First Governor, First Lady


Book Description

John Long Routt was born in 1826 in Eddyville, Kentucky. He married Hester Ann Woodson in 1845 in Bloomington, Illinois. They had five children. He served in the Union Army in the Civil War. Hester died in 1872 and John married Eliza Pickrell, daughter of Benjamin Franklin Pickrell and Mary Ann Elkin, in 1874 in Decatur, Illinois. They had one daughter. John was appointed territorial governor of Colorado in 1875. He also served as state governor and mayor of Denver City.




First Lady from Plains


Book Description

First Lady from Plains, first published in 1984, is Rosalynn’s Carter’s autobiography, covering her life from her childhood in Plains, Georgia, through her time as First Lady. It is “a readable, lively and revealing account of the Carters and their remarkable journey from rural Georgia to the White House in a span of ten years” (The New York Times).




Governor Lady


Book Description

"Story of Nellie Tayloe Ross, native Missourian and governor of Wyoming, vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and the first female director of the U.S. Mint"--Provided by publisher.




Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of Tennessee and Washington


Book Description

Dark ringlets of curls and a pretty oval face reflecting integrity and charm were the endearing features of Sarah Childress Polk wife and First Lady of President James K Polk who served from 1844 to 1848 during America's era of expansionist Manifest Destiny. She was one of the first truly politically important First Ladies of America because she acted as her husband's main political adviser, close confidante and personal secretary, and was blessed with a sound acumen and moral uprightness. Both in her domestic charm and political acumen, Sarah Childress Polk became a role model for future First Ladies to follow both in strength of character and political performance.




Lady First


Book Description

The little-known story of remarkable First Lady Sarah Polk—a brilliant master of the art of high politics and a crucial but unrecognized figure in the history of American feminism. While the Women’s Rights convention was taking place at Seneca Falls in 1848, First Lady Sarah Childress Polk was wielding influence unprecedented for a woman in Washington, D.C. Yet, while history remembers the women of the convention, it has all but forgotten Sarah Polk. Now, in her riveting biography, Amy S. Greenberg brings Sarah’s story into vivid focus. We see Sarah as the daughter of a frontiersman who raised her to discuss politics and business with men; we see the savvy and charm she brandished in order to help her brilliant but unlikeable husband, James K. Polk, ascend to the White House. We watch as she exercises truly extraordinary power as First Lady: quietly manipulating elected officials, shaping foreign policy, and directing a campaign in support of America’s expansionist war against Mexico. And we meet many of the enslaved men and women whose difficult labor made Sarah’s political success possible. Sarah Polk’s life spanned nearly the entirety of the nineteenth-century. But her own legacy, which profoundly transformed the South, continues to endure. Comprehensive, nuanced, and brimming with invaluable insight, Lady First is a revelation of our twelfth First Lady’s complex but essential part in American feminism.




Miriam Amanda Ferguson


Book Description

Content to be a wife & mother, Miriam had a drastic change in lifestyle when her husband became governor in 1915. Impeached & barred from holding state office, he cleverly decided that his wife should run in 1924. "Ma" & "Farmer Jim" did battle with the Ku Klux Klan for the executive office. First woman in the United States elected governor in her own right, "Ma" Ferguson served a second term in the 1930s. The novelty of a woman governor made her, & the fashionable clothes she wore, newsworthy. Narrative, photographs & costumes in color chronicle Governor Ferguson's triumphs & defeats. In an exciting format designed for both young people & adults, the book fills a need for biographies of outstanding women. Book One, CLARA DRISCOLL: 'SAVIOR OF THE ALAMO.' (0-9269001-0-9) $14.95 each. Smiley Originals, P.O. Box 99, Smiley, TX 78159; Phone 800-584- 3655, FAX 210-587-6113.




Nellie Taft


Book Description

On the morning of William Howard Taft's inauguration, Nellie Taft publicly expressed that theirs would be a joint presidency by shattering precedent and demanding that she ride alongside her husband down Pennsylvania Avenue, a tradition previously held for the outgoing president. In an era before Eleanor Roosevelt, this progressive First Lady was an advocate for higher education and partial suffrage for women, and initiated legislation to improve working conditions for federal employees. She smoked, drank, and gambled without regard to societal judgment, and she freely broke racial and class boundaries. Drawing from previously unpublished diaries, a lifetime of love letters between Will and Nellie, and detailed family correspondence and recollections, critically acclaimed presidential family historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony develops a riveting portrait of Nellie Taft as one of the strongest links in the series of women -- from Abigail Adams to Hillary Rodham Clinton -- often critically declared "copresidents."







First Lady


Book Description

Lucy Webb Hayes was the first president's wife to be referred to in the press as "The First Lady." Partly due to his wife's influence, President Rutherford B. Hayes established a temperance policy for White House entertaining that led to the derisive nickname for her of "Lemonade Lucy." This kind of public attention indicates the increasingly visible role the wives of presidents came to play in the post-Civil War years, and Lucy Hayes was the "first lady" so well suited to and well equipped for this role.--From book jacket.




The Triumph of Nancy Reagan


Book Description

The made-in-Hollywood marriage of Ronald and Nancy Reagan was the partnership that made him president. Nancy understood how to foster his strengths and compensate for his weaknesses-- and made herself a place in history. Tumulty shows how Nancy's confidence developed, and reveals new details surrounding Reagan's tumultuous presidency that shows how Nancy became one of the most influential first ladies in history. -- adapted from jacket