This chapter uses the histories of baseball (Ty Cobb vs. Babe Ruth) and presidential power rankings, and the reception history of Eleanor Roosevelt to unearth a sea change in greatness conversations. During the 1950s, America swapped Ty Cobb for Babe Ruth and Washington for FDR to signal a change in the value of greatness. Whereas Americans had valued greatness as a shorthand for changemaking, the postwar period witnessed a search for nostalgic heroes meant to confirm already-established ideals of this generation, later to be designated the “Greatest Generation.”

This chapter uses the lens of feminine rhetorical style to examine how gendered expectations affect first ladies’ public speeches and how their rhetorical styles evolved over time. Selected speeches of first ladies from Eleanor Roosevelt to Melania Trump are analyzed and five recurring themes are reviewed. These include the discussion of feminine topics such as family and childcare and envisioning women’s role in society, addressing masculine issues such as war and politics through feminine rhetoric, connecting with audiences as peers, use of personal narratives, and use of expert sources and statistics. The chapter concludes that first ladies’ addresses are usually delivered within the bounds of stereotypical gendered expectations, though subtle deviations can be found depending on the first lady’s public image, her professional experience, and the popular opinion of the times. The analysis of first ladies’ rhetorical styles helps us better understand their evolving role in US politics.

During wartime, the Constitution requires the president to lead the nation as commander-in-chief. But what about first ladies? As wives, mothers, and co-equal partners, these “first ladies-in-chief” have found themselves serving as field companion to the commander-in-chief, mother-in-chief to sons on combat duty, steward of national resources, and caretakers to the nation’s wounded. This chapter considers six prominent first ladies during major American conflicts: Martha Washington and the Revolutionary War, Dolley Madison and the War of 1812, Mary Todd Lincoln and the Civil War, Edith Wilson and World War I, Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II, Lady Bird Johnson and Vietnam, and Barbara and Laura Bush during the first and second Gulf Wars. Taken together, they paint the first lady as a vital contributor to the nation’s military efforts who deserve our recognition and respect.

Martha Washington set countless precedents as first lady—including the use of enslaved labor in the Washingtons’ presidential household. One-third of America’s first ladies were born or married into slave–owning families, making it an important but often overlooked part of their identities and actions in the White House and beyond. The relationship between first ladies and race goes far beyond the subject of slavery. Throughout history, these women have used their platform to bring attention to issues affecting Americans, champion causes, and encourage the president to act. As unelected participants in an administration, first ladies have sometimes been able to pursue civil rights with more freedom and flexibility than their spouses, speaking out against lynching, segregation, and other concerns facing the Black community. This chapter will explore the complex role of first ladies in the fight for equal rights using case studies from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Electronic media use by first ladies dates to the 1930s when Lou Hoover delivered her first radio address. The development of radio and television—and later social media—placed a greater emphasis on image and personality, giving first ladies the opportunity to be heard as well as seen, and in some cases offering them more control over their messaging. This chapter looks at several notable examples of how first ladies strategically used—and in some cases misused—electronic media to shape their public image, support their husband’s programs, and advocate for their own causes.

In 235 years, only about two dozen women have experienced the role of “mourner in chief” as current or former first ladies grieving a presidential husband. This chapter examines the performances of six of these women in different historical contexts and under very different circumstances: Martha Washington, Mary Lincoln, Lucretia Garfield, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Nancy Reagan. This analysis considers first ladies’ performances of mourning during presidents’ illness or assassination; funerals and memorial services; and the expanse of time for which they survived their husbands. Through these case studies, the authors consider how a first lady’s mourning can shape her husband’s legacy, and what it can teach us about how Americans grieve.

Public memory denotes how groups recall the past and how those ideas take shape, evolve, and prompt differences or agreement about history’s events and actors. Examining first ladies through their tenures in office, memoirs, interviews, historic sites, and memorials often reveal how they wanted to be remembered. Biographies, dramatic films, documentaries, and historical fiction about them can determine how presidential wives’ legacies are preserved or morph in the public psyche over time. Siena College Research Institute’s scholar polls and Ranker online surveys rate first ladies among historians and the general public. This chapter applies such evidence to first ladies Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, Mary Lincoln, Edith Wilson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush. Each exemplifies a variety of legacies—both positive and negative—and reflects how memorializations and public memories evolve.

US first ladies have exercised a complicated kind of activism when it comes to women’s rights. Some have acted as vocal advocates to insist that women’s equality should be a national priority. Others have used their platform more quietly to intervene on behalf of women’s rights. Still others have held and promoted views that have contradicted, undermined, or altogether avoided efforts to advance women’s rights. This chapter traces how US first ladies have addressed and influenced the prevailing women’s rights issues of their day, with a focus on two national campaigns: a federal amendment for women’s suffrage and a federal amendment for equal rights. By engaging or avoiding the debates surrounding women’s suffrage and the ERA, these women stretched the political and rhetorical boundaries of their platform and shaped public understanding about the ongoing struggle for women’s equality in the United States.

Amy Beach’s career paralleled the rise of women’s clubs across America; the widespread amateur and professional musical organizations were important to her success. Gendered musical communities not only hosted Beach as both pianist and composer but provided commissions and audiences to purchase and perform her music, such as the thirty pieces she created for the women’s choruses associated with clubs. Beach and her compositions figured heavily in women’s organizations’ nationalistic agendas and were highlighted in their educational materials. Beach was active in the National Federation of Music Clubs, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National League of American Pen Women, and numerous other groups; her association with the NLAPW led to two White House appearances. These organizations provided her with supportive networks of like-minded women and deep friendships. In turn, Beach’s stature validated clubs’ efforts to promote America’s music and to make women central to its musical life.

Both sides in the battle over postwar German policy shared the same ultimate objective: to reduce the likelihood of another world war. The question was how to achieve it. Both sides could make compelling cases. In Treasury Secretary Morgenthau’s view, future peace required the dismantling of Germany’s capacity to wage war. It was that simple. Remove their means of manufacturing the weapons of modern war, and the Germans could not threaten the peace. By contrast, War Secretary Stimson believed that peace required prosperity, and by forcing Germany to subsist at artificially low living standards, the Allies would breed resentments that would undermine stability. Morgenthau’s view was a negative conception of world order: disintegrate Germany from the calculus of great power politics, and the result would equal peace. Stimson’s view was more positive: reintegrate Germany into European recovery, and the Germans would become stakeholders in an interdependent world. Roosevelt’s advisors split down this divide. Their position depended in large part on what each believed about the German people, themselves.

When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Reverend John MacLean did not rejoice at the mass slaughter. Instead, he accepted the notion that the bombs brought an end to the war, but he felt that America had a duty to help rebuild. On January 6, 1946, MacLean announced to his church that God wanted him to raise money among American Christians for the restoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He chose not to declare the atomic bombings as right or wrong; he simply tip-toed to the edge of calling it immoral. He did not go as far as to claim that the United States needed to apologize for the nuclear attacks. He merely pointed out that “a Christian nation had not only killed many thousands of helpless civilians, but destroyed the homes of countless others, leaving them shocked, wounded, terrified and deprived of a means of livelihood.” What began as a fund-raising drive by American Christians to atone for the atomic bombs quickly morphed into a campaign to build a Christian university in Japan. This chapter follows the American efforts to create this university and the leading ex-officials who played the most vital roles, from Ambassador Joseph Grew to Will Clayton to Eleanor Roosevelt.

Three leading Americans, each officially out of power, spent 1948 grappling with the coming Cold War. Henry Wallace sought accommodation with the Soviets. Eleanor Roosevelt still viewed Germany as the greater threat and pressed for conciliation with the Russians. Herbert Hoover saw no alternative to confrontation. This chapter tells the story of each person’s efforts to shape both the public discourse and the official policy at the dawn of a cold peace.

Eleanor Roosevelt has long been seen as the conscience of the nation, but too little attention has focused on her support of the Japanese-American internment. Caught in the impossible position of opposing internment yet needing to support her husband’s policy, Mrs. Roosevelt publicly backed the plan. When we listen back to her speeches and read her writings at the time, we find a person trying her best to ameliorate the worst aspects of the government’s actions, but simultaneously revealing far less public concern for the victims than we might have imagined.Mrs. Roosevelt’s morally muddled actions contrasted with those of Assistant War Secretary John McCloy. The chapter examines McCloy’s extensive knowledge of German sabotage and how this effected his perception of the Japanese-American threat.

The final chapter asks what became of the men and women who played vital parts in America’s struggles between vengeance and virtue. It asks whether any of these leaders regretted their actions, which actions, and why.

A similarity in the diplomatic practice of American and Irish foreign services at this time was the use of the respective nation’s culture, its political values and its foreign policies to promote national interests. The chapter recreates the social circles of the Irish diplomat in Roosevelt’s America. It is argued that the Irish representatives and their spouses assisted in establishing Irish national identity separate from that of Britain and the commonwealth, more Americans became interested in Irish literature, language and music and came to see Ireland as a place to visit. But de Valera’s on-going aim to secure official America’s assistance with resolving the Anglo-Irish economic war and the partition problem, improving the economy and combatting anglophile views in the Roosevelt administration were difficult for the diplomats to realise. By the 1930s Ireland’s problems were of less interest to US politicians and public alike.

Two sentiments governed the postwar world: fear and hope. These two feelings dominated the debates that gave birth to both the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The League of Nations had failed. Leaders had expressed the desire for a world grounded in human rights but could not agree on what that meant or whether individual rights trumped the sovereign rights of nations. The UN Charter reflected these concerns, recognizing human rights but leaving their scope undefined. No precedents existed to guide the work. A committee of eighteen nations, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, accepted the unprecedented assignment of defining basic rights for all people everywhere. After consulting with noted jurists, philosophers, and social justice organizations, the committee set out to draft a document that would recognize the horrors of war and engender a commitment to peace. They envisioned a world governed more by hope than by fear. It was hard work. The debate was punctuated by escalating Cold War politics. A legally binding document seemed out of reach. All efforts turned instead to securing a declaration of human rights, which ultimately paved the way for legally binding commitments and energized a budding human rights movement.