Human Rights. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/10/opinion/eleanor-roosevelt-s-legacy-human-rights.html.
George Washington University. (n.d.). Question: What Did ER Do at the United Nations? Retrieved February 07, 2017, from https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/q-and-a/q29.cfm.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2012). Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton University Press.
Jalalzai, F. (2010). Madam President: Gender, Power, and the Comparative Presidency. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 31(2), 132-165. Retrieved January 01, 2016, from https://uwlax.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/3561705/discussions/posts/41793351/ViewAttachment?fileId=40785180.
Miller Center of Public Affairs. (2011). Edith Wilson: First Lady. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://millercenter.org/president/essays/wilson-edith-1913-firstlady.
Urdang, I. (2008). Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: Human Rights and the Creation of the United Nations. OAH Magazine of History, 22(2), 28-31. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162169.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. (2009). Eleanor Roosevelt’s Four Basic Rights, 1944 [Letter written May 13, 1944 to Addie Frizielle]. Retrieved February 8, 2017, from https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/world-war-ii/resources/eleanor-roosevelt%E2%80%99s-four-basic-rights-1944.
The National First Ladies’ Library (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Edith Wilson. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=29.
The National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Eleanor Roosevelt. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=33.
Watson, Robert P. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), 9-14. Retrieved February 01, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163435.
White House Historical Association. (2014, December 31). Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Retrieved February 06, 2017, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/first-ladies/edithwilson.
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