In this packet, your students will find biographical sketches with detailed information, followed by questions for discussion and research. Students will learn interesting and relevant facts about these First Ladies, and will walk away with a new appreciation for the women that filled this role!
A look inside the personal life of every first lady in American history, based on original interviews with major historians C-SPAN’s yearlong history series, First Ladies: Influence and Image, featured interviews with more than fifty preeminent historians and biographers. In this informative book, these experts paint intimate portraits of all forty-five first ladies—their lives, ambitions, and unique partnerships with their presidential spouses. Susan Swain and the C-SPAN team elicit the details that made these women who they were: how Martha Washington intentionally set the standards followed by first ladies for the next century; how Edith Wilson was complicit in the cover-up when President Wilson became incapacitated after a stroke; and how Mamie Eisenhower used the new medium of television to reinforce her, and her husband’s, positive public images. This book provides an up-close historical look at these fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the White House, sometimes at great personal cost, while supporting their families and famous husbands—and sometimes changing history. Complete with illustrations and essential biographical details, it is an illuminating, entertaining, and ultimately inspiring read.
The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation's highest office, and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that would lead to the Civil War Zachary Taylor was a soldier's soldier, a man who lived up to his nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Having risen through the ranks of the U.S. Army, he achieved his greatest success in the Mexican War, propelling him to the nation's highest office in the election of 1848. He was the first man to have been elected president without having held a lower political office. John S. D. Eisenhower, the son of another soldier-president, shows how Taylor rose to the presidency, where he confronted the most contentious political issue of his age: slavery. The political storm reached a crescendo in 1849, when California, newly populated after the Gold Rush, applied for statehood with an anti- slavery constitution, an event that upset the delicate balance of slave and free states and pushed both sides to the brink. As the acrimonious debate intensified, Taylor stood his ground in favor of California's admission—despite being a slaveholder himself—but in July 1850 he unexpectedly took ill, and within a week he was dead. His truncated presidency had exposed the fateful rift that would soon tear the country apart.
In Polk, Walter R. Borneman gives us the first complete and authoritative biography of a president often overshadowed in image but seldom outdone in accomplishment. James K. Polk occupied the White House for only four years, from 1845 to 1849, but he plotted and attained a formidable agenda: He fought for and won tariff reductions, reestablished an independent Treasury, and, most notably, brought Texas into the Union, bluffed Great Britain out of the lion’s share of Oregon, and wrested California and much of the Southwest from Mexico. On reflection, these successes seem even more impressive, given the contentious political environment of the time. In this unprecedented, long-overdue warts-and-all look at Polk’s life and career, we have a portrait of an expansionist president and decisive statesman who redefined the country he led, and we are reminded anew of the true meaning of presidential accomplishment and resolve.
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This volume presents thirty-nine interpretive biographical essays on all first ladies, from Martha Washington to America's newest First Lady, Laura Bush. This new edition contains updated material on all the living First Ladies and updated bibliographies for each entry, as well as a portrait of the newest First Lady.
Have you ever wondered about the lives of the Presidential wives? Much attention has been focused on the Presidents, often ignoring the women who accompany them to the White House. Now it’s time we turn the spotlight on the First Ladies, whose lives give fascinating insight into the history of our country. In this trivia lover’s paradise, no stone is left unturned. You will learn which First Ladies lived the longest, which were the best educated, which had the most children, and which were on the other end of the spectrum. You will also discover which women married their way into the White House, which causes and projects the First Ladies pursued, and so much more. Other family members, including Presidential children, are also described by the numbers; there is even a section on Presidential pets. Brimming with lists, anecdotes, and more, Ranking the First Ladies is a treasure trove for history lovers of all stripes.
ROBERT MERRY’S BRILLIANT AND HIGHLY ACCLAIMED HISTORY OF A CRUCIAL EPOCH IN U.S. HISTORY. In a one-term presidency, James K. Polk completed the story of America’s Manifest Destiny—extending its territory across the continent by threatening England with war and manufacturing a controversial and unpopular two-year war with Mexico.
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.