So now without further adieu tonight, i am very excited to welcome dorothy and thomas, who were celebrating the release of are you prepared for the storm of lovemaking, letters of love and lust from the white house . Our president s loom so large in history that we often forget theyre human. Are you prepared for the storm of lovemaking as a collection of handwritten love letters that offers a surprising and intimate portrait of the men who occupied the white house . From George Washington to barack obama. These are not the president s we see in the history books. Instead, when they courted the women they wanted to marry or seduce women outside of their marriage. They often showed a side the public did not see. Playful, passionate, tender. Consumed by desire. Dorothy and thomas hoover. Hubler have written many Award Winning books for adults and young adults. The young adult mysteries set in medieval japan won an edgar award from the mystery writers of america, their ten book series on american ethnic groups published by Oxford University press, received many favorable reviews from such publications as the New York Times and the miami herald. The hoopla is other books for adults include the monsters, which tells the story of mary shelley and the four people who helped inspired her classic novel, frankenstein and the crimes of paris, a collection of famous french crimes that was excerpted in vanity fair. Dorothy has a masters degree in American History from the from nyu. And tom received his masters in education from xavier university. Our authors tonight will be in conversation with mindy farmer farmer joined the National Portrait gallery as a historian in 2022, as a memberory departms research. Propose proposals, exhibitions and writes biographies to accompany the portraits in the museums collections. Farmer is also responsible for developing programing for portal, the portrait gallery Scholar Center scholarly center, excuse me and prior to arriving to the museum, farmer worked at kent state university, where she served as an assistant professor of history and a director of the may four Visitor Center before that, farmer worked for the National Archives and Records Administration as the founding Education Specialist and the Richard Nixon president ial library museum. Please join me in welcoming to politics and prose dorothy and Thomas Hubler and mindy farmer. So thank you all for being here. This is a night where we are all thinking about relationships. Its a topic of both conversation and in some cases, consternation. I dont know if your life is off. Yes, it is. It is. Yes. Its okay. Yeah. You know, worries. I know you can hear me a little better. So thank you all for being here. I want to say things to the audience. Thanks to cspan booktv for being here and thanks here to politics and prose. This is a really beautiful space, especially of discussions like these, and i hope we have many more fruitful conversations here. Now, as i mentioned, there will be some time for q a at the end, so please be prepared to indulge your curiosity. So think about your questions as we go through to get a started. I have a few questions i want to ask and well start with the title. I think its safe to say that it is a tension grabbing. What is the story behind the quote . Are you prepared for a storm of lovemaking . Okay. We comes from a letter from Woodrow Wilson who, contrary to his oh, sorry to contrary to his looks, like sort of a presbyterian minister, was really a very, very sexual being. And this was a letter that he wrote to his first wife. He had to lives with his first wife almost ten years after theyd been married. Okay. I will. Ill read ill read the letter now or sorry. Its coming out. Oh, okay. So it says when you get back, youll smother me, will you . My sweet little lover . And what will i be doing all the while simply submitting to be smothered . Do you think you can stand the innumerable kisses and the passionate embraces you will receive . Are you prepared for the storm of lovemaking with which you will be assailed . Do you know by shakespeare eons to what lengths and extravagances of demonstrative ness on your part hurries your intemperate lover. And are you prepared to take the risks . Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart, my precious, precious darling, what a terrible longing it brings into my heart. How it makes all my pulses start while my heart itself seems to stand still when i think of having you in my arms again of being in your arms again touching your lips, hearing you say sorry that the seeing the burning light in your eyes as we are strained close to each others embrace. If i were to allow myself to think of it much, i simply could not stay here. Your own withdraw now, he wrote. Really . Hundreds. Theres theres thousands of pages of this letters that go on and on and on and, you know, you wonder how he got■n athing done because he really was constantly writing this kind of thing. And even during national was that was the first the first one. The answer to your question. There are many there are others in here that show the same thing for a second life. Who would have thought Woodrow Wilson would be so spicy . Yeah. So what is another letter that you read that when you were researching that you came across that genuinely surprised you . Well, i think of the letters that surprised me most at first was the letter from Richard Nixon, because Richard Nixons letters to pat are really poetic and very deeply touching. On his first date, he proposed to her. He said he fell in love with her. At fir■st sight and you can see this is the letter he wrote afterwards. They met. They were they met in a amateur, dramatic present tation. They were both in a play together. Okay. He wrote to her, and this is sometime in 1938. And he was then a 25 year old lawyer. Patricia, somehow on tuesday, there was something electric in the usually almost in whittier,. That is. And now i know an irish gypsy who radiates all that is happy and beautiful. Was there. She left behind her a note addressed to a struggling barrister who looks from a window and dreams. And in that note he found sunshine and flowers and a great spirit which only great ladies can inspire. He knew then why he felt so many fine things for this girl. He had learned to know and though he is a prosaic person, his heart was filled with that grandpa poetic music which makes us wishrealization of great dref fulfillment, fulfill minix you say of all they desire. And though he knew he should not bore her with these thoughts, he sent them to her. Because, you see, they were good thoughts wished for for her that she might be forevner happy. And then somehow let me see you again in september. Or maybe i thought that was particularly charming and that was it for the most. That was the most that was most secure. Thanks. Yes, but that was the most, i thought, just startling very different than you tend to think of. Nixon. Did you ever think you would admire Richard Nixons love letters . No. That was why i found it very interesting, because sometimes its the opposite of wt you what you think. Im sorry, i someone like jfk. Who had wonderful speeches politically, had very little to say. Im sorry. Romantic glee. The only thing that he ever wrote to jacqueline before they were married was a postcard, which said, just simply wish you were here, jack. So that was that was that okay . Yeah. We often dont think about nixon in romance, but i think this is a really lovely picture up there. Two of them in the east room of the white house. Yes, that was that was at a dding of of of. Oh, im sorry. I always forget. Im sorry. That was tricias wedding, i believe. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for■ that. I also since this is valentines day and since the president s, like all of us, experienced heartache, lets talk about him for a minute about one of the saddest stories in your book on this day in 1884, Theodore Roosevelt experienced the darkest day of his life. Can you talk about this tragic anniversary and how it shaped the future president. Actual, lot of interesting things happened to Theodore Roosevelt on valentines day. One of them was that he3 met Alice Hathaway lee. She was the next door neighbor of a classmate of theodores, richard saltonstall. And he began to call her sunshine. And because she seemed particularly cheerful. So he said, as long as i live, he wrote, later, i shall never forget how sweetly she ld. Year, but alice waited eight months before saying yes. Now. So i have two letters from him. Theyre not long. First one in 1880, august 15th, 1880. Darling queenie, little sunshine. Thats what hes calling her. I have been missing you more than i can tell. I perfectly long to hold you in my arms and kiss your sweet, bright face. You are never absent from my thoughts now the other events of valentines day were not so happy. A little more than three years after thr ce gave birth to a daughter. Two days later, alice died at the age of 22. Theodore, his mother, died the same day, and ironically it was valentines day. Roosevelt was grief stricken, grief stricken and seldom spoke about his wife afterward, not even to their daughter, who had also been named alice in a tribute to his wife. He later wrote, when my hearts dearest died, the light from my life went. The forever. Afterward, he never let anyone call him by the nickname thi thats thc,;hi alice. So his is first. Marriage was short and he really resolved at the time not to marry again. But met our man. And within a year or so he had his second wife. But more about her later on. Whats in the next one . Oh, i was just going to add probably the saddest story in the book is of jean pierce, franklin pierces wife, she had lost two two sons before. They were five years old. And she was already kind of hysterical about her remaining son, benji. And it turned out that she was very, very on interested in politics. And was she actually prayed that her husband would not win the presidency . Win. And they were coming home from a funeral for her uncle and they were in a train wreck. And her son benji was killed. She saw it and it was, you know, a ghastly, ghastly accident. She never recovered. She did not go to the inauguration. And her husband did mention it at the inauguration that that he was a sense of tragedy. He did not he did not swear he was the only president that affirmed and said of war. And there was no bible. Theres no bible for it. But■k she her story really was tragic. She spent most of her time in the white house writing letters to her dead son, which she continued doing until she finally died in 1863. It was really a tragic, tragic story when we found out that those letters that she was wring■ to her dead son were still available. We we included one in the book, even though it was the■8 opposie of our initial determination to have president letters to their beloveds. And we touching. Yeah. Oh, no, it is. I mean, and we also figured people would want to see that because it was so tragic and so tied to it. Ive just read the book. Sure. Right. Oh, sorry. Its hard to know. Okay. That was my my, my precious child. I must write to you. Although youre never to see it or know it. How well, how i long to see you and Say Something to you as if you were as you always have been. Or my precious do these days. Now see, my darling boy, and how i should have prized the days passed with you had i suspected they might be so short. But it goes on and on and shes thats what she spent her time doing, essentially. She was devoted and that she kept she kept these letters and mementos of all her chil dead children with her for the rest of her life when she traveled wherever she went, she took them with no and anyway, i just thought it was worth at adding that because that was i thought, the saddest thing. Sorry. So were going to write about. Religion. Yeah, that is true. Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, those were its you cant talk about love definitely a number of our president s were shaped by grief. And i think its important to talk about those cases. It really changed the course of their life. And we dont know exactly how it changed the presidency, but certainly have an impact and i dont know if you all know. But Alice Roosevelt has an amazing story. The joke is that roosevelt let her papa there, let her do whatever she wanted, even including having snakes in the white house. So shes the only daughter to have owned a pet snake in the white house. A little bit of trivia for you. And i think theres probably a great childrens book. Its probably here that goes into detail about her story because its really amazing to move to the next question there are other words of angst in the ime for harry. Its truman and first lady. Best to come to terms with the demands of the presidency. What did you learn from their letters . Okay. Well, a harry truman was devoted to bess truman from the time he was five years old and saw her in sunday school. He never loved anybody else. He was he, in fact, propose to her many, many times before she finally accept. Was devoted to y his whole life. And he wrote her letters on virtually everything in the white house. Politics is all life it was. He was just completely emotionally open to her. But there was one exception where w became when he became president , of course, he was covered. All of a sudden, he had all of these incredible problems after fdr died of what he was going to do. And he was not accepting. He wasnt really all that prepared. You hadnt been, in fact, given that much information about some of the c of the agreements that roosevelt had made. But he when he and at christmas time of 1945, when he came home, it took a but it was a big snowstorm. He was late and bess was just upset about it and wasnt, i guess, very nice about it. He wrote this letter, which he was smart enough not to actually send, but his daughter margaret found years later. I might also add that when when bess found out that that fdr had died, she cried because she knew she would lose her privacy, because she always, even when he was a senator, she lived off and lived in independence in missouri because she preferred living in her own home and even when he was president much of theent at her church, her home. But this was a letter that he wrote to her and did not send. Okay, im going to try. And i. Okay, you this was december 28th, 1945. You can never appreciate what it means to come home as i did the other evening after doing at least 100 things i didnt want to do and have the only person in the world whose approval and good opinion i value look at me like im something that cat dragged in and tell me ive come in at last. This head of mind should have been bigger and better proportions. There ought to have been more brain and a larger bumper ego mething to give me an idea that there can be a number one man in the world. I didnt want to be. But in spite of opinions of the contrary, fe and times say i am. If that is the case, you marhguy his daughter margaret, and everyone else who may have any influence on my actions must give me help and assurance. Because no one ever needed help and assurance, as i do now. If i can get the use of the best brains in the country and a little bit of help i have on the have i, i have on a pedestal at home. The job will be done. Kiss my baby andon and out. Harry. Okay, this letter, of course, was never send. But she best didnt outlive her, harry. By many years. And she kept the letters which she read regularly each day. She read some letters of his and so the was was a love affair. But when he talked about what they had, the good things that had happened to them from the time of their that was that was a letter. That was a letter. Yeah. Okay. By now. Yeah, i think its time for you probably gathered by mindi introded i got one more thing about bess truman, as you gathered by now, we do have little anecdotes ande letters. And one of my favoritesaret trur told about harry, her father coming in to their living room one day to find bess, throwing letters that he had sent them into the fire and he said, thats think of history. And she looked at him and said, i am. So i harry was very outspoken, as anybody who knows about him. So we can surmise only that he she was burning the letters that made her look, made, made her made him look a little more obstreperous than he actually was anyway, go ahead. Im sorrto you. Thats oh, thats a great anecdote. And i think one of the questions you can ask yourself as you read this book is, should they have burned that . So well move on and were glad they did. And im an historian, so please know that im on team dont burn. So you write that of the volumes of books about abraham lincoln, a few have fully investigated his relationships. How might that change our understanding of him as a person and a president . Lincoln was a strange person. I think everybody who knows anything about him agrees on that. And there was theres nothing stranger, really, than his attitude toward women. I dont know whether i should tell all the stories, but i prob nk, you know, by the book and read them all, but. At one point when he was younger, a friend of his, a woman who was married, said that she was going to bring her daughter, her sister, i they they both lived. And she wondered whether abraham would like to to marry her. And abraham said, sure, sort of like it off the cuff. So we know what happened in a way from a letter he wrote to yet another woman in which he said, when the sister showed up, he said she she turned out to look a little bit like falstaff. He was not. So he thought she was going to be better looking or a little more to his liking. So but he said a bargain was a bargd a proposal to her. And he as he told the other woman in the letter, he wrote to the second woman, she said no. So he was surprised this and he thought maybe its just that she felt felt she had to do that for the sake of propriety. But no, the more he asked, the the more she was convinced that she didnt want to marry him. So he said so i was lucky and got out of that. Now that would be that would be one part of the story, because lincoln was a great storyteller and theres also exists two letters that he wrote to this woman that he was supposed to supposedly supposed to marry and that promise to marry. And what those those two letters contained are descriptions of springfield, the town that would make her make almost anybody afraid that they wouldnt want to come there to live. So he said, is is plot worked and he when he did propose, she turned him down. So