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On Presidents Day, 6 First Ladies Who Deserve Their Own Holidays
While presidents tend to get all the attention, their wives often shape history in significant but under-appreciated ways as well. Ever since Eleanor Roosevelt proved that first ladies don't have to be content with mere ceremonial roles, many of her successors have played active, successful roles in the White House — sometimes more so than their husbands. On this Presidents Day, let's take some time to honor a couple of First Ladies who are just as deserving of recognition as their spouses.
Eleanor Roosevelt
In addition to having substantive influence on federal policy — both in and out of the White House — Roosevelt paved the way for future first ladies to do more than just stand by their husbands’ sides and smile politely. For example, when she discovered that many New Deal agencies were actively discriminating against black Americans, Mrs. Roosevelt single-handedly championed the cause of racial equality when nobody else in the White House was doing so. In addition to lobbying both federal agencies and the U.S. military to end discriminatory practices, she brought the issue of racial injustice to the forefront of public discourse via speeches, press conferences, radio addresses, and syndicated newspaper columns.
She brought similar attention to gender and economic inequality, and after leaving the White House, she played a huge role in John F. Kennedy’s women’s initiatives. There’s a reason she’s consistently ranked as the most effective First Lady in American history.
Image: US Government [Public domain]/Wikimedia Commons
Michelle Obama
The current First Lady is a frequent subject of racist and sexist attacks from the right, which is a good sign that she’s effectively communicating progressive values to everyday Americans. In addition to supporting a number of her husband’s initiatives, Mobama launched the Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity in 2010. The campaign’s policy recommendations were well-received by like-minded consumer groups, but the significance of Let’s Move! went beyond that: In launching the campaign, Obama successfully put the spotlight on a highly-important but rarely-discussed issue with serious public health and economic implications.
Childhood obesity wasn’t really thought of as a significant area of public policy before Obama brought it to the forefront. Now it is.
Image: Getty Images
Lady Bird Johnson
Despite her husband’s frequent verbal abuse — he’d often belittle and scream at her in public settings — Lady Bird was an active and devoted First Lady, lobbying more extensively for legislation than any of her predecessors. She pushed for roughly 150 environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, and her enthusiastic support for the Highway Beautification Act led placed limits on roadside advertising and junkyard visibility. She also intervened successfully to preserve funding for the Head Start Program, which provides early childhood education and other social services for low-income families and still exists today. It’s no wonder that LBJ himself once proclaimed that Americans “would happily have elected her over me.”
Image: Robert Knudsen, White House Press Office (WHPO) [Public domain]/Wikimedia Commons
Jacqueline Kennedy
Oddly enough, the youngest First Lady — Jackie Kennedy was 31 when her husband was inaugurated — is best remembered for her attention to very old things. Historical preservation was Kennedy’s focus during her short time as First Lady, and she led numerous efforts to obtain, restore, and protect the White House’s artistic and cultural legacy. She scoured government warehouses for historic furnishings from decades past, urged Americans to donate historical artifacts to the White House for preservation, and helped create the position of White House Curator to ensure that her initiatives wouldn’t fade away in future administrations. After her husband’s death, she spearheaded the creation and design of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
Image: By Robert Knudsen (JFK Library and Museum) [Public domain]/Wikimedia Commons
Hillary Clinton
In 1993, the president asked his wife to chair the task force on health care reform. While HillaryCare ultimately failed to become law, the reasons why it failed — too much executive branch tinkering in the policy details — played a huge role in guiding Barack Obama’s successful health reform efforts almost two decades later.
The fact that Clinton embraced her role as a determined, driven woman in politics (despite unrelenting sexist attacks on her character) no doubt inspired countless young women in their own aspirations to affect change in the world. Last year, Clinton was ranked the most admired woman in America by Gallup — for the 12th year in row.
Image: Getty Images
Betty Ford
Betty Ford was a Republican, but by contemporary standards, she’d be considered a bona fide liberal. She was an outspoken and unapologetic advocate for numerous women’s issues, lobbying aggressively for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, and publicly supporting a woman’s right to choose.
After undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer, she spoke openly about her cancer in an effort to raise awareness about a disease that, at the time, was rarely a subject of public discourse. All of this, along with her founding of the Betty Ford Center after leaving the White House, led the New York Times to declare that Ford’s “impact on American culture may be far wider and more lasting than that of her husband.”
Image: David Hume Kennerly [Public domain]/Wikimedia Commons
