Do political parties influence the First Lady's duties?

The role of First Lady is extraconstitutional, and the functions of this position have varied across administrations. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the influence political parties may have on the role of the First Lady.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by a special guest,
Jane McGrath. I, Candice, thanks for having me, of course,
welcome to Factor Fiction. Thank you. If you are anything

(00:23):
like me, you've been completely bombarded with news of the election.
Oh yeah, definitely the question on people's minds who will
be the next president of the United States. I think
the acronym for that is potus. But I'm curious to
know who is going to be the next first Lady
of the United States or the flutists. So and when

(00:43):
you talk about first lady, I'm sure there are several
names that come to mind for me, at least I
think of Jackie Oh oh, definitely, or Elinor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton. Yeah,
even going back to like Martha Washington and stuff like that,
the first first lady. And you know, when Martha was
first Lady, the title first Lady hadn't even been thought of.

(01:04):
She was called Lady Washington. And it wasn't until Zachary
Taylor delivered a eulogy for Dolly Madison that anyone used
the term first Lady. I think he called her our
first Lady of the United States, and then the term
didn't stick until eighteen sixty one when it was applied
to Mary Todd Lincoln, and then websters picked it up
a little while later it was in the dictionary. It

(01:25):
became official. But until then people had tossed around words
like Mrs President or just lady, or don't have the
same ring. No, it doesn't have like the same cashet
as First Lady, and a couple of zingers were thrown
in there, like her majesty, and that was a real
insult if a first lety know, it doesn't seem right
for America. No, they were trying to break from the monarchy.

(01:49):
But First Lady was tricky for Washington because she had
no idea how the office was supposed to go. And
I think all the first ladies in that era, the
first era of first Ladies about seventeen eighty nine eighteen
seventeen UM. There's just Buck by Robert P. Watson, all
about the First Lady and he defines these eras and
he calls that one the era of queenly first ladies.

(02:12):
That makes sense because they're very matronly and reserved and
they stay in the background, thank you. It's like they're
trying to figure out what is the United States? How
do I fit in? But then after the queenly first ladies,
we have an era of about eighteen seventeen eighteen sixty
nine that Watson calls the era of common first ladies

(02:32):
or idle first ladies. Yeah, and that makes sense because
the I guess the presidents elected during that time became
more common men presidents, and so their ladies sort of
followed suit, and they were the same way exactly, not
as regal, more plain folk if you would. Eighteen sixty
nine nineteen o one, this matches up with the Gilded
Age in America and suffrage started becoming a bigger deal.

(02:54):
First ladies themselves were a little bit more active, and
they came into the office really well educated, usually with
some pretty nice talents to their names. And then right
around the turn of the century and after that we
have the first modern first lady. And that makes sense
because the president by the time was able to openly
condone suffrage, and the president and first lady were were

(03:17):
able to together be behind the particular political movement that
struck close to home. Yeah, they were co campaign ors,
almost exactly partners, per say, but they were definitely in
that position together. And around nineteen was the era of
media buzz, and the First Family was the subject of

(03:38):
newspapers and the camera lens and they were everywhere. And
so we get later towards that era and television comes
into play. That especially had a big effect, and we
see first ladies starting to become a little bit more
conventional again, because I think on the whole, that's what
a lot of Americans wanted to see. And then nineteen
until the present day, we have the totally modern first Lady,

(04:02):
and she is the president's partner at this point. Yeah,
she becomes much more politically active and of herself, not
even as a coca and painter, just by herself, would
you say that's true? Yeah, And that raises an interesting question,
and that is what is the first Lady supposed to do?
That's a good question because a lot of it depends
a first lady sort of defines her own role, and

(04:23):
it depends on her personality a lot, whether she wants
to be active or whether she wants to be in
the background. And especially because the first Lady the office
of First Lady isn't um listed in the Constitution by
any rights. So, uh, it's an odd role in that
she can define it herself. And we call it extra
constitutional because the only way she can come into the

(04:45):
office the first Lady is by marrying the man who
is elected president. And so that right there sort of
implies that she has to be a wife and a
mother or a grandmother. Um, I think that Pete would
like to see her represent some aspect of the American family.

(05:05):
She has to be a campaigner, like we've already said,
she has to be a hostess at the White House.
She has to serve the tease and the state dinners
and receive guests. She has to continue a line of traditions, um,
the Easter egg roll, the lighting of the Christmas tree,
things like this that people look to, you know, just
for a little bit of amusement. Washington can be very

(05:26):
heavy sometime, so we like to see a lot of
children on the White House lawn. It just it makes
us happy, or at least me, And more recently now
than in the past, we see the First Lady coming
in with a platform, and it could be anything from
Nancy Reagan's just say No anti drug campaign to Hillary
Clinton advocating for child's welfare, or um Laura Bush, who

(05:51):
is a big advocate of literacy, for instance. That's true,
And I was I was pondering something about this podcast.
Do you think the political parties matter is the role
of the first lady? Gosh, when I asked you to
be my special guest, I didn't know it's going to
be such a hard factory questions. Gosh, that's tough saying.
If we really want to look at it in terms

(06:11):
of Democratic first ladies US Republican first ladies, and speak
in very general terms, I would say the Democratic ones
who for me at least that means eleanor Roosevelt, for instance,
Hillary Clinton. We see them much more politically active. They
attend congressional hearings, They help to propose new policies, They

(06:32):
advise their husbands. They really are partners, whereas Republican first ladies,
again a generalization, are more partners in marriage. They tend
to fulfill more traditional roles, you know, being the wife,
supporting the husband and the decisions that he has to make.
We look at someone like Barbara Bush, for instance, and

(06:53):
I think that it was pretty obvious that she didn't
relish all of the responsibilities that came along with being
for lady, but she fulfilled them, and she was better
at the hostessing side, and I think she enjoyed that
aspect more than policy making. Yeah, I think that correlates
a bit too political philosophies in a way, Like you
look at Democrats who typically tend to be a little
bit more liberal and uh see a more active role

(07:16):
of the federal government, whereas Republicans um as a countrary,
they they're they tend to be more conservative and like
the federal government to take less of a role. So
it sort of correlates to the First Lady as well.
It's pretty interesting, definitely, And the First Lady, like the
Presidency itself, is an office that is not without its scandals.
And if we were broke back, I mean, we could

(07:37):
look as far back as a couple hundred years ago
or even a few years ago and and see what
has been brewing in the East Wing, which is where
Eleanor Roosevelt set up the first First Lady's office. Um,
interestingly enough, Hillary Clinton actually requested that the First Lady's
Office be moved to the West wing. Even more involved,
even more involved so that she would have closer proximity

(07:59):
to the Oval office. Again, we have a very tight
partnership that we see in that relationship between president and
first lady. But like I said, there's all sorts of
scandals that come with trying to define an extra constitutional office.
And I know that you had a few favorite examples
in history of some first ladies who will drop your
jaw really Yeah, Well, one big scandal um that I

(08:21):
found interesting was one concerning Rachel Jackson. Uh. It's pretty
interesting because Rachel, you know, she came started from the
backwoodwoods country, and um, when she was young, she married
this one guy named Lewis Robarts, and from the beginning
it was a pretty rocky marriage, Like he was apparently
of the jealous type, and uh, they soon split up.

(08:43):
Things didn't work out for them, and a couple of
years later, Rachel heard that Robards got to follow a
divorce and she was a free woman, so she uh
in the meantime, had met this gallant lady named Andrew
Jackson and she was ready to marry him. So she
did that, only to find out two years later that
the Robarts did not actually get a divorce and they

(09:03):
did Um, you can imagine what his political opponents would say.
And he actually ended up getting into a few duels
um as a result of um of accusations about the
scandals with Rachel. And she was actually an unlikely center
of this drama because as a woman, she was she
was rather portly woman, let's say. Uh, and she smoked
a pipe and a cigar actually, which was coming in

(09:25):
where she came from, but not so much in the
Washington political elite. Uh So she was not really a
big fan of becoming a first lady. And uh, all
the while during the presidential campaign she was getting maligned.
Uh and so actually she died right before she got
a chance to enter the White House. Yeah, and Jackson
always blamed her death on the media attacks. And you know,

(09:47):
there aren't enough duels today. You don't see a lot
of people going after the challenging them to duels. I
think it was what Hugh Grant, I think through a
soup can or something simpafarazzi a couple of months ago.
And yeah, that's great, challenge people to duels when they
put you in a bad life. No, no, I'm not
advocating that at all. Um. I imagine it's really hard

(10:07):
to be constantly in the presses. I like that. Even
this past year when um Jenna Bush was planning her wedding,
it was in newspapers, it was on entertainment shows, it
was on news shows. You know, the white House wedding
is a big to do, and she ended up not
even having a white House wedding because she wanted some

(10:27):
you know, smige in privacy to this special day. But
you can't really have that privacy when you're in the
first family because your life becomes a public spectacle. And
in that regard, you have to tolerate all sorts of
jabs that are throwing your way. And one of my
favorite things that someone has said in regards to this
bad press actually came from Hillary. She was actually quoted

(10:52):
as saying, I read stories and hear things about me,
and I go, I wouldn't like her either. And I think,
what a great attitude have, because you really would have
to let things roll off your back, especially when people
are saying you're taking too much power or you're not
you're not taking enough, you're sitting by idol. And that
was a criticism that befell Mary Todd Lincoln back when

(11:12):
she was in the White House. Of course, during you know,
the midst of the Civil War, she became really unpopular.
For one, because she was spending a lot of money.
She did this as a way to offset some depression
that came from the death of one of her sons.
And she also had relations in the fighting for the
Cells I believe in the Civil War. Yeah, because her
husband obviously was advocating for the Union, and then she

(11:35):
had family who was fighting for the Confederacy. So she
was a woman torn into and the press ripped her apart.
You know, she was a Kentucky Southern bell who happened
to marry a man who became the President of the
United States, and she may not have been prepared for
that position. I think she thought that Washington was going
to be all parties and balls, and during the Civil

(11:57):
War it was not, most definitely, and she would get
terrible migraines and fits of panic. And you know, I
wish I could have been there to see this. But
apparently even if Lincoln were presenting a speech somewhere or
at a rally where he was speaking, if Ray not Rachel,
excuse me, if Mary Todd were taken over by illness,

(12:18):
everything would stop and it was about her suddenly, you know,
never mind the fact that people are dying on battle
and this is actually something that people in America said
to her. You know, she was grieving the loss of
her child, and they're saying, our sons are dying on battlefields.
At least you have to be at your son's side
when he died. But the attention was about her, and
people were not happy about it. So all sorts of

(12:39):
crazy first lady scandals out there, but I think that
a lot remains to be seen in the upcoming years
as the next UM president is chosen and by virtue
of that, the next first lady. So it's pretty exciting.
It is depending on, you know, what her her platform
will be, how still approached the office. It's a wide
open book. And we're actually going to revere Yell Jane's

(13:01):
presidential namesake. That's right. Uh, it's madisone. My middle name
is Madison Jane Madison McGrath, and my dad was a
big constitution. Both for those of you keeping score minus,
Candice may give two great names and for to plus
like a million more interesting topics. Visit how Stuff Work

(13:21):
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