ImprintLawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2020]
Descriptionxiii, 419 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Note:Introduction / Catherine Allgor and Katherine A. S. Sibley -- Part I. From the Early Republic through late Reconstruction -- Martha Washington: southern influences in shaping an institution / Diana Bartelli Carlin -- Dolley Madison and the making of a Capital etiquette / Marry Ellen Scofield -- Elizabeth Kortright Monroe: La Belle Americaine / Mary Stockwell -- Reclamation of a First Lady: Julia Gardiner Tyler's pursuit of a Federal government pension / Christopher J. Leahy and Sharon Williams Leahy -- A First Lady, a funeral, and a legacy: press coverage of the death of Sarah Polk / Teri Finneman -- Mary Lincoln, Elizabeth Keckly, and the perils of White House friendship / Sylvia D. Hoffert -- Southern woman, Republican partisan: Mary Lincoln's wartime identity / Laura Mammina -- Press and propaganda: examining war coverage of the Confederate First Lady / Teri Finneman -- Eliza Johnson, First Lady of the Tennessee hill country / John F. Marszalek -- Julia Dent Grant: aspiring southerner / Louie P. Gallo -- Southern roots of activism / Nancy Beck Young -- Part II. From the Progressive Era to the present century -- Ellen Axson Wilson: a progressive southern First Lady / Lisa M. Burns -- Edith Bolling Wilson: a "southern" new woman / Valerie Palmer-Mehta -- Lady Bird Johnson: First Lady of Deeds / Nancy Kegan Smith -- Diplomacy first: Rosalynn Carter as Diplomat / Kristin L. Ahlberg -- The Lone Star Yankee as First Lady: Barbara Bush of Texas / Myra G. Gutin -- A southern primer: Hillary goes to Arkansas / Janette Kenner Muir -- Laura Bush: Texan by nature / Anita B. McBride -- Reflecting on the activism of twentieth- and twenty-first-century first ladies / Katherine A.S. Sibley.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Note:"The American South has long been understood to have a strong sense of place, as seen especially in the arts. This distinctive Southern culture has also had an important influence on the American first ladies, though scholars have largely overlooked the region's role in shaping their legacy. Through nineteen biographical and thematic chapters, Southern First Ladies explores how the cultural background of the Southern first ladies shaped their priorities and responsibilities. With four of the first five presidents from the South, their partners played an important role in the earliest definition and development of what it has meant to be first lady, especially in the ways they wrestled with the traditions of their backgrounds and responded to often confining social expectations. Part one of the volume surveys the Southern first ladies from the Early Republic to the late Reconstruction period. Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, and Julia Tyler defined the Southern first lady, instituting and reinforcing Southern practices and prejudices, especially regarding gender, race, and the institution of slavery. These practices violently tore the country apart during the Civil War, which the book explores by looking at the complex, polarizing figures of Mary Lincoln and Varina Davis. Nancy Beck Young concludes the first part by focusing on the Southern roots of the activism that has come to characterize this office. Part two then examines the activist first ladies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the Progressive era first ladies, Ellen and Edith Wilson, the environmentally focused Lady Bird Johnson, and the diplomacy of Rosalynn Carter. The authors also look at those who migrated to the South, such as Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton. Katherine Sibley concludes the volume by reflecting on the activism of the modern first ladies."-- Provided by publisher.
