Bedroom a lot more frequently. She converted the downstairs kitchen into an open Reception Room and had the kitchen moved into the back part of the house. Most significantly was the construction of the president ial library. She started to make a lot of changes to the property. I am standing in the room that he used as an office for the years that he was living here in the house. Lucretia garfield called this the general snuggery. This room looks pretty much how it did. She did make a few minor changes in here, in memorium is carved in the wood. It does have an interesting double meaning. It was also the title of james and lucretias favorite poem. He became a firsttime member of the house of representatives. The first born child, eliza died. She was only two or three. This was very tragic and it brought them much closer together than they have been. Two weeks or so after the daughters death, he told lucretia that he had been not reading this poem, in memorial by alfred lord tennyson. It should bring him as much comfort as it did to him. When Lucretia Garfield had it carved in the wood in his office after his death, she was of knowledge and not only his tragic death at a young age, only 49 when he was assassinated, but also the love of literature with the tennyson poem. Host later on, we will come back to the years after the white house with Lucretia Garfield. With the assassination of her husband in september, Chester Arthur, the political opponent on the opposite side of the republican party, suddenly found himself president. He found himself without a wife and a Vice President. What was the transition like . What was the state of the country after the assassination . Guest the focus really remained for so long in september and well into october, November Chester arthur lived his permanent home in new york city on lexington avenue. He, himself, was still in a state of very deep mourning, because his wife, ellen, died in january 1880. She came from a powerful family. Grew up in washington, d c d. C. She knew Dolley Madison when she was a little girl. They went to st. Johns church on lafayette square. When she was 510 years old, she knew dolly madison. Her father was a very famous naval commandants who took a ship on a commercial ship that went down. It was an act of bravery because he made sure that all the passengers on board got off a first. His widow and his daughter, their only child, then living in new york city were given all sorts of awards, a monument to him at Annapolis Naval academy. Alan arthur is really interesting. She does not become first lady, but she influences the administration. Very similar to racial jackson jacksonl the way that she was the ghost, the memory of her. Chester arthur made several appointments, four we know of, specifically of people who had known his wife. One was a cousin in the office of the attorney general made assistant attorney general. Another was in the treasury. It was very controversial that he named the superintendent of the naval academy, he appointed a friend of theirs, a childhood friend of his wifes. He created a political problem in the senate, like the prerogative of appointing mayors, is ceremonial role played out in the white house, but are for insisted in making that appointment because it was a friend of his and alans. He kept her picture on the wall, fresh flowers, he had a stained glass window put in at st. Johns church so he could see it from his bedroom window in the white house. There was some remorse, perhaps, because he was quite married to his career and his political advancement and mrs. Arthur was an accomplished singer who died of pneumonia while he was in albany on political business. You have him come in without a wife, without a Vice President and his 10yearold daughters living with his sister in albany. The press at the time began speculating in a series of articles who would be the lady of the white house . Host the man was wealthy, very stylish. He lived quite a life in new york city. He had this tragedy of being a widower. You could see there would be a press line that the it press would be very interested in. Guest it was a little unseemly because there are a lot of wealthy women are women who wanted to be wealthy who began flirtatiously appearing where ever president arthur was. He had no interest whatsoever in remarrying. He really became depressed. He basically said, im not going to have a first lady. No one will take the role of my wife. He starts having the social events once the social season begins again, when Congress Comes back in the session, and it is like first lady for a day. He has these events were a cabinet wife, a senate wife, none of it is really quite working and the following year, 1883, new years day, his sister from albany comes down. There is an indication that he knew he had a terminal illness and he wanted to be close to his daughter. They came down from new york. At the time, she was being taken care of by her aunt, mary arthur, nicknamed mali. Host so that is the same person. On twitter guest she lived in the white house with her brother. Host how protective were they of the little girl . Guest part of the reason arthur kept her away from the white house for nearly one year making sure that she lived either at her home, his home in new york city, and he was having that remodeled, so she went to live with an aunt and there were two other girls, jessie and may, who came to live with their mother in the white house. Host chris in connecticut. What is your question . Caller if president garfield had been shot in our modern times with our technology, do you think he would have been saved . Guest i would just venture a guess to say yes. The simple removal of a bullet, he would be able to detect where it was in the system. Host arthur may have been severely depressed by the loss of his wife, but they entertained lavishly in the white house and he undertook an amazing redecoration of the white house that was done by louis tiffany. If you think of a tiffany lamp with all the colors, think about that in the white house. What did it look like when it was done . The elephant in the room, the thing you could not ignore, was this wall of tiffany glass. It was put up in what is the main hall, the central hall of the state for. Floor. You come in from the main entrance, the North Entrance of the white house into technically the lobby, the entrance, and today you see white columns and it opens up and the doors to the blue room immediately, the red room, the green room, but in those days the draft was so bad and people were complaining, he put up this wall of garish, victorian tiffany glass. That is garish by our tastes, but it was high style at the time. Guest it did not even last 20 years. The Teddy Roosevelt won and that wordssevelts famous bits. Smash that wall to host it was not preserved . Guest no. Host this was a busy time in the country. We have a few highlights of the administration and some of the issues that the are from administration was dealing with, with out a vicepresident in office, the chinese exclusion act, the president ial veto of the carriage of passengers at see bill, the river and harbor act, and Pendleton Civil Service reform act. We talked earlier about Civil Service reform being the key issue of the time. What happened with that . Guest just like Social Security, to some degree civil rights, things come in increments and descended of being the first major piece of legislation that started to make the first Real Prevention of the spoils system of basically the political system. Remember, federal employees could be fired. People who work in the treasury building. We think of those people today as career bureaucrats are people working as federal employees, they could all be fired and whoever was in power would then appoint whoever they wanted. It was not only unfair but it was inefficient. Arthur really takes those first steps and he puts the first efforts in in terms of building a modern u. S. Navy. While the chinese exclusion act was really an awful thing in terms of just about right active bigotry, are for have supported bigotry,tright something that was far less stressed than what passed. There was a worse proposal out there. Arthur gets a bad rap sometimes. Host did arthur keep garfields cabinet . Who was his most important advisor . Guest i do not recall. He did initially through the new year, but i cannot recall specifically the individual members of his cabinet that continued on. When you speak of the garfield administration, you are really talking more about the our for administration. Host rachel on facebook what measures were taken to ensure the safety after the assassination . Guest none. There are guards at the front door, but it still had this sort of lazy, old Hotel Quality to it. Even with arthurs redecoration, there was one reason why he was very protective of his daughter. In is not done so the 1886 new years day reception, two months before he leaves, that he allows his daughter to publicly appear. Host in alaska, welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you. This is a great show. I heard something many years ago and i dont know if its true. Garfield had the ability to take lee sands from each hand and simultaneously write the same thing in greek and latin. Is this true . Guest from all i have learned, that was true. He was ambidextrous. Host were ellen or mollys styles as progressive as chester . Were they as progressive in their style . Guest alan arthur was. Ellen arthur was. She was very fashionable, very rich largely for the wealth of her mother, and very ambitious. There are a lot of stories about how she really got behind she really did not like that politics kept him away from home so often, but on the other hand, she was a very socially ambitious woman and ambitious for the career. Even though she was a selling around one of her very close first cousins, because she was an only child, she was very close to her double cousins, her parents siblings who had married, so double cousins. During the civil war, Chester Arthur was able to secure the release of Union Presence of one of her cousins, but she went to abraham lincolns 1865 inaugural. She attended the white house wedding of nelly grant. She knew the parents of Theodore Roosevelt in new york city. She bought at the best stores. They took summers in cooperstown, n. Y. , and in newport. Molly arthur was a little bit more, i would not use the term pedestrian, but she was just not interested. Host last question on the arthur administration, on mary arthur, the sister, she had a very strong opinion on womens suffrage. How influential was she in this nonofficial white house hostess role . Guest it really showed us that the country had come to expect a female presence, whether it was a wife, sister, daughter. She really walked the fine line. She made public appearances, sometimes on around, sometimes only with him. I think he almost was kind of ambivalent about how public a role she should take. Her support of the antisuffrage movement occurred after the white house. There was some coverage of it. I will add that she was also a great advocate of civil rights. In her home in albany, she not only welcomed as a dinner guest but as an overnight guest and booker t. Washington. Host we have 12 minutes left. As arthur finishes three years, lucretia is establishing herself as a widow and enormous the popular first lady. Enormously popular first lday. Lady. How did she do that . People are curious about her moved to pasadena, calif. California. Guest she could not take the cold winters in colorado anymore. She maintained a home in washington as a president ial widow. Host at the house should continue to work on. Guest there were times when she would lease the house or property because it was just more feasible. Her brother was the manager of the house, but california in the 1880s, there was a real opening up as a sort of a promised land, sunshine, and a lot of california was settled by wealthy midwesterners. She went out to pasadena in 1900 and she was distantly related to two famous architects, green and green, known for the california craftsman style architecture. She had a great interest in architecture so she worked rate closely with them in designing this extraordinary craftsman manchin which is Still Standing as a private home and it really became a kind of a showplace. She was even in one of the carriages for the vips in the early pasadena rose parade. She had a very full life in california. Host you made the point that she was interested in so much. One of our viewers on Facebook Says what do you think of her taste . Guest im not the best to ask about taste, but along those lines she was also an advocate for womens suffrage. She did not come out publicly, just let the issue of temperance. She thought it would make much more controversy than need be, but her daughter also said that her mother truly believed in equality of the genders. You also see her when former president Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 is mounting a campaign against the incumbent president , she supports the roosevelt. She comes out at an appearance in los angeles. Host tawney in pleasantville, n. Y. Caller one of the books i ever read was destiny of the republic, and there were some money facts, but the three that are brought to my attention tonight where abraham lincolns son tads involvement in three president ial assassinations, not necessarily involved but being in the area. You showed an artists sketch that carried garfield to the house where he passed away. Im wondering if you can tell the story of how the car got there. Lastly, there is a part in the area, seven president s park, and they might have to make it 8 president s part now that president obama have visited. Why have so many president s gone to the jersey shore . Guest it was fashionable. The salt air was thought to be recuperative period in order to reach of the house, they have to lay an exit track so the strength to go right up to the house. Guest he mentioned all the president s. During the years of the carter administration, these are the first ladies who were brought alive tyler, polk, lane, lincoln, lucy hayes, and Lucretia Garfield. We see a bonding across Political Parties among women who served in the white house. Was that happening at this time . Guest we could credit good old Molly Mcelroy, who is she is credited for everything, she invited them to publicly receive with her as cohosts. Them toted publicly receive with her as co hosts. Mrs. Lincoln and tyler were in the news. With Molly Mcelroy leaving the role of first lady and handing it over to cleveland, a bachelor of the time, whose sister would be assuming the role, theres a lot of press about these two sisters. At the same time, in conjunction with all of this, the very first book is written on the history of first ladies and it is a collective biography called ladies of the white house by her name escapes me. It is a very famous book. Host lucretia outlived her husband by many years. We will return one last time to the house in ohio and learn more about the house. [video clip] if james a. Garfield were to walk in this house, he would not recognize it. This was actually the kitchen. After his death, lucretia made major changes. This was changed into the open Reception Room. The most significant change she made with the construction of the very first president ial memorial library. As begin to the top of the steps here before we go into the memorial library, we come first to the memorial landing and we find one of her favorite portraits of her husband. This was done by a good friend of the garfield and it shows james a. Garfield as a Major General during the american civil war. This is the room Lucretia Garfield came up with to really memorialize her husband, keep his memory alive for herself, for their children, and for the country. All over the room, you see books that belonged to james a. Garfield. This is a beautiful piece that was sent to mrs. Garfield completely unsolicited by someone in italy. Its a beautiful memorial piece with an image of James Garfield surrounded by flowers. It is all actually made with small stones cracked together and was one of her favorite pieces. We have a very beautiful marble bust of james a. Garfield of this was also sculpted by an italian and given to her around 1883, two years after his death. Here we have what lucretia called the memory room. She has constructed along with the library in 18851886 where she is stored his official documents and papers. She had them down and stored it really to keep them for posterity. Been a lot of very interesting items. Most significantly but is the wreath on the shelf. It was lying on his casket while he was laying in the Capitol Building in washington, d. C. It was sent to mrs. Garfield the of the british delegation from Queen Victoria along with a nice hand written note of sympathy from the queen. The garfields used this room a lot. It was not one of those beautiful rooms that you could not go into more touch anything. You see lucretias writing desk year. Here. She spent a lot of time here. She used a black border stationery. She used it for the rest of her life to denote a lifelong mourning for a husband. Here, in front of the large windows, two of the garfield children were married in 1888. Harry garfield, the oldest son, and molly, the only surviving garfield daughter both married their respective fiances in a double wedding ceremony right here in front of the windows of the library. Host Lucretia Garfield made it into the new century. She died in 1918 at the ripe old age of 85. How did she live those post white house years . How should she be in the pantheon of first ladies . Guest her tenure was so brief. She was the first to be self conscious and often not destroy the papers and keep a diary of a white house days. She is best thought of as a former first la