Unique among presidents' wives, Lady Bird Johnson was not only one of the leading environmentalists of the twentieth century, she also redefined the institution of First Lady. In this first book in an innovative new series, Lewis Gould shows why Mrs. Johnson ranks with Eleanor Roosevelt as a significant innovator of the First Lady role.

Building upon his much admired Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment, Gould has refocused and revised his thinking to create a fresh, informative, and entertaining new portrait of LBJ's First Lady. Using Lady Bird's White House papers and interviews with...

First Lady Betty Ford will long be remembered for her active support of the Equal Rights Amendment, her struggles with breast cancer and substance abuse, and her later involvement with the addiction treatment center that bears her name. But perhaps more than these, Betty Ford will stand as a paragon of candor and courage, an outspoken woman whose public positions did not always conform with those of her husband.

An independent, free spirit who regularly ranks among the most-admired First Ladies, Betty Ford is considered by many to be the most outspoken since Eleanor Roosevelt: she spoke...

Many thought of her as Queen Nancy. Others as the Dragon Lady. But for millions of Americans, Nancy Reagan was the always-smiling and deeply admiring presidential spouse who stood by her man; that image lingers still in the touching picture of a bereaved widow at her husband's casket.

Nancy Reagan has stirred passionate defenders and acerbic critics in many books and the media. James Benze, however, is the first biographer to discuss the effect of her acting background on her tenure as first lady. Unlike earlier biographers, he focuses on the way she applied her acting skills to meet the...

It was fitting for a soldier's wife to make curtains out of military-surplus parachutes. That they would hang in the White House made little difference.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower was a president's wife who seemed to most Americans like the friend next door. She gave us "Mamie pink" and "Mamie bangs" but has stood in the shadows of first ladies who followed. Yet she accomplished more than even her own contemporaries noticed, and her popularity not only enhanced her husband's presidency but also put a distinctive stamp on the role of first lady.

This first scholarly biography of Mamie...

Before Hillary, there was Rosalynn.

Rosalynn Carter--the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt--was sometimes called the second most powerful person in the United States. Even when her husband Jimmy Carter's approval ratings sank to record lows, she still tied with Mother Teresa as the most admired woman in the world.

In this first biography of Rosalynn Carter since 1980 and first book-length account since her own 1984 memoir, Scott Kaufman depicts a hard-working first lady whose energetic style sparked an administration that seemed to have lost its way--and who...

When Grace Anna Goodhue wed Calvin Coolidge in 1905, she thought then that marriage "has seldom united two people of more vastly different temperaments and tastes." Warm and vivacious to her husband's dour and taciturn, Grace was to be a contrast to Calvin for years to come. But as Robert Ferrell shows, their marriage ensured her husband's rise to high office.

Ferrell focuses on Grace Coolidge's years in the White House, 1923-1929. Although the president did his best to rein her in--even forbidding her to speak on public issues--Grace quickly became one of the most popular and stylish of...

Wife of one president and mother of another, Barbara Bush was an outspoken first lady who looked more like her constituents than did her predecessors. A White House resident for only four years, she nevertheless became and remains one of the most admired women in the world.

This new look at Barbara Bush draws on recently opened records at the Bush library, the first lady's many speeches, interviews with the first lady's staff, and an exclusive interview with Mrs. Bush to impart a new appreciation for this beloved former first lady. And while other biographies--and her own memoir--have...

For most first ladies, their years in the White House are their sole claim to fame. For one-Hillary Rodham Clinton-that tenure was just another step in a remarkable political career. Neither a "hit job" nor a facile tribute, Gil Troy's lively and refreshingly nonsensational new book provides a revealing look at arguably the most polarizing First Lady in history and undoubtedly the most prominent American woman of our time.

Troy, named by History News Network one of America's Top 15 Young Historians, measures Clinton's historical footprint, tracing her activities during the turbulent...

Florence Kling Harding has come down through history as one of our most scorned first ladies. Victimized by caricatures and branded a shrew, she stands at the bottom of historians' polls, her reputation tarnished by her husband's scandals despite their joint popularity while in office. These depictions, argues Katherine Sibley, have prevented us today from seeing how innovative a first lady Florence Harding really was.

This new look at Mrs. Harding restores humanity to an oft-maligned figure by examining her progressive causes, her celebrity, and her role in her husband's work. For if...

Presiding in the White House longer than any other first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt championed the downtrodden as she traveled the globe, yet she was a maze of contradictions--an idealist who carried on a moneymaking career that depended on her position and a conventional-appearing wife and mother who found emotional succor from intense relationships outside her family. This book cuts through those contradictions to reveal how Eleanor operated, both in and out of public view, to advance the causes in which she believed by participating in the political process.

Although previous books have...