The newspaper reporter who got on the trip, they are reporting now that this horrible change events as they go back east on the train, and they say she is never breaking down. They are worried. Shes not crying. And she says im not going to. She knows she has this responsibility of setting the stage for the country. She takes that very seriously. Privately, she is devastated. This is her whole world. You have no children to rely on her one son from a first marriage already has died, he died in 1915. Its her. We can only imagine how lonely and afraid she felt. Lucinda annette, hoover. Annette we will do the light stuff first. She was very avid horsewoman she loved to ride. She liked to motor also. Not while she was first lady but shortly after lose mother passed away, after they left the white house, she gets in the car with her father, before they get into the white house, she gets into the car with her father in california they drive all the way across the country. Its a trip for him but also a trip for her. They have large dogs. Norwegian held counts. It was either a German Shepherd were a belgian melon law, no one knows for sure. They had a couple of cats, either persian or siamese, the siamese eventually was in the hoovers apartment in the waldorfastoria in new york in their later years. Somebody had given her an irish wolfhound named patrick. He was very close to her during the white house years. They have a lot of dogs particularly in cats. The tragedy for the hoovers was not death of a child or death of a spouse, but the older of their two sons, Herbert Hoover junior who to be known as pete by the family contracted tuberculosis as an adult, married man with two children. This was in the 1930s, first of all, no cure. Second of all we lost track of how severe and prevalent that alyssa was in a lot of different parts of the country. Lou, in her typical take charge, ive got this sort of frame of mind, collects information on all the different potential sanitarium swear pete king convalesce, he gets once it get made public, they get all kinds of letters telling him how tuberculosis can be cured, quack medicine is alive and well it hasnt changed very much. She eventually settles on a sanitarium in asheville, north carolina. They range from feet to go there, they thought about having him convalesce at the camp that bloomberg had builds in the shenandoah mountains, but they decided that pete rapid and was very accessible. They decided that he needed to be first of all where there was more attentive care and also that was easily accessible. So that is where he convalesce. Petes wife and two children moved into the white house for the duration, but lou in her very typical strong management style, take charge style, it was just part of life to her. Her mother had been a semiinvalid, she was accustomed to dealing with apparent whose health was up and down, it was not anything new in her life. Shoot of charge like she needed to and then carried on. Lucinda i want to leave some time for the audience, and then come back to let the ladies have the first ladies themselves have the last word. What did they do very quickly , after the postwhite house years . Can you address that a bit . Sherry florence lived 18 months after he died. She didnt have much of a life after that. She was adamant she didnt want to come back to her house. She never came back to her house. It was not the same place for her without her husband. She wanted to stay in washington, she liked life there, she has been five years there is a center wife before the white house, she wanted to travel in europe. She had been there three times and wanted to write her memoirs. But she didnt do any of that because again, her health failed. Pretty rapidly after warns death. Her doctor, who would been here and in the white house, dr. Charles sawyer rayna sarah terrien ran a sanitary and outside of town, he busily her to come back to marion where he could keep an eye on her. And she agreed, finally not happily to live in a cottage on the sanitarium grounds. So the doctor was accessible to her. She ended her life in the sanitarium. The doc, in addition to being her doctor, was a close friend, he died of a heart attack. That seemed to take the life out of her. It was one of her last very close comrades. She died in november, had an extremely serious bout of nephritis, they were tinkering with the idea of having surgery she slips into a coma and she dies. She didnt get to accomplish what she wanted to afterwards. I wish she had had that opportunity. I think he wouldve seen the real florence really take on her own life. Lucinda thank you. I do think we did see mrs. Coolidge. Cynthia she did write several articles, she wrote his autobiography. They both had a writing adventure. Also he has syndicated column. They moved back to northampton they go into their twofamily house. You tell me how you are going to take all the gifts from the white house that youre given in those days you are allowed to keep them and for the metatwofamily house. I read a lot of the letters were she says could you please take this . And also the dogs werent too happy. So they eventually moved to the beaches, a larger estate in northampton. They are both happier. Calvin does not live to long after the white house, he dies in 1933. Embrace says well, ive got to move along an figure something out. Their son had married at 29, he and his wife had two daughters. She could take joy in them and also, as we all know, the run up to world war ii. In most people dont know this but Grace Coolidge was part of the Northampton Committee to rescue jewish children in germany. This was in 1939, she very bravely, this is a woman who didnt get into politics, she very bravely sent a telegram to the state house to encourage them to let the Northampton Committee adopt 25 jewish children very heres a first lady who would have had children , but unfortunately, her theory was rolled into the wider rogers build, and attempt to rescue 20,000 jewish children, children like anne frank, by the way, and did not want to leave germany. This was not approved by congress, it did not get through. And so we now have that story. They didnt know the horrible holocaust was coming, but still it was not done and then grace does throw herself and helping get ready for world war ii and then during world war ii was a real volunteer, spotter in northampton and that kind of thing. She did take a more active role in her postwhite house years. And even though you have rationing, she doesnt get to plymouth so much during the war. She does keep the homestead going in plymouth has an interest in the homestead. Her husband grew up there, and she decides to donate it to the state of vermont, if they will buy the birthplace. She was quite active as a preservationist, like to see it that way. She lived until 1957, she did accomplish many of her goals. She did get, i would say, rather brave coming out with active stance. Lucinda i will have to ask gary, weve got to get to lou what her story after the white house . Annette she got back where she left off. She took another stint to the National President of the girl scouts of america, she moved active to the home shed built in palo alto at the stanford campus, and there became involved with the friends of music to bring musical concerts and Quality Music to that part of the country. She was selected to be on innumerable college boards, the list is very long but to very quickly, Mills College will is a Womens College and whittier college, the alma motter of a subsequent president , Richard Nixon. She served on the board of that. She was active in the American Association of University Women and eventually at some point she decided she was going to have to start declining requests because she served on quite a number of boards, including the red cross and she also maintained her motoring fund, her camping out sleeping on the hard ground took her granddaughters on a camping trip where they rode horses into the remote part of the debtors out west at the early age of the 60s and she said i dont eat a sleeping bag or a tense, im looking forward to sleeping on the hard ground. She continued to have a very vibrant and active life. Lucinda we have had time. Are we love to take questions . Gary i think we can take one or two. Lucinda thank you. As a florence harding, i wondered if sherry would have any comments about mrs. Hardings being involved with mediums, which came up later in all this. She got involved in i dont is a spiritualism, but she had a medium she consulted. Sherry she was interested in spiritualism is a lot of people were doing the time in which she lived. Famously, they always made a big thing of she consulted madame marcy in washington, d. C. , all of Washington Society were going to matter mercy. Madame marcy later claimed that she predicted doom for the president , which is really easy to do after the fact. [laughter] it was done as a recreation. It was something had a fun to do, like going in somewhere and having someone read tarot card for you. It was just a fun thing to do for a lot of women in society. Kind of lucinda kind of a thing of the times. [indiscernible] did this way anything with women voting . Sherry we invented the we investigated the cox campaign, and we asked did women vote for him because he was a goodlooking guy . Is that while the women swarmed to him . They found there was no justification for that. There was no big swell of women to the republican party, they tended to vote as their husbands did, and a lot of women, even though many could vote in the 1920 election, some could not particularly in the south because of the registration requirements, they said you have to register six months before the election, they didnt get the vote until august. That wasnt going to work. Theres no real evidence that the women particularly made the difference in that election. They certainly added to the vote totals. That makes sense. Gary thank you, very much. [applause] American History tv was Live Saturday from ohios a university in marion for a conference on modern first ladies. Next, more of our coverage from the symposium. Ohio State University in marion cohosted this event. This session is entitled bridging the gap. Library, patricia crider. Patricia thank you very much, im very happy to be here, and on behalf of the first ladys historic site, we are thrilled to be part of the symposium. My job here this afternoon is to talk to you about some of the first ladies that followed lawrence and grace and lou those first ladies who started paving the way for future things to come. Im going to be talking about Eleanor Roosevelt through in. The evolution of the role of first lady has never taken a straight upward path. It has always been kind of two steps forward, one step back. The reason for that is because not all first ladies serve the role of the same way. There is no defined role. They can do with the role whatever they choose, which is a good thing because they can do whatever fits their personality whatever fits their interests. You after member that first ladies come from very, very different backgrounds, very different lifestyles. They come from all over the country, and so they dont all have the same interests and they dont all have the same causes and they dont all have the same way of doing the role. Some first ladies serve much longer than others. We have Eleanor Roosevelt who served a little over 12 years she had a lot of time to do a lot of things. We have other first ladies who get not even four years. When we look at first ladies, we have to remember that we are only seeing a small snippet of their lives. Generally, 40 years. Thats what everyone focuses on, when many of these women had an active role before they become first lady, and thereafter. What im going to do is im going to give you some brief facts on each of the first ladies im going to talk about before i start getting into their history. Eleanor roosevelt, anna comella or, roosevelt, roosevelt was born in new york city. She was born of wealthy parents. They died within two years of each other when eleanor was just under 10 years old and eleanor was raised by her maternal grandmother. Theodore roosevelt was her uncle. As for his education, she had private tutors, she went to a common school, she went to a Girls Academy in london, she had no college, and having no college was a regret she had her entire life. She married her fifth cousin. Franklin roosevelt at age 20. She had one daughter and five sons, one son died less than oneyearold. She became first lady at 48 years old. And she served like i mentioned a little more than 12 years. Unprecedented, never happened before, will never happen again. And she died at age 78, she is buried in hyde park, new york. Eleanor roosevelt was a phenomenal woman, and very difficult for any first lady to live up to eleanors a compliment. She was the eyes, ears, and legs of fdr. She took full advantage of the way that was paved by florence and by grace and my lou. And what most people dont realize is that the social activism of eleanor started well before she married fdr. Because of her position in life, she had the ability to be a volunteer, to be involved in activities. When she was a young woman, she volunteered at settlement houses in new york city. She was involved in various organizations, she became an inspector and she would go into the homes of the garment workers to see with their Living Conditions were. She promoted exercise for particularly the women in the Garment Industry because they lived in cramped quarters, they worked in cramped quarters and so she put together programs of dance and calisthenics so they could get some exercise, she supported unions at that time because they helped with bettering the working conditions and the Living Conditions, particularly of the workers in the Garment Industry. In 1920, when fdr was the Vice President ial candidate, eleanor went on a 1920s Whistle Stop Campaign tour with him. Interestingly enough, she never made any speeches at that time. If 1920, women are just getting the right to vote. She consider this to be a social boundary not yet be crossed. By the 1940s, all of this had changed. Eleanor was out there she was a tireless campaigner, she was everywhere doing everything. 1940s should becomes the first first lady to address a national convention, when fdr is nominated for his third term. Elinor supported so many causes, just innumerable number of causes. She didnt go into the white house saying this is going to be my cause. She went into the white house and she said im going to do as many things as possible by work and vide very she was involved with the red cross, both during world war i and world war ii. She became active in Democratic Party politics, she was involved with a lot of womens organizations. The womens union trades league and the league of women voters. Organizations that encourage women to become interested in an involved in politics, to kind of know what was going on politically. She was an early champion for civil rights, for africanamericans and she was always an advocate for women. She was always an advocate for american workers, for poor and young people. She supported governmentfunded programs for artists and writers. And she encouraged her husband to put more women in federal positions. She was always interested in global peace. During world war ii, she worked extensively in the war effort, she continued her work with the red cross. She wanted to bring european refugees to the United States. She promoted issues that were helpful to the american troops. She encouraged volunteerism on the home front. And she championed women who were employed in the defense industry. Eleanor she took advantage of all of the media that was available out there. She was a writer, she was a public speaker, she was a media figure. She held press conferences she had 348 press conferences in total. And she was have she would have press comforts is women reporters only. The effect of this was that the newspapers and Radio Stations, and the magazines who wanted to cover her press conferences were forced to continue to employ women reporters, and eleanor actually was instrumental in pushing that role of women reporters to the professional level. She was a magazine columnist. She did many many weekly and monthly magazine columns. She was a radio host. The evening of december 7, 1941 the attack on pearl harbor, she went on the radio and she made a personal call of support for all the mothers like yourself who had children who could now be called into active service. She was a lecturer in a public speaker. In her 12 years of first lady, she gave an estimated 1400 speeches. No other first lady published more books while first lady that Eleanor Roosevelt. She permitted all of her public appearances to be filmed by newsreel companies. And she got tons and tons and tons of public correspondence, and surprisingly, she answered personally a lot of those. And those that she couldnt answer she had outlived by which she would transfer those, so those people would get some kind of personal response. Her activism continued after her activism continued after fdr died. She was appointed by president truman for position at the united nations, she was the only women amongst the five american delegates, she continued to be very active in the Democratic Party, but she resisted all efforts to get her to run for herself. And she continued to be a very, very strong supporter of civil rights. Our next first lady is beth truman. For beth has to follow eleanor. Beth isnt born in new york city, shes born in independence, missouri. Her father dies when bess is 18 her mothers family was wealthy by independence, missouri standards. She attended high school and finishing school. Beth married harry at age 34, they had one daughter, margaret. She was a worker. She worked in harrys business, she worked in his senate office, she became first lady at 50 years old and then she died at age 97. She is to date the first lady who has lived the longest. She is buried at the