The Backstory: The unelected female president

Despite the fact there have been well over 125 female presidents and prime ministers around the world, the U.S. has never had a woman who ran the country. Or did we?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ugh, here we go. As we get ready to elect
a president again in twenty twenty four, we got to
come to terms with the fact that we have never
had a female president, or have we. Well, it seems
we had a woman secretly acting as president before women
even had the right to vote, and she was embroiled
in a scandal too while at the White House. I'm

(00:20):
Patty Steele, the secret President. Next on the backstory. We're
back with the backstory. All right. Here we are twenty
twenty four, an election year, and amazingly, the United States
has never had a president who was a woman. In
the past eighty years, there have been more than one

(00:41):
hundred and twenty five women who were presidents or prime
ministers around the world, in countries like India, England, Ireland, Israel, France, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Taiwan, Ethiopia,
and so many more, but again none in the US. Now,
the thing is, we never allowed women to even vote,
much less run for office for almost our first one

(01:02):
hundred and fifty years. New Zealand gave women the right
to cast their votes in eighteen ninety three. Australia soon followed,
as did Finland, Norway and Denmark. Most of Europe and
Asia followed after that, but the US didn't send women
to the polls until nineteen twenty. But there was one woman,
Edith Galt Wilson, who wasn't even able to vote for

(01:25):
her future husband when he was elected president in nineteen twelve,
but she became one of the most powerful first ladies ever,
the acting president at the end of her husband's second term,
despite the fact their relationship was at first considered sort
of scandalous. Woodrow Wilson was a total academic. He had

(01:47):
a PhD in history and another one in political science
from Johns Hopkins University. Then he taught at several colleges,
and finally he became president of Princeton University. For thirty years.
He was married to his first wife, Ellen, but just
a year after he was elected president in nineteen twelve,

(02:07):
Ellen died along comes Edith Gault, a recent widow as well,
and President Wilson was smitten immediately. She was brilliant, beautiful,
and sixteen years younger. He proposed right after meeting her, saying,
in this place, time is not measured by weeks or
months or years, but by deep human experiences. Wow, is

(02:31):
that of sales pitch or what I think I'd marry
him too. But anyway, the public not so smitten with
the love affair. Some gossips said President Wilson had cheated
on his first wife with Edith, and it got worse
than that. Some folks claimed that Wilson and Edith had
murdered his first first lady. It so disturbed him Wilson

(02:52):
was on the verge of breaking the engagement to Edith
to save his presidency and his reputation, but Edith stayed calm.
She insisted on just postponing the wedding until the end
of Wilson's first official year of mourning over Ellen's death.
They finally married on December eighteenth, nineteen fifteen. Edith was
a pretty quick study, and she was a terrific First

(03:15):
Lady during World War One. To set an example, she
instituted rationing at the White House, including gasless Sundays, neatless Mondays,
and wheatless Wednesdays. She brought in sheep to graze on
the White House lawn rather than use men to mow
it with machines, and then she had the sheep's wool

(03:35):
auctioned off to benefit the Red Cross. She also became
the first first lady to visit Europe while her husband
was in office, visiting troops with him in nineteen eighteen
and nineteen nineteen during World War One, and also being
on hand when he was there to sign the Treaty
of Versailles. But late in nineteen nineteen, the year before

(03:56):
women finally got the right to vote in the US,
Woodrow Wilson had a severe stroke. It left him bedridden
and partially paralyzed. In order to keep his condition from
the public, even his vice president and his cabinet were
kind of kept out of the loop with regards to
how sick he was. At first, Edith acted as a

(04:16):
sort of gatekeeper to the president, dealing with major decisions, documents,
and meetings without bothering him. She went over all his
paperwork and correspondence, and she only ran things by him
when he sort of was able to go over things
and also was feeling a little bit better. Cabinet members
had to go through Edith to get info to the president,

(04:37):
and insiders called her the Presidentress or the secret President.
She was making major policy decisions, plus consulting with doctors
and advisors, all while maintaining the image the president, Wilson
was still fully in charge, a heck of a lot easier,
I guess in the days before TV or even much radio,

(04:57):
and she maintained the role and the secret for the
rest of his presidency until early nineteen twenty one. Edith
did have her critics, folks who suspected she was overstepping
her bounds and taking on a role she didn't have
the constitutional authority to take on. And once again, she
was a woman. She couldn't even vote, much less run

(05:18):
for office, much less be the president. Now on the
other side, supporters said whatever she was doing she did
out of loyalty to her husband and the nation during
a vulnerable post World War One time, in a time
when women didn't have much of a public voice, Edith
Gault Wilson made hers heard loud and clear, and what

(05:39):
she did altered the course of American history. If you
have any stories you would like me to take a
deep dive into and share, please feel free to direct
message me on Facebook at Patty Steele or on Instagram
at real Payatty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a

(06:04):
production of iHeartMedia Premiere Networks. The Elvis Durand Group and
Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer
Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and
on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

(06:26):
Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know.