Part of our program tonight by calling us, sending its tweets, or posting a basic look what you have learned or questions about some of the history we have had on display during the past year. Them introduce the guests. Mayo, is responsible for putting together the first ladys exhibit. Nice to see you again. She was also one of four academic advisors for this entire series. Mcbride, sheita has become first lady scholar. She is on the board of the White House Historical association, our partners. A little later on, Richard Norton smith will be joining us. Ladies program on first and as that wraps up, he will be joining us at the table. Let me ask both of you about first ladies. Why are they interesting . I think because they present thatwindow of the past women could relate to, particularly women. I think womens history has been hidden for so long that this gave women the way in which they could access the past through the lives of the first ladies. I found it fascinating. Do these women because of the exelon echelon and society, does that reflect . I think there was a was a portion of their lives that relate to something that is coming on going on in history. If you can tease that out, you get some very interesting insight. You went from a political role to an academic one. What interest do enough to do that . I had opportunity to work alongside laura bush and see that role. A very complicated role through her eyes and how she managed. This very important decision position is always evolving. What i saw in over three administrations, because i work in the it in the Reagan Administration in the first bush administration, just how much, how hard they work and how much they do in the reflection of what is going on in society at the time. How much has the role itself evolved . I think it is evolved enormously. Women were not educated. When Martha Washington was in the white house or at least most of them were not educated beyond what we called grade school. Today, you have someone with a postgraduate degree in the white house and there has been a couple of women in that category. Women were not supposed to be involved in or take part in politics and now the first lady is central to the political life and the modern presidency. What was interesting along the way was that we are marking all the firsts. The first one to campaign with the president. Who has been what are the benchmarks . As you look across the history, where are the real turning point for how the job is changed . They all have been a partner to the presidency. All of them have influenced our politics, our policy, in our global diplomacy. I think in the 18th and 19th centuries, our first ladies were mostly concerned with a country at war and the safety of their husband. The 20th century, we are so much evolving social issues and so many movements. The first ladies at those times really represented the changing and evolving country. This project has been a lot of serious discussion but it has had some lighter, humorous moments. Some is also been wonderful vignettes through the ages of television and video. We are going to show you two scenes from this series, one from part one and one from part two. Martha washington and bess truman. In your biography, you have a very different, very attractive Martha Washington. How hard it how accurate is this portrayal . Very accurate. People are criticized and said why do we have to show for young. We all start young. It was important to show what she looked like as a beautiful young woman. What was it about George Washington that she saw and was attracted to . I think it was mostly that he was such a hunk. He was six foot two inches at a time where most women most men were five nine. A fabulous dancer. Very charming. You really will liked women. You love to talk to women always. He had begun to show the kind of leadership that he would later show more of. At the national airport, and villages with wings. Ready to be christened by mrs. Mary esther in harry s. Truman. By an oversight, the champagne bottle on like this one hasnt been properly prepared. Now mrs. Truman unaware that her tle was unprepared [laughter] lady joined the crowd laughter. It is hard not to laugh at that now. In fact, the first lady laughed at the time but we understood that she was really not happy. That would be the worst possible thing that could happen. She stopped doing public appearances. Keepo you have have you the job from having flaws like this . You are very prepared, i would imagine. Maybe there wasnt the advanced staff that we have today who really walked the movements and do everything before they do it. That mightve been discovered ahead of time. None of us want to see our principal put in a position like that. It was good that she could use humor to laugh at it as well in front of everyone that was watching. It was in the theaters. I want to talk to you about the age regression of Martha Washington. Things for the older president s and first ladies is that they become statues or paintings to us. Very static. I find that younger people have a great deal of difficulty relating to them because they all look so old. What could they possibly have done or how could their lives have been nearly as exciting as life is now . I think one of the ways of getting at that and making them look young and active and vital is this age regression technique. You can see them when they were younger. I noticed that is true of women in the suffrage movement. The audience can relate a lot better when they see younger pictures of the women. I think the same is true of first ladies. That is an important point of relating to young people. That is one of the things that we are trying to do at American University with the contents is conferences we are doing. Hitting a lot of University Students because these are at universities. One nontraditional venue that we used this year at American University was aimed media cant a Media Campaign with national park. About first ladies in baseball and it was wildly popular and i hope we can do it again. Who was the first lady of baseball . Grace coolidge. Air. Rcel, you are on the ive enjoyed the entire series, the whole yearlong. I have a couple of questions about Michelle Obama. What do theing ladies think that you may be doing after her life in the white house . Do you think she will be involved in kind of a social sorority or anything like that and her role with children as well . They will be young and have Young Children when they leave the white house. What does history tell us about first families that have Young Children about decisions they make of where to live . Willthink they probably stay close by while sasha is still in school. I dont know what everybody taking planes of the drop of the hat, maybe that wont be so true in this particular case. What dostion about modern first ladies do after they get out of the white house. Most of them continue to haveign the issues they created while they were first lady so i think we can certainly see Michelle Obama doing that in some form or other. All of them in the modern age have been involved with foundations raising money for the president ial libraries. We are already hearing there is a foundation established already for the obamas and the planning of their library which is early but they can see from past president s that it takes time and effort and money. Fundraising is a long process. Juliett is in brookland. You are on. It seems like every week you had to discuss the death of a child during 19thcentury first ladies. How many children died what the parents while the parents were in the white house . Were there any daughters because it seem like never all sons . There were quite a few sons who died. Again think of the daughter but i do think for modern guardians, that is quite a shock. We are so used to modern surgery and modern etiquette modern medication and antibiotics. On another exhibit that i worked i learned that the first generation of parents that could expect to see their children outlive them was 1920. That will give you some idea of the death rates, the high birthrate, but also the high death rate of children in the 18th and 19th century. The coolidges lost their son to a blister. Antibiotics were not widely used. You see people like the all doing jacksons fostering. Heir relatives had died so they took in the relativeschildren so you see lots of nieces and nephews in the early white house because the first family was doing fostering of these children. I dont think we can answer the the question of a particular number. Maybe we can do that on the twitter feed. Robert is in austin. What a great show. I have been enjoying it all season. Show where you a talked about how Jackie Kennedy remodeled or restored the white house and i wanted to know if she or any other first ladies i know Michelle Obama did it what kind of work to the first ladies do to the landscape of the white house . We would do a segment where we talk more about that. Does a brief example come to mind about first ladies working on the white house . Many of them starting with mrs. Garfield who in her short time really started the recordkeeping of the white house. Mrs. Hoover use a lot of her own money. About laura later bush and everything she did in the white house and mrs. Kennedy. The one who was brought back more art and antiques to the white house than any other first lady. We will talk a little more about that. The program and samaria many areas. We hope you will be with us later on. The college has been for a couple of decades of doing a historian survey of first ladies and their influence. We partner with them this year because of the series and the results have been just released over the weekend. You mightve seen reporting about it. Survey,a clip of the don leavy Research Institution about the ball poll. Lets watch. For the fifth time since 1982, the Siena Research institute has released a survey on the first ladies. Here are the results of the top 10. Number one, Eleanor Roosevelt appeared number two, Abigail Adams. Dolly madison, four. Michelle obama is in fifth place followed by the Hillary Clinton, Lady Bird Johnson. Leavy is the director of the Siena Research institute. Dr. Leavy what do you see in this top 10 list . What is most amazing about this survey is that five times, 32 years we interview historians, political scientists, scholars who study the presidency and the institution of the first lady. What is amazing is the consistency over time. Eleanor roosevelt is first every time. She really stands out as the quintessential american first lady. We were going to put a picture up first lady in the dictionary it would be Eleanor Roosevelt. Why is that . We look at 10 different categories. We look at the background of the first ladies. Their value to the country. How much value they had to their president. Men. Her she is her own wo Eleanor Roosevelt was truly a trendsetting innovator. Institution. E that she told american women that they mattered and that they were important in political and social life. Clearly, Eleanor Roosevelt not only campaign for fdr but she was instrumental in setting policy and the tone of the country during very difficult years. For herarmly remembered entire time as first lady and the work that she did subsequent to being a first lady as well. She really was a modern trendsetter for that office. The current first lady Michelle Obama is on that list. Is that a surprise that the current first lady on the list . It is a little surprising. It is the first time she was included. The last time the survey was taken was just before the obamas took office. She enters out a pretty high level for new first lady at fifth and bumps down Hillary Clinton. I think that Michelle Obama stands out on a number of the categories feared her value to the country and the president , being her own woman. Also, her growing a competence in office. We asked about which of the first ladies might these historians and political scientists imagine as actually serving as president. While Hillary Clinton is clearly the number one choice among there was a fair amount of support for Michelle Obama as at least a hypothetical president in some future time. Michelle obama enters at a very high rate. In 1993 will be took the same survey during the early years of the Clinton Administration actually entered the survey as number two. It is not unprecedented. That interview was about 10 minutes with lots more detail about the survey and you can find it on cspans first lady website. That website is full of material. All of the programs we have done this year and all of the shorter visits to this work sites are all logged in you can find them. That interview is available. The both of you, how useful are the surveys of the sort . Do they have a role to play . Is there an academic role . I will put my political hat on and just say what we always try to not pay too much attention to polls when we were working in the white house. I think they do serve her purpose overall for people to get a feel of what, at least a certain subset of what people are thinking about in this particular case. People. Just 200 plus i was one of them. I do think of this particular one it is pretty easy to ignore the good work of the women who served alongside president s who were controversial in their time. On twitter and facebook, we live in an age of lists. Is it useful beyond that . I am not convinced that it is but i think it does provoke a lot of commentary. To the extent that you can get a feel for how important the first ladies as edition is position is is quite important. We begin the several things that i mentioned about the lives of the women who lived in the white house. The first is a compelling personal story. One of the things we learned about the way is how many of the women, even though they were on the top places of society, they had a very interesting life story. We will begin by traveling to massachusetts, the home of Abigail Adams. The story of Abigail Adams and the revolutionary war is a story of sacrifice, of commitment to country, and she rose to the occasion. John and abigail lived in this home for 10 years. It is where they raised their four children. This was the birthplace of their second child John Quincy Adams who went on to become president. It is also an important home because the primary link between adamsshe and john would be letter writing. It was from this house that she was provided a window to what was happening back here in the colony of massachusetts during the revolutionary war. She would report to john about the militia in boston. During the battle of bunker hill, she took her young son right over to the high point and watch the battle with her son and reported john adams of the fires and the smoke rising from charlestown. She was the eyes of the revolution to john adams and essentially the second continental congress. Not the only first lady who lived at a time when war was fought on our homeland. The war of 1812, the civil war. We were blessed by not having that today but many of these women lived through very difficult lifethreatening times. Who would you put on the list of women with a had the most compelling personal stories . Beyond wartime which we saw with Abigail Adams, she sacrificed so much for our nation. She was so devoted to this democracy and we owe her a great deal. Storiesthe compelling i am still very moved of the story of james pierce. This deeply religious woman who did everything in her power to discourage her husband from being involved in politics which is what his ambition. She never liked washington. She lost three sons, one in for another eyes on the way to the inauguration. That is a very sad story. Their entire tenure was marked by this tragedy. She thought that politics was the work of the devil. Religious ands did think of this as an evil, she felt that god had taken away their three sons as a punishment for the participating in politics which must be a horrible indictment of her life. Gary robinson has been part of our audience throughout the series. He asked which first lady overcame the most to become a first lady . I dont know if you could pick one. There are so many. I think betty ford is certainly one, a modern example. I think she felt that she was a neglected housewife, alone in suburbia raising the children for many years. Housemes into the white and hardly is there and establishes herself before she gets diagnosed with breast cancer. To her great credit, she decided to be very candid about that. That she goes from considering yourself just a housewife to the point where she says we have to take the words just out of just a housewife and value each womans contributions. Feminismhe brought into the mainstream in the 1970s when it was very much debated. Spin onsuch a lovely why she supported womens rights that i think she was extremely important and i think she overcame her own addiction and her own Health Problems to make a great contribution. What about your personal compelling story list . I think that betty ford was definitely very high on my list. Any older, earlier history . Is athink mary lincoln story of great personal tragedy in the midst of a national tragedy. Louisa catherine adams. Her husband John Quincy Adams who was a diplomat and a difficult and a difficult personality. She took six children across the continent. In a carriage with courses in the snow. As a double about herself a diplomat herself trying to emote this new democracy to the Russian Court and a