Find
Surnames
Bookmarks
Places
Dates
Cemeteries
Search
Photos
Documents
Histories
Recordings
Videos
Albums
All Media
What's New
Most Wanted
Statistics
Notes
Sources
Repositories
Contact Us
Report:
Presidents, First Ladies, Vice Presidents & Other Politicians
Home
Search
Print
Login
Add Bookmark
Description:
Presidents, First Ladies, Vice Presidents & Other Politicians
This area is a work in progress check back!
Matches 1 to 58 of 58
| # | Last Name, Given Name(s) | Birth Date | Death Date | Presidents: Fact | Full Name |
| 1 | Adams, John | 30 Oct 1735 | 04 Jul 1826 |  Second President of the U.S. Painting by Gilbert Stuart Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Preceded by George Washington Succeeded by Thomas Jefferson John Adams (October 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826) was an American politician and the second President of the United States (1797 - 1801), after being the first Vice President (1789 - 1797) for two terms. He is regarded as one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States. Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to adopt the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a representative of Congress in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam. Adams's revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election as the second president of the United States. During his one term as president, he was frustrated by battles inside his own Federalist party against a faction led by Alexander Hamilton, and he signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the Quasi-War crisis with France in 1798. After Adams was defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson, he retired to Massachusetts. He and his wife Abigail Adams founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family. His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as other Founders. Adams was the father of John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States. |
John Adams |
| 2 | Adams, John Quincy | 11 Jul 1767 | 23 Feb 1848 |  6th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President John C. Calhoun Preceded by James Monroe Succeeded by Andrew Jackson Was a diplomat, politician, and the sixth President of the United States (. His party affiliations were Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig. John Quincy Adams was the son of the second United States President John Adams and Abigail Adams. He is most famous as a diplomat involved in many international negotiations, and for formulating the Monroe Doctrine. As president he proposed a grand program of modernization and educational advancement, but was unable to get it through Congress. Late in life, as a Congressman, he was a leading opponent of the Slave Power, arguing that if a civil war ever broke out the president could abolish slavery by using his war powers, a policy followed by Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. He is, with Andrew Johnson, one of only two Presidents to subsequently serve in Congress. |
John Quincy Adams |
| 3 | Appleton, Jane Means | 12 Mar 1806 | 02 Dec 1863 |  17th First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Born in Hampton, New Hampshire, the daughter of Reverend Jesse Appleton, a Congregationalist minister, and Elizabeth Means-Appleton, Jane was a petite, frail, shy, melancholy figure. After the death of her father, who had served as president of Bowdoin College not long before Franklin enrolled there, she at age 13 moved into the mansion of her wealthy maternal grandparents in Amherst. How she met Pierce, a young lawyer with political ambitions, is unknown, but her brother-in-law Alpheus S. Packard was one of Pierce's instructors at Bowdoin. Franklin, aged almost 30, married Jane, aged 28, on November 19, 1834, at the home of the bride's maternal grandparents in Amherst, New Hampshire. Theirs was a small wedding, conducted by another brother-in-law of Jane, the Reverend Silas Aiken. The couple honeymooned six days at the boardinghouse of Sophia Southurt near Washington, D.C.. Pierce was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives by the time they married, and became a U.S. Senator in 1837. Mrs. Pierce hated life in Washington, D.C., and encouraged Pierce to resign his Senate seat and return to New Hampshire, which he did in 1842. Service in the Mexican-American War brought Pierce the rank of Brigadier General and local fame as a hero. He returned home safely, and for four more years the Pierces lived quietly at Concord, New Hampshire, in the happiest period of their lives, where Jane watched her son Benjamin "Benny" grow up. In 1852, the Democratic Party made Pierce their candidate for President. His wife fainted at the news. When Pierce took her to Newport for a respite, eleven-year-old Benny wrote to her: "I hope he won't be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either." But the President-elect convinced Jane that his office would be an asset for Benny's success in life. The Pierces apparently had genuine affection for one another, but quarreled often and gradually drifted apart. She opposed Pierce's decision to run for president, for she much preferred private life. When her son Bennie was killed in a train accident before Pierce was sworn in as President, she believed God was displeased with her husband's political ambitions. After the deaths of her children, Mrs. Pierce was overcome with melancholia and distanced herself during her husband's presidency. She never recovered from the tragedy. For nearly two years, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House, spending her days writing maudlin letters to her dead son. She left the social chores to her aunt Abby Kent-Means and her close friend Varina Davis, wife of War Secretary Jefferson Davis. Mrs. Pierce made her first official appearance as First Lady at a New Year's Day reception in 1855 and thereafter served as White House hostess intermittently. Pierce died of tuberculosis at Andover, Massachusetts, on December 2, 1863. She was buried at Old North Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire, and her husband was also interred there beside her in 1869. |
Jane Means Appleton |
| 4 | Arthur, Chester | 05 Oct 1829 | 18 Nov 1886 |  21st President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Preceded by: James A. Garfield Succeeded by: Grover Cleveland Was an American politician who served as the 21st President of the United States. Arthur was a member of the Republican Party and worked as a lawyer before becoming the 20th Vice President under James Garfield. While Garfield was mortally wounded by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, he did not die until September 19, at which time Arthur was sworn in as president, serving until March 4, 1885. Before entering elected politics, Arthur was a member of the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party and a political protégé of Roscoe Conkling, rising to Collector of the Port of New York, a position to which he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant. He was then removed by the succeeding president, Rutherford B. Hayes, in an effort to reform the patronage system in New York. To the chagrin of the Stalwarts, the onetime Collector of the Port of New York became, as President, a champion of civil service reform. He avoided old political cronies and eventually alienated his old mentor Conkling. Public pressure, heightened by the assassination of Garfield, forced an unwieldy Congress to heed the President. Arthur's primary achievement was the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. The passage of this legislation earned Arthur the moniker "The Father of Civil Service" and a favorable reputation among historians. |
Chester Arthur |
| 5 | Bloomer, Elizabeth Anne "Betty" | 08 Apr 1918 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Is the widow of former United States President Gerald R. Ford and served as the First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. As first lady, Betty Ford was active in social policy and shattered precedents as a politically active presidential wife (Time considered her "the most since Eleanor [Roosevelt]"). In the opinion of several historians, Betty had more impact upon history and culture than her husband. Throughout her husband's term in office, she maintained high approval ratings despite some opposition from some conservative Republicans who objected to her more moderate and liberal positions on social issues. Betty Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness with her 1974 mastectomy and was a passionate supporter of, and activist for, the Equal Rights Amendment. Pro-choice on abortion and a leader in the Women's Movement, she gained fame as one of the most candid first ladies in history, commenting on every hot-button issue of the time, including feminism, equal pay, ERA, sex, drugs, abortion, and gun control. She also raised awareness of addiction when she announced her long-running battle with alcoholism in the 1970s. Following her White House years, she continued to lobby for the ERA and remained active in the Feminist Movement. She is the founder, and served as the first chairwoman of the board of directors of, the Betty Ford Center for substance abuse and addiction and is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal. wikipedia.org |
Elizabeth Anne "Betty" Bloomer | |
| 6 | Bolling, Edith | 15 Oct 1872 | 28 Dec 1961 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Second wife of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921. She has been labeled "the Secret President" and "the first woman to run the government" for the role she played when her husband suffered prolonged and disabling illness after a stroke in October 1919. Some even refer to her as "the first female president of the United States." The circumstances of President Wilson's incapacitation, along with earlier situations when Presidents Lincoln and Garfield were each shot (but had not yet died) and both a heart attack and a stroke suffered at separate times by Eisenhower, who was only briefly incapacitated, each led to the adoption of the provision of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1965 which provides for how Presidential disability is to be determined and what actions are to follow. Born in Wytheville, Virginia, the daughter of William Holcombe Bolling, a circuit court judge, and Sallie White-Bolling, Edith was a descendant of the Plantagenets, of colonial Virginia settlers and the famous Native American, Pocahontas, through Pocahontas' granddaughter Jane Rolfe Bolling. Her paternal great-grandmother, Catherine Payne Bolling, was the daughter of Martha Dandridge Payne, whose father Nathaniel West Dandrige was a first cousin of Martha Dandridge Custis, wife of George Washington. She was the seventh of eleven children. She attended private girls schools in Virginia and Martha Washington College (a precursor of Emory and Henry College) to study music. While visiting her married sister in Washington, D.C., Edith met Norman Galt, a prosperous jeweler; in 1896 they were married. For 12-years she lived as a contented young matron in the capital, with vacations abroad. However, her personal life was not without tragedy: she gave birth to a son in 1903 who lived only for a few days (the difficult birth also left her unable to bear additional children), and in 1908 her husband died unexpectedly. Edith Bolling-Galt then chose a manager who operated the family's jewelry firm with financial success. In March 1915, the widow Galt was introduced to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the White House by Helen Bones, the president's cousin and official White House hostess since the death of Ellen Wilson, the president's first wife. A man who depended on female companionship, Wilson took an instant liking to Mrs. Galt, who was charming, intelligent, and plumply pretty. His admiration grew swiftly into love. In proposing to her, he made the poignant statement that "in this place time is not measured by weeks, or months, or years, but by deep human experiences..." President Wilson, aged 58, married Edith Bolling-Galt, aged 43, on December 18, 1915 at the home of the bride in Washington, D.C. The wedding, a small affair attended by some 40 guests, was performed jointly by the Reverend Dr. James H. Taylor of Central Presbyterian Church and the Reverend Dr. Herbert Scott Smith of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, pastors of the groom and bride respectively. The couple honeymooned two weeks at Hot Springs, Virginia. As First Lady during World War I, Mrs. Wilson observed gasless Sundays, meatless Mondays, and wheatless Wednesdays to set an example for the federal rationing effort. Similarly, she set sheep to graze on the White House lawn rather than waste manpower in mowing it and auctioned off their wool for the benefit of the American Red Cross. Though the new First Lady had sound qualifications for the role of hostess, the social aspect of the administration was overshadowed by war in Europe and abandoned after the United States formally entered the conflict in 1917. Edith Wilson submerged her own life in her husband's, trying to keep him fit under tremendous strain. She accompanied him to Europe when the Allies conferred on terms of peace, the first such trip for a U.S. President while in office, and played a political role, being compared, in some circles, to royalty. Her most significant contribution as First Lady, however, was her service as steward of the executive branch following the president's stroke in September 1919. |
Edith Bolling |
| 7 | Bouvier, Jacqueline Lee | 28 Jul 1929 | 19 May 1994 | First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Bouvier KennedyOil Portrait By Aaron Shikler Courtesy of: The White House Historical Association January 20, 1961 - November 22, 1963 Was the wife of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. She was later married to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis from 1968 until his death in 1975. In later years she had a successful career as a book editor. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and historic preservation, her style and elegance, and her public stoicism in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born in Southampton, New York to Wall Street stock broker John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee. Jacqueline had a younger sister, Caroline Lee, known as Lee, born in 1933. Her parents divorced in 1940 and her mother married Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. in 1942. Through Janet's second marriage, Jacqueline gained a half sister and a half brother, Janet and James Auchincloss. On her mother's side, Jacqueline was of half Irish descent, and on her father's side, one-sixteenth French and English. Michael Bouvier, Jacqueline's great-great-grandfather and closest French ancestor, was a contemporary of Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard. He was a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker, merchant and real estate speculator.[citation needed] She spent her early years in New York City and East Hampton, New York at the Bouvier family estate, "Lasata". Following their parents' divorce, Jacqueline and Lee divided their time between their mother's homes in McLean, Virginia and Newport, Rhode Island and their father's homes in New York City and Long Island. At a very early age she became an enthusiastic equestrienne, and horse-riding would remain a lifelong passion. As a child, she also enjoyed drawing, reading and lacrosse. Bouvier pursued her secondary education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland (1942?1944) and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut (1944-1947). When she made her society debut in 1947, Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her Debutante of the Year. Bouvier spent her first two years of college at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and spent her junior year (1949-1950) in France at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in a program through Smith College. Upon returning home to the United States, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1951 with a bachelor of arts degree in French literature. Bouvier's college graduation coincided with her sister's high school graduation, and the two spent the summer of 1951 on a trip through Europe. This trip was the subject of Kennedy's only autobiographical book, One Special Summer, which is also the only one of her publications to feature her drawings. Following her graduation, Bouvier was hired as the Inquiring Photographer for The Washington Times-Herald. The position required her to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures to be published alongside selected quotations from their responses in the newspaper. During this time, she was engaged to a young stock broker, John Husted, for three months. Jacqueline and then-Senator John Kennedy belonged to the same social circle and often attended the same functions. In May 1952, at a dinner party organized by mutual friends, they were formally introduced for the first time. The two began dating soon afterward, and their engagement was officially announced on June 25, 1953. Bouvier married Kennedy on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island in a Mass celebrated by Boston's Archbishop Richard Cushing. An estimated 700 guests attended the ceremony and 1,200 attended the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm. The wedding cake was created by Plourde's Bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts. The wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City. The two honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico and settled in McLean, Virginia. Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 1956.That same year, the couple sold their estate, Hickory Hill to Robert and Ethel Kennedy and moved to a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. Kennedy subsequently gave birth to a second daughter, Caroline, in 1957, and a son, John, in 1960, both via Caesarian section. In the general election on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Nixon in the U.S. presidential election. A little over two weeks later, Mrs. Kennedy gave birth to the couple's first son, John, Jr. When her husband was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961, Kennedy became, at age 31, one of the youngest First Ladies in history, behind Frances Folsom Cleveland and Julia Tyler. Like any First Lady, Kennedy was thrust into the spotlight and while she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she preferred to maintain as much privacy as possible for herself and her children. Kennedy is remembered for reorganizing entertainment for White House Social events, seeking to restore several White House interiors, her taste in clothing worn during Kennedy's Presidency, her popularity among foreign dignitaries, and leading the country in mourning after her husband's assassination in 1963. Kennedy ranks among the most popular of First Ladies |
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier |
| 8 | Childress, Sarah | 04 Sep 1803 | 14 Aug 1891 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the 11th President of the United States, James Polk, and the 12th woman to serve as First Lady. Sarah was born in 1803 to Joel Childress, a prominent planter, merchant, and land speculator, and Elizabeth Whitsitt Childress?the third of their six children. Sarah was well educated for a woman of her time and place, attending the exclusive Moravian Female Academy at Salem, North Carolina. She was then schooled at what is now Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the few institutions of higher learning available to women in the early 19th century. She met Polk while both were receiving instruction from Samuel P. Black in Murfreesboro; he was 19, she was 12. Several years later Polk began courting her, and in 1823 the two became engaged. Sarah Childress, aged 20, married James Polk, aged 28, on January 1, 1824, at the plantation home of the bride's parents near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Polks had no children of their own, but raised a nephew, Marshall Tate Polk (1831-1884) as their personal ward. After her husband's death, Mrs. Polk assumed guardianship of an orphaned niece, Sarah Polk Jetton (1847-1924), and raised the girl as her own. In Washington as congressman's wife during the administrations of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, Mrs. Polk very much enjoyed her social duties. She risked a breech with Jackson, her husband's mentor, by taking part in the social ostracism of Peggy Eaton. Sarah Polk was lively, charming, intelligent, and a good conversationalist. President Polk at times discussed policy matters with her. Sarah helped James with his speeches in private, copied his correspondence, and gave him advice. While she enjoyed politics, she also cautioned him against overwork. A devout Presbyterian, she as First Lady banned dancing and hard liquor at official receptions and refused to attend horse races or the theatre. She hosted the first annual Thanksgiving dinner at the White House. Only 41 when her husband became president, Sarah Polk outlived several of her successors: Margaret Taylor, Abigail Fillmore, Jane Pierce, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eliza Johnson and Lucy Webb Hayes. Only a handful of first ladies have lived longer -- Anna Harrison, Edith Bolling Wilson, Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, and Bess Truman. Only three months after retirement to their new home "Polk Place" in Nashville, James Polk died. (He had the shortest retirement of any former US President). Contrasted with Julia Tyler's waltzes, the Polk entertainments were noted for sedateness and sobriety. Although some accounts stated that the Polks never served wine, a Congressman's wife recorded in her diary details of a four-hour dinner for forty at the White House--glasses for six different wines, from pink champagne to ruby port and sauterne, "formed a rainbow around each plate."[citation needed] Mrs. Polk was said to be popular and respected.[weasel words] She retired with the former president to Nashville, Tennessee, where she remained after his death in 1849. During the Civil War, she supported the Confederacy. Sarah Polk lived on in that home for 42 years. She lived through the longest retirement and widowhood of any former US First Lady, and wore black always. She died on August 14, 1891, at age 87. She was buried next to the president at their home in Nashville and was later reinterred with him at the state capitol. wikipedia.org |
Sarah Childress |
| 9 | Christian, Lettia | 12 Nov 1790 | 10 Sep 1842 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the first wife of John Tyler, was First Lady of the United States from 1841 until her death. Born at the Cedar Grove plantation in New Kent County, Virginia, Letitia Christian was the daughter of Colonel Robert Christian, a prosperous planter, and Mary Brown-Christian. Letitia was shy, quiet, pious, and by all accounts, utterly selfless and devoted to her family. She met John Tyler, then a law student, in 1808. Their five-year courtship was so restrained that not until three weeks before the wedding did Tyler kiss her -- and even then it was on the hand. In his only surviving love letter to her, written a few months before their wedding, Tyler promised, "Whether I float or sink in the stream of fortune, you may be assured of this, that I shall never cease to love you." They married on Tyler's 23rd birthday at Cedar Grove, her family's home. Their 29-year marriage appears to have been a singularly happy one. Mrs. Tyler avoided the limelight during her husband's political rise, preferring domestic responsibilities to those of a public wife. During his congressional service, she remained in Virginia except for one visit to Washington during the winter of 1828-1829. In 1839, she suffered a paralytic stroke that left her an invalid. As First Lady, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House; she came down just once, to attend the wedding of her daughter (Elizabeth) in January 1842. The first President's wife to die in the White House, Letitia Tyler died peacefully in the evening of September 10, 1842. She was taken to Virginia for burial at the plantation of her birth. At the time of her death, she was 51 years old, making her the youngest First Lady to die. Her daughter-in-law Priscilla Cooper Tyler remembered her as being "the most entirely unselfish person you can imagine...Notwithstanding her very delicate health, mother attends to and regulates all the household affairs and all so quietly that you can't tell when she does it." Tyler appears on a 28p (£0.28) commemorative postage stamp from the Isle of Man Post Office, issued May 23, 2006, as part of a series honoring Manx-Americans |
Lettia Christian |
| 10 | Cleveland, Grover | 18 Mar 1837 | 24 Jun 1908 |  22nd & 24th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In office March 4, 1893 - March 4, 1897 was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897) and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents. He was the winner of the popular vote for president three timesin 1884, 1888, and 1892and was the only Democrat elected to the presidency in the era of Republican political domination that lasted from 1860 to 1912. Cleveland's admirers praise him for his honesty, independence, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. As a leader of the Bourbon Democrats, he opposed imperialism, taxes, subsidies and inflationary policies. As a reformer he also worked against corruption, patronage, and bossism. Some of Cleveland's actions caused controversy within his own party. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in order to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions, and his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Furthermore, critics complained that he had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters-depressions and strikes?in his second term. Even so, his reputation for honesty and good character survived the troubles of his second term. Biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "in Grover Cleveland the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not. |
Grover Cleveland |
| 11 | Coolidge, Calvin | 04 Jul 1872 | 05 Jan 1933 |  30th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the 30th President of the United States (1923?1929). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His actions during the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th Vice President in 1920 and succeeded to the Presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative. Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity. As a Coolidge biographer put it, "he embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength." Many later criticized Coolidge as part of a general criticism of laissez-faire government. His reputation underwent a renaissance during the Ronald Reagan Administration,[5] but the ultimate assessment of his presidency is still divided between those who approve of his reduction of the size of government and those who believe the federal government should be more involved in regulating and controlling the economy |
Calvin Coolidge |
| 12 | Dandridge, Martha | 21 Jun 1731 | 22 May 1802 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington is considered to be the first First Lady of the United States. During her lifetime, she was known as "Lady Washington." |
Martha Dandridge |
| 13 | Davis, Nancy | 06 Jul 1921 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and served as an influential First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was born in New York; her parents divorced soon after her birth and she grew up in Maryland, living with an aunt and uncle while her mother pursued acting jobs. As Nancy Davis, she was an actress in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as Donovan's Brain, Night into Morning, and Hellcats of the Navy. In 1952 she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the Screen Actors Guild, and they had two children. Nancy was the First Lady of California when her husband was Governor from 1967 to 1975. In that capacity, she began work with the Foster Grandparents Program. Nancy Reagan became First Lady of the United States in January 1981 following her husband's victory, but was criticised early in his first term largely due to her decision to replace the White House china. Nancy restored a Kennedy-esque glamour to the White House following years of lax formality, and her interest in high-end fashion garnered much attention, as well as criticism. She championed recreational drug prevention causes by founding the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which was considered her major initiative as first lady. Always protective of her husband, more controversy ensued when it was revealed in 1988 that she had consulted an astrologer to assist in planning the president's schedule after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband. The Reagans retired to their home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California in 1989. Nancy devoted most of her time to caring for her ailing husband, diagnosed in 1994 with Alzheimer's disease, until his death in 2004. Nancy Reagan has remained active within the Reagan Library and in politics, particularly in support of stem-cell research. |
Nancy Davis | |
| 14 | Dent, Julia Boggs | 26 Jan 1826 | 14 Dec 1902 |  22nd First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, and was First Lady of the United States from 1869 to 1877. Born Julia Boggs Dent at White Haven plantation west of St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Colonel Frederick Dent, a slaveholding planter and merchant, and Ellen Wrenshall-Dent, Julia was rather plain in appearance and squinted through crossed eyes. In memoirs prepared late in life?unpublished until 1975?she pictured her girlhood as an idyll: "one long summer of sunshine, flowers, and smiles". She attended the Misses Mauros' boarding school in St. Louis for seven years among the daughters of other affluent parents. She excelled in art and voice. A social favorite in that circle, she met "Ulys" at her home, where her family welcomed him as a West Point classmate of her brother Frederick; soon she felt lonely without him, dreamed of him, and agreed to wear his West Point ring Grant proposed several times before Julia finally accepted. When she did, they were sitting on the front steps of her beloved childhood home, a picturesque plantation called White Haven. In 1844 the couple embarked on a four-year engagement, deferred by the Mexican-American War, during which they saw each other only once. Ulysses Grant, aged 26, married Julia Dent, aged 22, on August 22, 1848 at White Haven plantation. Neither of their fathers approved the match - hers because as a career soldier, Grant's prospects seemed bleak; his because the Dents were slaveholders. Grant's parents refused to attend the wedding, though they did come to accept Julia. Their marriage, often tried by adversity, met every test; they gave each other a life-long loyalty. Like other army wives, "dearest Julia" accompanied her husband to military posts, to pass uneventful days at distant garrisons. Then she returned to his parents' home in 1852 when he was ordered West. Ending that separation, Grant resigned his commission two years later. Farming and business ventures at St. Louis failed, and in 1860 he took his family back to his home in Galena, Illinois. Grant was working in his father's leather goods store when the Civil War called him to a soldier's duty with his state's volunteers. Throughout the war, Julia joined her husband near the scene of action whenever she could. After so many years of hardship and stress, she rejoiced in his fame as a victorious general, and she entered the White House in 1869 to begin, in her words, "the happiest period" of her life. With Cabinet wives as her allies, she entertained extensively and lavishly. The social highlight of the Grant years was the White House wedding of their daughter in 1874. Contemporaries noted her finery, jewels, and silks and laces. As First Lady it was suggested to her that she have an operation to correct her crossed eyes, but President Grant said that he liked her that way. Upon leaving the White House in 1877, the Grants made a trip around the world that became a journey of triumphs. Julia proudly recalled details of hospitality and magnificent gifts they received. A highlight of the trip was an overnight stay and dinner hosted for them by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in England. They also enjoyed a swing through the Far East, being cordially received at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo by the Emperor and Empress of Japan. In 1884 Grant suffered yet another business failure and they lost all they had. To provide for his wife, Grant wrote his famous personal memoirs, racing with time and death from cancer. The means thus afforded and her widow's pension enabled her to live in comfort, surrounded by children and grandchildren, until her own death in 1902 at age 76. She became the first First Lady to write a memoir, though she was unable to find a publisher, and she had been dead almost 75 years when her "The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant)" was finally published in 1975. She had attended in 1897 the dedication of Grant's monumental tomb overlooking the Hudson River in New York City. She was laid to rest in a sarcophagus beside her husband. She had ended her own chronicle of their years together with a firm declaration: the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me, falls upon me, and warms me. |
Julia Boggs Dent |
| 15 | Donelson, Rachel | 15 Jun 1767 | 22 Dec 1828 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the 7th President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Born in present-day Halifax County, Virginia, Rachel was the daughter of Colonel John Donelson and Rachel Stockley-Donelson. John Donelson was a surveyor and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses at the time of Rachel's birth. Her father moved the family to Tennessee, and then later, to Kentucky. In 1780, John Donelson co-founded the fort of Nashborough in 1780, on the Tennessee frontier. We know Nashborough today as the city of Nashville. Although a dowdy, forlorn figure in middle age, famous for smoking a corncob pipe, Rachel Donelson in her youth was a comely, vivacious woman. She was known for her intelligence and wit. She was clearly able to "hold her own" in any conversation and was popular with the men she met. At 18, Rachel Donelson married Colonel Lewis Robards. He was from a prominent Mercer County, Kentucky family. Robards's jealousy of a young boarder named Peyton Short, though, made it impossible for Rachel live with him. They separated in 1790. Despite her pleas of innocence, Robards ordered her to return to her family (now back in Tennessee) until he called for her. Soon after she had rejoined her mother, now a widow, near Nashville, Andrew Jackson arrived as a boarder at the Donelsons. Eventually they fell in love. Nevertheless, when Robards came to Nashville to reclaim his wife, Rachel dutifully returned with him to Kentucky. She soon learned, however, that he had not changed. He had not curbed his rages of jealousy. Told of Rachel's unhappiness, Jackson raced to Kentucky and rescued her. In December 1790, Robards told his wife that he had filed for divorce with the state legislature and the divorce was final; in reality, Robards had actually asked the legislature to pass an enabling act permitting him to sue for a divorce. Andrew Jackson married Rachel Donelson-Robards in August 1791, at Natchez, Mississippi. They were both aged 24. This marriage was later deemed invalid because Rachel's divorce had not yet become final. They remarried, this time legally, on January 17, 1794. Unfortunately, their remarriage did not end the matter. The charge of adultery was to haunt the couple ever after. Andrew Jackson was devoted to Rachel. He fought 13 duels to protect her honor, and even killed one opponent, Charles Dickinson. On October 1, 1803, he challenged John "Nolichucky Jack" Sevier (the first governor of Tennessee) to a duel after Sevier had dishonored Rachel by saying, "I know of no services you have rendered to this country other than taking a trip to Natchez with another man's wife!" In 1809, Andrew and Rachel Jackson legally adopted one of her nephews (one of the twin boys recently born to Mr. and Mrs. Severn Donelson). They named him Andrew Jackson, Jr. Andrew Jackson ran for President in the especially competitive four-candidate 1824 election. He became the first contender to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. During the 1828 presidential campaign, members of the press found out about the Jackson's premature marriage. Rachel was accused of adultery and attacked mercilessly. Jackson tried to keep such reports from his wife, who by then had a history of heart trouble. However, she had heard enough to realize that her past was the target of muckraking by the press throughout the entire nation. Possibly as a result of her anguish, Rachel grew ever more ill. Rachel Jackson died suddenly of a heart attack on December 22, 1828. The date was just two weeks after Andrew Jackson had won the presidential election, but prior to his inauguration. Over 10,000 people attended the funeral. Rachel Jackson was buried on Christmas Eve in her white inaugural gown. |
Rachel Donelson |
| 16 | Eisenhower, Dwight | 14 Oct 1890 | 28 Mar 1969 |  30th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944?45. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO. As President, he oversaw the cease-fire of the Korean War, maintained pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race, enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System. He was the last World War I veteran to serve as U.S. president, and the last president born in the 19th century. Eisenhower ranks highly among former U.S. presidents in terms of approval rating. He was also the first term-limited president in accordance with the 22nd amendment. |
Dwight Eisenhower |
| 17 | Fillmore, Millard | 07 Jan 1800 | 08 Mar 1874 |  13th President Of The United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President None Preceded by Zachary Taylor Succeeded by Franklin Pierce Was the 13th President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853 and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He was the second Vice President to assume the presidency upon the death of a sitting president, succeeding Zachary Taylor, who died of what is thought to be acute gastroenteritis. Fillmore was never elected president; after serving out Taylor's term, he failed to gain the nomination of the Whigs for president in the 1852 presidential election, and, four years later, in the 1856 presidential election, he again failed to win election as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate. |
Millard Fillmore |
| 18 | Folsom, Frances | 21 Jul 1864 | 29 Oct 1947 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the President of the United States Grover Cleveland and First Lady of the United States from 1886 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897. Becoming First Lady at age 21, she was the youngest First Lady so far. She was a younger maternal cousin of Peter Pitchlynn, former chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Frances Clara Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a lawyer and descendant of the earliest settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire, and Emma Harmon-Folsom. All of Frances Cleveland's ancestors were from England and settled in what would become Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, eventually migrating to western New York. She was their only child to survive infancy (a sister, Nellie Augusta, died before her first birthday). She originally had the first name Frank (named for an uncle), but later decided to adopt the feminine variant Frances. A longtime close friend of Oscar Folsom, Grover Cleveland, at age 27, met his future wife shortly after she was born. He took an avuncular interest in the child, buying her a baby carriage and otherwise doting on her as she grew up. When her father died in a buggy accident in 1875 without having written a will, the court appointed Cleveland administrator of his estate. This brought Cleveland into still more contact with Frances, then age 11. She attended Central High School in Buffalo and went on to Wells College in Aurora, New York. Sometime while she was in college, Cleveland's feelings for her took a romantic turn. He proposed by letter in August 1885, soon after her graduation. They did not announce their engagement, however, until just five days before the wedding. Frances Folsom, age 21, married President Grover Cleveland, age 49, on June 2, 1886, at the White House. Cleveland was the only president to be married in the White House (John Tyler had married his second wife while he was president in 1844, but he married in New York City). President Cleveland worked as usual on his wedding day. The ceremony, a small affair attended by relatives, close friends and the cabinet and their wives, was performed at 7 p.m. in the Blue Room of the White House by the Reverend Byron Sutherland, assisted by the Reverend William Cleveland, the groom's brother. The words "honor, love, and keep" were substituted for "honor, love and obey". John Philip Sousa and the Marine Band provided the music. The couple spent a five-day honeymoon at Deer Park in the Cumberland Mountains of Western Maryland The new First Lady was the subject of intense media interest. She took over the duties of being White House hostess, and her charm won her popularity. She held two receptions a week?one on Saturday afternoons, when women with jobs were free to come. Cleveland's sister Rose Cleveland had been her bachelor brother's hostess in the first 15 months of his first term of office. After her brother's marriage, Rose gladly gave up the duties of hostess for her own career in education. After the president was defeated in the U.S. presidential election, 1888, the Clevelands lived in New York City. Upon leaving the White House at the end of her husband's first term, Frances is reported to have told the staff to take care of the building since the Clevelands would be returning in four years. She proved correct, becoming the only First Lady to preside at two nonconsecutive administrations After Cleveland's death in 1908, Frances remained in Princeton, New Jersey. On February 10, 1913, at the age of 49, she married Thomas J. Preston, Jr., a professor of archaeology at Princeton University. She was the first presidential widow to remarry. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, she led the Needlework Guild of America in its clothing drive for the poor. She died on October 29, 1947, in Baltimore. She was buried in Princeton next to President Cleveland, her first husband. |
Frances Folsom |
| 19 | Garfield, James Abram | 19 Nov 1831 | 19 Sep 1881 |  20th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Chester A. Arthur Preceded by Rutherford B. Hayes Succeeded by Chester A. Arthur Was the 20th President of the United States. His death, two months after being shot and six months after his inauguration, made his tenure, at 199 days, the second shortest (after William Henry Harrison) in United States history. Before his election as president, Garfield served as a major general in the United States Army and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a member of the Electoral Commission of 1876. Garfield was the second U.S. President to be assassinated; Abraham Lincoln was the first. President Garfield, a Republican, had been in office a scant four months when he was shot and fatally wounded on July 2, 1881. He lived until September 19, having served for six months and fifteen days. To date, Garfield is the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to have been elected President. |
James Abram Garfield |
| 20 | Harding, Warren Gamaliel | 02 Nov 1865 | 02 Aug 1923 |  29th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Calvin Coolidge Preceded by Woodrow Wilson Succeeded by Calvin Coolidge Was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death from a heart attack or stroke in 1923. A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate (1899-1903) and later as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1903-1905) and as a U.S. Senator (1915-1921). His conservative stance on issues such as taxes, affable manner, and campaign manager Harry Daugherty's 'make no enemies' strategy enabled Harding to become the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign, in the aftermath of World War I, he promised a return to "normalcy". In the 1920 election, he and his running-mate, Calvin Coolidge, defeated Democrat and fellow Ohioan James M. Cox, in what was then the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history since the popular vote tally began to be recorded in 1824: 60.36% to 34.19%. Harding headed a cabinet of notable men such as Charles Evans Hughes, Andrew Mellon, future president Herbert Hoover and Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who was jailed for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. In foreign affairs, Harding signed peace treaties that built on the Treaty of Versailles (which formally ended World War I). He also led the way to world Naval disarmament at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22. |
Warren Gamaliel Harding |
| 21 | Harrison, Benjamin | 20 Aug 1833 | 13 Mar 1901 |  23rd President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Levi P. Morton Preceded by Grover Cleveland Succeeded by Grover Cleveland Was the 23rd President of the United States, serving one term from 1889 to 1893. Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at the age of 21, where he became a prominent state politician. During the American Civil War Harrison served as a Brigadier General in the XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. After the war he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Indiana, but was later appointed to the U.S. Senate from that state. Harrison, a Republican, was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Grover Cleveland. He is the only president from the state of Indiana. His presidential administration is most remembered for its economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff and the Sherman Antitrust Act, and for annual federal spending that reached one billion dollars for the first time. Democrats attacked the "Billion Dollar Congress", and used the issue, along with the growing unpopularity of the high tariff, to defeat the Republicans, both in the 1890 mid-term elections and in Harrison's bid for reelection in 1892. He also saw the admittance of six states into the Union. After failing to win reelection he returned to private life at his home in Indianapolis where he remarried, wrote a book, and later represented the Republic of Venezuela in an international case against the United Kingdom. In 1900 he traveled to Europe as part of the case and, after a brief stay, returned to Indianapolis where he died the following year from complications arising from influenza. |
Benjamin Harrison |
| 22 | Harrison, William Henry | 09 Feb 1777 | 04 Apr 1841 |  William Henry Harrison 9th President of the United States Courtesy of: The Library of Congress American Memory William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States, an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. The oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the United States Declaration of Independence, Harrison died on his thirty-second day in office the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis, but that crisis ultimately resolved many questions about presidential succession left unanswered by the Constitution until passage of the 25th Amendment. Before election as president, Harrison served as the first territorial congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. representative and senator from Ohio. He originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname "Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tippecanoe"). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, which brought an end to hostilities in his region. After the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States Congress, and in 1824 he became a member of the Senate. There he served a truncated term before being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia, he lectured Simon Bolívar on the finer points of democracy before returning to his farm in Ohio, where he lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency in 1836. Defeated, he retired again to his farm before being elected president in 1840. |
William Henry Harrison |
| 23 | Hayes, Rutherford B. | 04 Oct 1822 | 17 Jan 1893 |  19th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President William A. Wheeler Preceded by Ulysses S. Grant Succeeded by James A. Garfield Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on October 4, 1822. His parents were Rutherford Hayes (January 4, 1787 Brattleboro, Vermont July 20, 1822 Delaware, Ohio) and Sophia Birchard (April 15, 1792 Wilmington, Vermont October 30, 1866 Columbus, Ohio). His father, a storekeeper, died ten weeks before his birth, thus making Hayes the second U.S. president born after the death of his father, Andrew Jackson being the first. An uncle, Sardis Birchard, lived with the family and served as Hayes' guardian. Birchard schooled a young Hayes in Latin and Ancient Greek, and contributed much to his early education. Birchard was close to him throughout his life and became a father figure to him. Hayes attended the common schools and the Methodist Academy in Norwalk. He graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio in August 1842 at the top of his class. He was an honorary member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Delta Chi chapter at Cornell), though he had already graduated after the Fraternity Chapter was Chartered. After briefly reading the law in Columbus, he graduated in 2 years from Harvard Law School in January 1845. He was admitted to the bar on May 10, 1845, and commenced practice in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont). After dissolving the partnership in Fremont in 1849, he moved to Cincinnati and resumed the practice of law. On December 30, 1852, Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb. They had eight children (Sardis, James, Rutherford, Frances, Scott, and three died young). In 1856, he was nominated for but declined a municipal judgeship, but in 1858 accepted appointment as Cincinnati city solicitor by the city council and won election outright to that position in 1859, losing a reelection bid in 1860. Hayes began political life as a Whig but in 1853 joined the Free Soil party as a delegate nominating Salmon P. Chase for Governor of Ohio. While still in the Shenandoah in 1864, Hayes received the Republican nomination to Congress from Cincinnati. Hayes refused to campaign, stating "I have other business just now. Any man who would leave the army at this time to electioneer for Congress ought to be scalped." Despite this, Hayes was elected and served in the Thirty-ninth and again to the Fortieth Congresses and served from March 4, 1865, to July 20, 1867, when he resigned, having been nominated for Governor of Ohio. Through the powerful voice of his friend and Civil War subordinate James M. Comly's Ohio State Journal (one of the state's most influential newspapers), Hayes won the election and served as governor from 1868 to 1872. He was an unsuccessful candidate in 1872 for election to the Forty-third Congress, and had planned to retire from public life but was drafted by the Republican convention in 1875 to run for governor again and served from January 1876 to March 2, 1877. Hayes received national notice for leading a Republican sweep of a previously Democratic Ohio government. A dark horse nominee (James G. Blaine had led the previous six ballots) by his convention, Hayes became president after the tumultuous, scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration. He had a reputation for honesty dating back to his Civil War years. Hayes was quite famous for his ability not to offend anyone. Henry C. Adams, a prominent political journalist and Washington insider, asserted that Hayes was "a third rate nonentity, whose only recommendation is that he is obnoxious to no one." Understandably, because of Hayes' relative anonymity and perceived insignificance, his opponent in the presidential election, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, was the favorite to win the presidential election and won the popular vote by about 250,000 votes (with about 8.5 million voters in total). Hayes took the oath of office in the Red Room of the Executive Mansion (White House) on March 3, becoming the first president to take the oath of office in the White House. This ceremony was held in secret, because the previous year's election had been so bitterly divisive that outgoing President Grant feared an insurrection by Tilden's supporters and wanted to ensure that any Democratic attempt to hijack the public inauguration ceremony would fail, Hayes having been sworn in already in private. Hayes took the oath again publicly on March 5 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol, and served until March 4, 1881. Hayes' best known quotation, "He serves his party best who serves his country best," is from his 1877 Inaugural Address. During his presidency, Hayes signed a number of bills including one signed on February 15, 1879 which, for the first time, allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. wikipedia.org |
Rutherford B. Hayes |
| 24 | Henry, Lou | 29 Mar 1874 | 07 Jan 1944 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was the wife of Herbert Hoover and First Lady of the United States. Born in Waterloo, Iowa, the daughter of Charles Delano Henry, a banker, and Florence Ida Weed, "Lou" grew up something of a tomboy in Waterloo, and in Whittier, California and Monterey, California. Charles Henry took his daughter on camping trips in the hills?her greatest pleasures in her early teens. Lou became a fine horsewoman; she hunted, and preserved specimens with the skill of a taxidermist; she developed an enthusiasm for rocks, minerals, and mining. She attended San Jose Normal School and in 1894 enrolled at Stanford University as the school's only female geology major. That year she met Herbert Hoover, then a senior. By the time he graduated the following June, they had reached an understanding but put off wedding plans while she continued her education and he pursued his engineering career in Australia. From there in 1898, the year she graduated from Stanford, Hoover cabled a marriage proposal, which she promptly accepted by return wire. Although raised an Episcopalian, Miss Henry decided to become a Quaker. But because there was no Quaker meeting in Monterey, they were married in a civil ceremony performed by Father Ramon Mestres, a Roman Catholic priest of the San Carlos Borromeo Mission. Both Hoover and Lou Henry were aged 24 when they married on February 10, 1899, at the home of the bride's parents in Monterey, California. Soon after the wedding they sailed for Tientsin, China, and Hoover's new job. She was present with her husband during the Boxer Rebellion. Possessed of a natural ear for languages, Mrs. Hoover became quite proficient in Chinese. In the White House, the Hoovers at times conversed in Chinese to foil eavesdroppers. Mrs. Hoover was also well versed in Latin; she collaborated with her husband in translating Agricola's De Re Metallica, a 16th century encyclopedia of mining and metallurgy. The Hoover translation was published in 1912, and is still in print as the standard English translation. During World War I, she assisted her husband in providing relief for Belgian refugees. For her work she was decorated in 1919 by King Albert I of Belgium. While Hoover served in the cabinet of Presidents Harding and Coolidge, she was active as national president of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Camp Lou Henry Hoover in Middleville, New Jersey, is named for her and run by the Heart of New Jersey Council of the Girl Scouts. The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House in Palo Alto's foothills is now the official residence of the President of Stanford University. It is located near the campus's Hoover Tower, home of the Hoover Institution, and is designated a National Historic Landmark. Lou Henry Hoover Elementary School in Whittier was built in 1938 and was named in her honor. In 2005, Lou Henry Elementary School was opened in her honor in Waterloo. One of the brick dorms known now as "The Classics" at San Jose State University is named "Hoover Hall" in her honor. She funded the construction of the first Girl Scout house in Palo Alto, California. It is called Lou Henry Hoover Girl Scout House.[1] It is the oldest Girl Scout House in continuous use in the country. As First Lady, she discontinued the New Year's Day reception, the annual open house observance begun by Mrs. John Adams in 1801. Mrs. Hoover died of a heart attack in New York City on January 7, 1944. She was buried in Palo Alto, California, and later reinterred at West Branch, Iowa, next to the president, following his death in 1964. |
Lou Henry |
| 25 | Herndon, Ellen Lewis | 30 Aug 1837 | 12 Jan 1880 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the 21st President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur. "Nell" Herndon was born in Culpeper Court House, Virginia, the daughter of William Lewis Herndon, a naval officer who gained national attention in 1857 when he calmly went down with his ship after having safely evacuated passengers and crew of the Central America amid a storm off Cape Hatteras, and Frances Elizabeth Hansborough-Herndon. She was also the niece of Matthew Fontaine Maury USN. Nell and Chester Arthur were introduced in 1856 by her cousin Dabney Herndon, a friend of Arthur, in New York City. Arthur proposed to her on the porch of the U.S. Hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York after a brief courtship. Arthur, aged 30, married Herndon, aged 22, on October 25, 1859, at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City. The date was her father's birthdate. Arthur, who was from rural Vermont, is said to have learned the ways of high society from her prominent family. The couple's parties in their Lexington Avenue townhouse in Manhattan were legendary. A talented soprano, Mrs. Arthur sang with the Mendelssohn Glee Club and performed at benefits around New York. The Arthurs apparently had a strong marriage, but one strained by both the political activities that consumed so much of his time and the Civil War. While Arthur was serving in the New York militia during the conflict, his wife privately sympathized with the Confederacy, for which many of her Virginia kinfolk were fighting. Mrs. Arthur always feared the worst for her husband, but it was she who died first. In January 1880, she came down with a cold from waiting outdoors for a carriage after an evening concert. Always frail in health, she quickly developed pneumonia and died two days later, on January 12, 1880, at age 42. She was buried in the Arthur family plot in Albany, New York. The president's sister Mary McElroy served as hostess and unofficial First Lady while agreeing to look after their children. Arthur deeply mourned the death of his beloved wife. After taking office as president, Arthur, who could see St. John's Episcopal Church from his office, had a stained glass window dedicated to his wife where he could view it at night, as the lights were kept on. He also ordered fresh flowers placed daily before her portrait in the White House. wikipedia.org |
Ellen Lewis Herndon |
| 26 | Herron, Helen | 02 Jun 1861 | 22 May 1943 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of William Howard Taft and First Lady of the United States from 1909 to 1913. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the fourth child of Judge John Williamson Herron (1827-1912), a law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes, and Harriet Collins-Herron (1833-1901), Nellie graduated from the Cincinnati College of Music and taught school briefly before her marriage. With her parents, she attended the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration of President and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House in 1877. Two years later, she met William Howard Taft at a bobsledding party in Cincinnati; he was 22 years old, she was 18. He asked her out for the first time in February 1880, but they did not date regularly until 1882. He proposed in April 1885, and she accepted in May. Taft married Nellie on June 19, 1886, at the home of the bride's parents in Cincinnati. The wedding was performed by the Reverend D.N.A. Hoge of Zanesville, Ohio. Taft's younger brother Horace Taft was best man. The couple honeymooned one day in New York City and four days at Sea Bright, New Jersey, before setting off on a three-month tour of Europe. On their return, they settled in Cincinnati. Mrs. Taft encouraged her husband's political career despite his oft-stated preference for the judiciary. She welcomed each step in her husband's political career: state judge, Solicitor General of the United States, and federal circuit court judge. In 1900 he agreed to take charge of American civil government in the Philippines. Further travel with her husband, who became Secretary of War in 1904, brought a widened interest in world politics and a cosmopolitan circle of friends. The Tafts had two sons and a daughter. Robert Alphonso Taft (1889-1953) was a political leader, Helen Taft (1891-1987) was an educator, and Charles Phelps Taft II (1897-1983) was a civic leader. As First Lady, she was the first wife of a president to ride alongside her husband down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day (heretofore the outgoing chief executive had accompanied the new president). Two months after entering the White House, Mrs. Taft suffered a stroke, impairing her speech. She never fully recovered. With the help of her sisters, however, she entertained moderately. She received guests three afternoons a week in the Red Room. The social highlight of the Taft administration was the silver wedding anniversary gala (June 19, 1911) for some 8,000 guests. In her most lasting contribution as First Lady, Mrs. Taft arranged for the planting of the 3,000 Japanese cherry trees that grace the Washington Tidal Basin; with the wife of the Japanese ambassador, she personally planted the first two saplings in ceremonies on March 27, 1912. The Tafts were divided over Prohibition: the former president was a Dry; Mrs. Taft a Wet. With Taft's appointment to the Supreme Court, Mrs. Taft became the only woman to be both First Lady and wife of a chief justice. She died on May 22, 1943, and was buried next to the president at Arlington National Cemetery. wikipedia.org |
Helen Herron |
| 27 | Hoes, Hannah | 08 Mar 1783 | 05 Feb 1819 |  Hannah Hoes Van Buren Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of the 8th President of the United States and 1st Lady of the United States Even though she died before Martin became President, she is considered one of the American First Ladies. Martin Van Buren never remarried and was one of the few Presidents to be unmarried while in office. During his term, his daughter-in-law, Angelica Singleton Van Buren, performed as the host of the White House and unofficial first lady during her incumbency. |
Hannah Hoes |
| 28 | Hoover, Herbert Clark | 10 Aug 1874 | 20 Oct 1964 |  Herbert Hoover 31st President of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclodpedia Was the thirty-first President of the United States (1929-1933), a mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization". In the presidential election of 1928 Hoover easily won the Republican nomination. The nation was prosperous and optimistic, leading to a landslide for Hoover over the Democrat Al Smith, whom many voters distrusted on account of his Roman Catholicism. Hoover deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement (a major component of the Progressive Era), arguing that a technical solution existed for every social and economic problem. That position was challenged by the Great Depression, which began in 1929, the first year of his presidency. He tried to combat the Depression with volunteer efforts and government action, none of which produced economic recovery during his term. The consensus among historians is that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward spiral into deep Depression, compounded by popular opposition to prohibition. Other electoral liabilities were Hoover's lack of charisma in relating to voters, and his poor skills in working with politicians. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Herbert Clark Hoover |
| 29 | Jackson, Andrew | 15 Mar 1767 | 08 Jun 1845 |  7th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President John C. Calhoun (1829-1832) None (1832-1833) Martin Van Buren (1833-1837) Preceded by John Quincy Adams Succeeded by Martin Van Buren Was the seventh President of the United States (1829-1837). He was military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. A polarizing figure who dominated American politics in the 1820s and 1830s, his political ambition combined with widening political participation, shaping the modern Democratic Party. His legacy is now seen as mixed, as a protector of popular democracy and individual liberty, checkered by his support for Indian removal and slavery. Renowned for his toughness, he was nicknamed "Old Hickory." As he based his career in developing Tennessee, Jackson was the first president primarily associated with the American frontier. |
Andrew Jackson |
| 30 | Jefferson, Thomas | 13 Apr 1743 | 04 Jul 1826 |  Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was 3rd President of the United States (1801 - 1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804 - 1806). As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the cofounder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779 - 1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789 - 1793), and second Vice President (1797 - 1801). A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, political leader, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, inventor, and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House ? with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." To date, Jefferson is the only president to serve two full terms in office without vetoing a single bill of Congress. Jefferson has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of U.S. presidents. |
Thomas Jefferson |
| 31 | Johnson, Andrew | 29 Dec 1808 | 31 Jul 1875 |  17th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President None Preceded by Abraham Lincoln Succeeded by Ulysses S. Grant Was the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869). Following the assassination of President Lincoln, Johnson presided over the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. At the time of the secession of the Southern states, Johnson was a U.S. Senator from Greeneville in East Tennessee. As a Unionist, he was the only southern senator not to quit his post upon secession. He became the most prominent War Democrat from the South and supported the military policies of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War of 1861?1865. In 1862, Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of occupied Tennessee, where he proved to be energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion and beginning transition to Reconstruction. Johnson was nominated for the Vice President position in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He and Lincoln were elected in November 1864. Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865. As president, he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction - the first phase of Reconstruction - which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederate states back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with some Republicans. The Radicals in the House of Representatives impeached him in 1868, charging him with violating the Tenure of Office Act, a law enacted by Congress in March 1867 over Johnson's veto, but he was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. While Johnson is the most recent president to represent a party other than the Republican or Democratic parties, having represented both the Democrats and the National Union Party, his party status was ambiguous during his presidency. As president, he did not identify with the two main parties even though he did try for the Democratic nomination in 1868. So, while President he attempted to build a party of loyalists under the National Union label. Asked in 1868 why he did not become a Democrat, he said, "It is true I am asked why don't I join the Democratic Party. Why don't they join me ... if I have administered the office of president so well?" His failure to make the National Union brand an actual party made Johnson effectively an independent during his presidency, though he was supported by Democrats and later rejoined the party as a Democratic Senator from Tennessee from 1875 till his death. For these reasons he is usually counted as a Democrat when identifying presidents by their political parties. Johnson was the first U.S. president to succeed to the presidency upon the assassination of his predecessor as well as the first U.S. President to be impeached. He is commonly ranked by historians as being among the worst U.S. presidents. |
Andrew Johnson |
| 32 | Johnson, Lyndon Baines | 27 Aug 1908 | 22 Jan 1973 |  36th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President None (1963-1965) Hubert Humphrey (1965?1969) Preceded by John F. Kennedy Succeeded by Richard Nixon Often referred to as LBJ, served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. He served in all four federal elected offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President, and President. Johnson, a Democrat, succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, completed Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 Presidential election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and, as President, was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, Public Broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his attempt to help the poor in his "War on Poverty." Simultaneously, he greatly escalated direct American involvement in the Vietnam War. Johnson served as a United States Representative from Texas, from 1937?1949 and as United States Senator (as his grandfather foretold when Johnson was just an infant) from 1949?1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running-mate for the 1960 presidential election. Johnson's popularity as President steadily declined after the 1966 Congressional elections, and his re-election bid in the 1968 United States presidential election collapsed as a result of turmoil within the Democratic Party related to opposition to the Vietnam War. He withdrew from the race to concentrate on peacemaking. Johnson was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his arm twisting of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation. He was a legendary "hands-on" manager and the last President to serve out his term without ever hiring a White House Chief of Staff or "gatekeeper" (a position invented by Kennedy's predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower). Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War ruined much of his credibility as President. Johnson was wary of potential political attacks from the right for losing a portion of the world to communism. Johnson believed that if Vietnam fell to the Communists, his presidency would be considered soft on communism, at the same time undermining his grand domestic agenda. Johnson began bombing North Vietnam in 1965 and it continued for the next 7 years through the Nixon Administration. Over time, Johnson escalated the number of troops and active military involvement in Vietnam. Soldier casualties were mounting and soon chants were heard, "Hey, Hey LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?" By the end of his presidency, Johnson turned into a recluse, rarely leaving the White House. Johnson died after suffering his third heart attack, on January 22, 1973. He was 64 years old. |
Lyndon Baines Johnson |
| 33 | Kennedy, John "Jack" Fitzgerald | 29 May 1917 | 22 Nov 1963 |  John "Jack" Fitzgerald Kennedy - Official Portrait by Aaron Shikler Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopeida |
John "Jack" Fitzgerald Kennedy |
| 34 | Kortright, Elizabeth | 30 Jun 1768 | 23 Sep 1830 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of James Monroe, fifth President of the United States. Born in New York in 1768, Elizabeth was the daughter of Lawrence Kortright, an officer in the British army who had made a fortune privateering during the French and Indian War, and Hannah Aspinwall. She acquired social grace and elegance at an early age. A statuesque beauty with raven hair and blue eyes, she first caught Monroe's attention in 1785 while he was in New York serving as a member of the Continental Congress. James, aged twenty-seven, married Elizabeth, aged seventeen, on February 16, 1786, in New York City. After a brief honeymoon on Long Island, the newlyweds returned to New York to live with her father until Congress adjourned. In 1794, James was appointed United States Minister to France by President George Washington. In Paris, as wife of the American Minister during the Reign of Terror, she helped secure the release of Madame La Fayette, wife of the Marquis de Lafayette when she learned of her imprisonment and threatened death by guillotine. Although Elizabeth Monroe regained a measure of respect and admiration during her husband's second term, she compared poorly to her predecessor, Dolley Madison, who had captivated Washington society, setting a standard by which future First Ladies long were measured. Retiring sickly and suffering several long illnesses, Elizabeth died on September 23, 1830 aged 62, at her home, Oak Hill. She was interred at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. The First Spouse Program under the Presidential $1 Coin Act authorizes the United States Mint to issue 1/2 ounce $10 gold coins and bronze medal duplicates[1] to honor the first spouses of the United States. Elizabeth Monroe's coin was released in February 2008. |
Elizabeth Kortright |
| 35 | Lincoln, Abraham | 12 Feb 1809 | 15 Apr 1865 |  Abraham Lincolnb> 16th President of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclodpedia In office: March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865 Vice President Hannibal Hamlin (1861 - 1865) Andrew Johnson (1865) Preceded by James Buchanan Succeeded by Andrew Johnson Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States who successfully led his country through its greatest crisis, the Civil War, only to be assassinated less than a week after the war's end. Before his election as President, Lincoln was a lawyer, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Senate. As an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States. |
Abraham Lincoln |
| 36 | Madison, James | 16 Mar 1751 | 28 Jun 1836 |  4th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President George Clinton (1809-1812), None (1812-1813), Elbridge Gerry (1813-1814) None (1814-1817) Preceded by Thomas Jefferson Succeeded by James Monroe Was an American politician and political philosopher who served as the fourth President of the United States (1809-1817), and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Considered to be the "Father of the Constitution," he was the principal author of the document. In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution. The first President to have served in the United States Congress, he was a leader in the 1st United States Congress, drafted many basic laws and was responsible for the first ten amendments to the Constitution (said to be based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights), and thus is also known as the "Father of the Bill of Rights". As a political theorist, Madison's most distinctive belief was that the new republic needed checks and balances to protect individual rights from the tyranny of the majority. As leader in the House of Representatives, Madison worked closely with President George Washington to organize the new federal government. Breaking with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1791, Madison and Thomas Jefferson organized what they called the Republican Party (later called the Democratic-Republican Party)[8] in opposition to key policies of the Federalists, especially the national bank and the Jay Treaty. He secretly co-authored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. As Jefferson's Secretary of State (1801-1809), Madison supervised the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the nation's size, and sponsored the ill-fated Embargo Act of 1807. As president, he led the nation into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. During and after the war, Madison reversed many of his positions. By 1815, he supported the creation of the second National Bank, a strong military, and a high tariff to protect the new factories opened during the war. |
James Madison |
| 37 | McKinley, William | 29 Jan 1843 | 14 Sep 1901 |  25th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Garret A. Hobart (1897?-1899) None (1899-1901) Theodore Roosevelt (1901) Preceded by Grover Cleveland Succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt was the 25th President of the United States, and the last veteran of the American Civil War to be elected to the office. By the 1880s, McKinley was a national Republican leader; his signature issue was high tariffs on imports as a formula for prosperity, as typified by his McKinley Tariff of 1890. As the Republican candidate in the 1896 presidential election, he upheld the gold standard, and promoted pluralism among ethnic groups. His campaign, designed by Mark Hanna, introduced new advertising-style campaign techniques that revolutionized campaign practices and beat back the crusading of his arch-rival, William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 election is often considered a realigning election that marked the beginning of the Progressive Era. McKinley presided over a return to prosperity after the Panic of 1893. He launched the Spanish-American War, widely popular due to the efforts of the yellow press, using the pretext of Spanish atrocities in Cuba. Later he annexed the former Spanish territories of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and set up a protectorate over Cuba. He also presided over the annexation of the formerly independent Kingdom of Hawaii. McKinley was reelected in the 1900 presidential election after another intense campaign against Bryan, this one focused on foreign policy. After McKinley's assassination in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist of Polish descent, he was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. |
William McKinley |
| 38 | Monroe, James | 28 Apr 1758 | 04 Jul 1831 |  5th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins Preceded by James Madison Succeeded by John Quincy Adams Was the fifth President of the United States (1817-1825). His administration was marked by the acquisition of Florida (1819); the Missouri Compromise (1820), in which Missouri was declared a slave state; the admission of Maine in 1820 as a free state; and the profession of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), declaring U.S. opposition to European interference in the Americas, as well as breaking all ties with France remaining from the War of 1812. |
James Monroe |
| 39 | Nixon, Richard Milhous | 13 Jan 1913 | 23 Apr 1994 |  37th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the thirty-seventh President of the United States (1969-1974) and the only American president to resign the office. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California and developed an interest in music. In the mid-1930s, he passed the bar exam and practiced law with a family friend. Amidst the outbreak of war in the early 1940s, he joined the United States Navy and served as a lieutenant commander in the Pacific during World War II. He was elected to Congress following his military service, specifically the House of Representatives, first representing California's 12th Congressional district, and later the entire state as Senator. He was chosen by party nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower to be Vice President in 1952, a position he began serving in the following year, until 1961. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 1960 and an unsuccessful run for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon was elected to the presidency in 1968, and reelected four years later. Under President Nixon, the United States followed a foreign policy marked by détente with the Soviet Union and by the opening of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Nixon successfully negotiated a ceasefire with North Vietnam, effectively ending the longest war in American history. Domestically, his administration faced resistance to the Vietnam War. In the face of likely impeachment by the United States House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate for the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, issued a controversial pardon for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed while in office. Nixon is the only person to be elected twice to the offices of the presidency and the vice presidency. Nixon suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994 and died four days later at the age of 81. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Richard Milhous Nixon |
| 40 | Payne, Dorothea (Dolley) | 20 May 1768 | 12 Jul 1849 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the spouse of the fourth President of the United States, James Madison, and was First Lady of the United States from 1809 to 1817. She also occasionally acted as First Lady during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, fulfilling the ceremonial functions more usually associated with the President's wife, since Jefferson was a widower Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, the daughter of two Virginians. Her mother, Mary Coles, was a Quaker, but when they married in 1761 her father, John Payne, was not. Three years later he applied and was admitted to the Quaker Monthly Meeting in Hanover County, Virginia, and Dolley Payne was raised in the Quaker faith. In 1765 the Paynes moved to North Carolina near where Guilford College stands today. Dolley was one of eight children, four boys (Walter, William Temple, Isaac, and John) and four girls (Dolley, Lucy, Anna, and Mary). The family returned to Virginia three years later. As a young girl she grew up in comfort in rural eastern Virginia, deeply attached to her mother's family. In 1783, John Payne emancipated his slaves and moved his family to Philadelphia, where he went into business as a starch merchant. By 1789, however, his business had failed. He died in 1792. Madison's mother initially survived by opening a boarding house until, in 1793, she moved to western Virginia to live with her daughter Lucy, who had married George Steptoe Washington, nephew of George Washington. Mary Coles Payne took her two youngest children, Mary and John, with her. By then Dolley Payne had married Quaker lawyer John Todd in January, 1790. Their son John Payne Todd was born in 1790 and William Temple Todd in 1792. Her sister Anna lived with the Todds as well. In the fall of 1793 yellow fever struck Philadelphia. Dolley Payne Todd took her two children to the outskirts of the city, but her husband remained behind. He died in October, 1793, along with their younger son, William Temple. A widow at the age of twenty-five, Dolley Todd returned to Philadelphia. In May, 1794, James Madison asked his friend Aaron Burr to introduce him to Dolley Todd. Madison was seventeen years her senior and, at the age of forty-three, a long-standing bachelor. Dolley was a Quaker and James was an Episcopalian. They were married on September 15, 1794 and lived in Philadelphia for the next three years. Dolley became an Episcopalian. In 1797, after eight years in the House of Representatives, James Madison retired from politics. He took his family to Montpelier, the Madison family estate in Orange County, Virginia. There they expanded the house and settled in. They expected to remain as planters living quietly in the country. When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States, however, he asked James Madison to serve as his Secretary of State. James Madison accepted, and the Madison family?consisting now of James, Dolley, her son Payne, and her sister Anna-shifted to Washington, D.C The Madisons moved to Washington, D.C. in May, 1801, with Dolley Madison's nine year old son, Payne Todd, and her youngest sister, Anna Payne Cutts. As the wife of the Secretary of State, Dolley had no formal, official duties. Thomas Jefferson was a widower whose own daughters lived with their families in central Virginia, so Dolley acted as Jefferson's hostess. Madison worked with the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe to furnish the White House. As the invading British army approached Washington during the War of 1812, Dolley filled a wagon with silver and other valuables and sent them off to the Bank of Maryland for safekeeping. She also took the portrait of George Washington and fled from the city. When James Madison's second term of office ended the Madisons retired to their Virginia plantation. On April 6 1817, Dolley and James Madison returned to their estate in Orange County, Virginia. Dolley Madison by Rembrandt Peale, c. 1817 In 1830, Dolley Madison's son by her first marriage, Payne Todd, who had never found a career, went to debtors prison in Philadelphia. The Madisons sold land in Kentucky and to mortgage half of the Montpelier estate to pay Todd's debts. James Madison died at Montpelier on June 28, 1836. Dolley remained at Montpelier for a year. One of her nieces, Anna Payne, came to live with her. Payne Todd also came for a stay, and Mrs. Madison organized and copied her husband's papers. In 1837 Congress authorized $30,000 as payment for the first installment of the Madison papers. In the fall of 1837, Dolley Payne Madison decided to leave Montpelier for Washington, D.C., charging Payne Todd with the care of the plantation. She moved with Anna Payne into a house her sister Anna and her husband Richard Cutts had bought, located on Lafayette Square. While Madison was living in Washington, Payne Todd was unable to manage the plantation successfully due to alcoholism and resulting illness. Madison tried to raise money by selling the rest of James' papers. Unable to find a buyer for the papers, she sold the whole estate to pay off outstanding debts. In 1848, Congress agreed to buy the rest of James Madison's papers for the sum of $25,000. Madison fell ill in July 1849 and after five days in bed, she died on July 12. Her funeral, on July 17, was a state occasion. |
Dorothea (Dolley) Payne |
| 41 | Polk, James Knox | 02 Nov 1795 | 15 Jun 1849 |  James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Preceded by John Tyler Succeeded by Zachary Taylor Was the 11th President of the United States (1845-1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented the state of Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as Speaker of the House (1835--1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839-1841) before becoming president. A firm supporter of Andrew Jackson, Polk was the last strong pre-Civil War president. Polk is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain then backed away and split the ownership of the Northwest with Britain. He is more famous for leading the nation into the Mexican?American War, in which the US was victorious. He lowered the tariff and established a treasury system that lasted until 1913. A little-known candidate in 1844, he was the first president to retire after a single term without seeking reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended. As a Democrat committed to geographic expansion (or Manifest Destiny), he overrode Whig objections and achieved the second-largest expansion of the nation's territory. Polk secured the Oregon Territory (including Washington, Oregon and Idaho), amounting to about 285,000 square miles (738,000 km²). Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848, the US purchased 525,000 square miles of territory in the Southwest and California. The expansion reopened a furious national debate over allowing slavery in the new territories. The controversy was inadequately arbitrated by the Compromise of 1850, and finally found its ultimate resolution on the battlefields of the U.S. Civil War. Polk signed the Walker Tariff that brought an era of nearly free trade to the country until 1861. He oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States, introduced by his Postmaster General Cave Johnson. He was the first US President to be photographed frequently while in office. Scholars have ranked him eighth to twelfth on the list of greatest presidents for his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it. wikipedia.org |
James Knox Polk |
| 42 | Powers, Abigail | 03 Mar 1798 | 30 Mar 1853 | July 9, 1850 - March 4, 1853  15th First Lady of Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Wife of Millard Fillmore, was First Lady of the United States from 1850 to 1853. Abigail was born in Stillwater, New York, 1798, in Saratoga County, New York. She was the daughter of the Reverend Lemuel Powers, a Baptist minister, and Abigail Newland-Powers, Abigail grew up in Moravia, New York, not far from the Fillmore farm. Her father died shortly after her birth. Her mother moved the family westward, thinking her scanty funds would go further in a less settled region, and ably educated her small son and daughter beyond the usual frontier level with the help of her husband's library. In 1819, she took a teaching post at the new academy in New Hope, where her oldest pupil was 19-year-old Millard Fillmore. The world of knowledge and Fillmore's steady progress in it drew them together, and gradually the relationship of teacher and student evolved into romantic attachment. After a long courtship, Millard, aged 26, and Abigail, aged 27, were married on February 5, 1826, by the Reverend Orasius H. Smith at the home of the bride's brother Judge Powers in Moravia, New York. Without a honeymoon, they settled at East Aurora, New York. Mrs. Fillmore continued to teach school until the birth of her first son and maintained a lifelong interest in education. She shared her husband's love of books and helped build their personal library. Attaining prosperity at last, Fillmore bought his family a six-room house in Buffalo, New York. Enjoying comparative luxury, Abigail learned the ways of society as the wife of a Congressman. She cultivated a noted flower garden; but much of her time, as always, she spent reading. In 1847 when Fillmore was elected state comptroller the temporarily moved to Albany, New York; their children were away in boarding school and college. In 1849, Abigail Fillmore came to Washington, D.C. as wife of the Vice President; 16 months later, after Zachary Taylor's death at a height of sectional crisis, the Fillmores moved into the White House. Even after the period of official mourning, the social life of the Fillmore administration remained subdued. Pleading her delicate health, she entrusted many routine social duties to her daughter, "Abby." With a special appropriation from Congress, she spent contented hours selecting books for a White House library and arranging them in the oval room upstairs, where Abby had her piano, harp, and guitar. Gravesite of Abigail Powers, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York At the outdoor inaugural ceremonies for Franklin Pierce in 1853, she caught a cold and the next day came down with a fever. She developed pneumonia and died weeks later, on March 30, 1853, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.. She was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. On February 10, 1858, five years after her death, her husband married Mrs. Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, a wealthy Buffalo widow. They remained married until Millard's death on March 8, 1874. |
Abigail Powers |
| 43 | Reagan, Ronald | 06 Feb 1911 | 05 Jun 2004 |  40th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was the 40th President of the United States (1981?1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967?1975). Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s. He began a career as an actor, first in films and later television, appearing in 52 movie productions and gaining enough success to become a household name. Though often described as a B film actor, he starred in both Knute Rockne, All American and Kings Row. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980. As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics," advocated reduced business regulation, controlling inflation, reducing growth in government spending, and spurring economic growth through tax cuts. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered military actions in Grenada. He was reelected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming it was "Morning in America." His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, namely the ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", he supported anti-Communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. He ranks highly among former U.S. presidents in terms of approval rating. wikipedia.org |
Ronald Reagan |
| 44 | Rodham, Hillary Diane | 26 Oct 1947 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving within the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she served as First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham attracted national attention in 1969 for her remarks as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. She embarked on a career in law after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977, and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, she successfully led a task force to reform Arkansas's education system. She sat on the board of directors of Wal-Mart and several other corporations. In 1994 as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating the establishment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Her time as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. She is the only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, testifying before a federal grand jury in 1996 due to the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or any of several other investigations during her husband's administration. The state of her marriage was the subject of considerable speculation following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998. After moving to the state of New York, Clinton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2000. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton was also the first female senator to represent the state. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, including a vote for the Iraq War Resolution. She subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq and on most domestic issues. Senator Clinton was reelected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost to Senator Barack Obama. As Secretary of State, Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president's cabinet. |
Hillary Diane Rodham | |
| 45 | Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor | 12 Oct 1884 | 07 Nov 1962 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an internationally prominent author, speaker, politician, and activist for the New Deal coalition. She worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women. In the 1940s, Roosevelt was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 and 1952, a job for which she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed by the United States Senate. During her time at the United Nations she chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. wikipedia.org Active in politics for the rest of her life, Roosevelt chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's ground-breaking committee which helped start second-wave feminism, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. She was one of the most admired people of the 20th century, according to Gallup's List of Widely Admired People.[2] She was an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) Sorority. |
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt |
| 46 | Roosevelt, Franklin Delano | 30 Jan 1882 | 05 Apr 1945 |  32nd President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President John N. Garner (1933-1941) Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945) Harry S. Truman (1945) Preceded by Herbert Hoover Succeeded by Harry S. Truman Was the thirty-second President of the United States. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945 and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. He was a central figure of the 20th century during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| 47 | Rudolph, Lucretia | 19 Apr 1832 | 04 Mar 1918 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia She first met James Garfield in 1849 when they were classmates at Geauga Seminary in Chester, Ohio, and followed him to the Eclectic Institute, where they began dating. She was somewhat plain in appearance, but Garfield was attracted to her keen intellect and appetite for knowledge. While Garfield went on to Williams College, she taught school in Cleveland, Ohio and Bayou, Ohio. They had planned to marry on his graduation in 1856, but decided to postpone the wedding for a couple of years until he was earning more money. Both James and Crete were 26-years when they married on November 11, 1858 at the home of the bride's parents in Hiram. Although both were Disciples of Christ, the nuptials were performed by Henry Hitchcock, a Presbyterian minister. The newlyweds did not take a honeymoon but instead set up housekeeping immediately in Hiram. His service in the Union Army from 1861 to 1863 kept them apart. But after his first winter in Washington as a freshman Representative, the family remained together. With a home in the capital as well as one (Lawnfield) in Mentor, Ohio, they enjoyed a happy domestic life. In Washington, D.C. they shared intellectual interests with congenial friends; she went with him to meetings of a locally celebrated literary society. They read together, made social calls together, dined with each other, and traveled in company until by 1880 they were as nearly inseparable as his career permitted. In a First Lady's social duties, she was deeply conscientious and her genuine hospitality made her dinners and twice-weekly receptions enjoyable. At the age of 49 she was still a slender, graceful little woman with clear dark eyes, her brown hair beginning to show traces of silver. As First Lady, Mrs. Garfield researched the history of the White House furnishings with a view to restoring it to its former glory, but she contracted malaria and was unable to pursue the project. Garfield family She was still a convalescent, at Elberon, a seaside resort in New Jersey, when her husband was shot by Charles Guiteau on July 2 at a railway station in Washington. The President was actually planning to take a train north to New Jersey that same day in order to meet his wife, before continuing on to a function at his former college in Massachusetts. The First Lady hurriedly returned to Washington by special train -- "frail, fatigued, desperate," reported an eyewitness at the White House, "but firm and quiet and full of purpose to save." As her train raced south, it was speeding so fast that the engine broke a piston in Bowie, Maryland and nearly derailed. Mrs. Garfield was thrown from her seat, but not injured. After an anxious delay, she reached the White House and immediately went to her husband's bedside. During the three months that the President fought for his life, her grief and devotion won the respect and sympathy of the country. On the night of Garfield's death, according to the doctor, she exclaimed, "Oh, why am I made to suffer this cruel wrong?" After his death and funeral, the bereaved family went home to their farm in northern Ohio. For another 36 years she led a strictly private, but busy and comfortable life, active in preserving the records of her husband's career. She created a wing to the home that became a presidential library of his papers. She lived comfortably on a $350,000 trust fund raised for her and the Garfield children by financier Cyrus W. Field. She spent winters in South Pasadena, where she built a home designed by the celebrated architects Greene and Greene to whom she was distantly related. She died at her home in South Pasadena, California on March 14, 1918. Her casket was placed above ground beside the coffin of her husband in the lower level crypt of the presidential tomb at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. |
Lucretia Rudolph |
| 48 | Scott, Caroline Lavinia | 01 Oct 1832 | 25 Oct 1892 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia wife of Benjamin Harrison, was First Lady of the United States from 1889 until her death. She was the first First Lady to be born in October. Caroline Scott was born in Oxford, Ohio, the second daughter of the Reverend Dr. John W. Scott, a Presbyterian minister and professor of science and math at Miami University, and Mary Potts Neal-Scott. Although the family was not well-off, Caroline's father made sure that his children were well-educated. Wherever they lived, he always filled the house with books, art, and music. Religion, too, played a large part in his and the family's life. In 1845, Dr. Scott, along with several other professors, were fired from their positions after a dispute with the university president, George Junkin, over slavery; Scott opposed it, Junkin supported it. After his dismissal, the entire family moved to College Hill, near Cincinnati, where Scott had accepted a job teaching chemistry and physics at Farmer's College. It was in Cincinnati that young Caroline met one of her father's students and her future husband, Benjamin Harrison. The two began a courtship that would last nearly a decade before their marriage in 1853. In 1849, the Scotts moved back to Oxford, where Dr. Scott established the Oxford Female Institute in the former Temperance Tavern, which he had purchased in 1841. Mrs. Scott joined the school as its matron and the Head of Home Economics and Caroline enrolled as a student, studying English literature, theater, art, and painting. In her senior year, she joined the faculty as an Assistant in Piano Music. She graduated with a degree in music in 1853 and subsequently moved to Carrollton, Kentucky to teach music. Suffering from the effects of pneumonia, she returned to Ohio soon afterwards. Benjamin, or "Ben" as he was known, had studied under Caroline's father at Farmer's College near Cincinnati for nearly two years. In 1850, a year after the Scotts had returned to Oxford, Ben transferred to Miami University, partially for its strong academic reputation and partially to be near Caroline. Though their personalities were markedly different (Ben's serious and solemn, Caroline's humorous and lighthearted), the two fell in love. Caroline often took Ben dancing against the wishes of his father, a strict Presbyterian whose church frowned upon such activities. In 1852, during Benjamin's senior year at Miami, the couple became engaged. They decided to postpone the wedding while Benjamin studied law in the law office of Storer & Gwynne in Cincinnati and she finished school. Benjamin and Caroline were married on October 20, 1853 at her house, with her father officiating. The newlyweds honeymooned at North Bend, Ohio. They lived at the Harrison family's home for some time while they saved money and finally settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, after Benjamin completed his law studies a year later. The first few years of marriage was a struggle. The couple rarely spent time time together as Benjamin spent his time working to establish his law practice. Caroline became pregnant, and because Benjamin worked such long hours, she returned to Oxford to stay with her parents during the pregnancy. In 1854, their first child, Russell, was born, and she moved back to Indianapolis. Not long after her return, a fire consumed their house and everything they owned. The family managed to recover financially after Benjamin took a job handling cases for a local law firm whose founder had decided to run for office. In 1858, Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Mary Scott. In 1861 she gave birth to a second daughter who died shortly afterwards. At the onset of the Civil War, both Benjamin and Caroline sought to help in the war effort. Caroline joined local groups such as the Ladies Patriotic Association and the Ladies Sanitary Committee, which helped care for wounded soldiers. At the same time, she joined the church choir and raised her two children. In 1862, Benjamin was commissioned as a colonel in the Union Army and raised a regiment of over 1,000 men from Indiana. During the day, he trained his men, and at night he studied military strategy. In 1865, he was promoted to the rank of the rank of brigadier general. After the war, he returned home to a hero's welcome and spent the next decade practicing law and getting involved in politics. During the administration the Harrisons' daughter, Mary Harrison McKee, her two children, and other relatives lived at the White House. The First Lady tried in vain to have the overcrowded mansion enlarged and managed to assure an extensive renovation with up-to-date improvements. As First Lady, Mrs. Harrison secured $35,000 in appropriatations from Congress to renovate the White House. She purged the mansion of its growing rodent and insect population, laid new floors, installed new plumbing, painted and wallpapered, and added more bathrooms. In 1891 she installed electricity but was so frightened of it that she refused to handle the switches; instead, she left the lights on all night until the engineer came in to turn them off in the morning. In 1889 she put up the first Christmas tree in the White House. She also introduced the custom of using orchids as the official floral decoration at state receptions. A talented artist herself, she conducted china-painting classes in the White House. She served as the first president-general of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She worked for local charities as well. With other ladies of progressive views, she helped raise funds for the Johns Hopkins University Medical School on condition that it admit women. In 1890 helped found the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and served as its first President General. She took a special interest in the history of the White House, and the mature dignity with which she carried out her duties contrasted with the fun-loving spirit that had charmed Ben Harrison when they met as teenagers. The centennial of President Washington's inauguration heightened the nation's interest in its heroic past, and in 1890 Caroline lent her prestige as First Lady to the founding of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, serving as its first President General. Mrs. Harrison was noted for her elegant White House receptions and dinners. In late 1891, however, she began to battle tuberculosis. At first, Mrs. Harrison tried to continue to fulfill her social obligations; but after her condition worsened, she traveled to spend the summer of 1892 in the Adirondack Mountains, in what had become an increasingly forlorn attempt to fight the disease. After her condition became terminal, she returned to the White House, where she died on October 25, 1892. After preliminary services in the East Room, her body was returned home for a final funeral at her church in Indianapolis. After the period of official mourning ended, Mrs. McKee took up the duties of hostess for her father during the last months of his term. In 1896, Benjamin Harrison married his late wife's widowed niece and former secretary, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick. |
Caroline Lavinia Scott |
| 49 | Smith, Abigail | 11 Nov 1744 | 28 Oct 1818 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of John Adams, who was the second President of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth. She was the first Second Lady of the United States. Abigail Adams was born in the North Parish Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on November 11, 1744, to the Rev. William Smith and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith. On her mother's side, she was descended from the Quincy family, a well-known political family in the Massachusetts colony. Through her mother, she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, wife of John Hancock. Abigail Adams was also the great-granddaughter of the Rev. John Norton, founding pastor of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in Massachusetts. Her father, William Smith (1707-1783), a liberal Congregationalist, and other forebears were Congregational ministers, and leaders in a society that held its clergy in high esteem. However, he did not preach about predestination, original sin, or the full divinity of Christ, instead emphasizing the importance of reason and morality. Abigail was a sickly child and was not considered healthy enough for formal schooling. Although she did not receive a formal education, her mother taught her and her sisters Mary (1739-1811) and Elizabeth (1742-1816, known as Betsy) to read, write, and cipher; her father's, uncle's and grandfather's large libraries enabled the sisters to study English and French literature. As an intellectually open-minded woman for her day, Abigail's ideas on women's rights and government would eventually play a major role, albeit indirectly, in the founding of the United States. She became one of the most erudite women ever to serve as First Lady. Although John Adams had known the Smith family since he was a boy (he and Abigail were third cousins, he paid no attention to the delicate child nine years his junior. But in 1762, when John tagged along with his friend Richard Cranch, who was engaged to Abigail's older sister Mary, he was quickly attracted to the petite, shy seventeen-year-old brunette who was forever bent over some book. He was surprised to learn that she knew so much about poetry, philosophy, and politics, considered inappropriate reading for a woman at the time. Although Abigail's father approved of the match, her mother was appalled that a Smith would throw her life away on a country lawyer whose manners still reeked of the farm, but eventually she gave in. They married on October 25, 1764, just five days before John's 29th birthday, in the Smiths' home in Weymouth. Abigail wore a square-necked gown of white challis; John appeared in a dark blue coat, contrasting light breeches and white stockings, a gold-embroidered satin waistcoat his mother had made for the occasion, and buckle shoes. The Rev. Mr. Smith (the bride's father) performed the nuptials. After the reception, the couple mounted a single horse and rode off to their new home, the small cottage and farm that John had inherited from his father in Braintree, Massachusetts (later renamed Quincy), before moving to Boston, where his law practice expanded She looked after family and home when he went traveling as circuit judge. "Alas!" she wrote in December 1773, "How many snow banks divide thee and me...." In 1784, she and her daughter Nabby joined her husband and her eldest son, John Quincy, at her husband's diplomatic post in Paris. After 1785, she filled the role of wife of the first U.S. minister to the Kingdom of Great Britain. They returned in 1788 to a house known as the "Old House" in Quincy, which she set about vigorously enlarging and remodeling. It is still standing and open to the public as part of Adams National Historical Park. Nabby later died of breast cancer, having endured three years of severe pain. Abigail Adams raised her two younger sons throughout John Adams' prolonged absences; she also raised her elder grandchildren, including George Washington Adams and a younger John Adams, while John Quincy Adams was minister to Russia. Her childrearing included relentless and continual reminders of what the children owed to virtue and the Adams tradition. When John Adams was elected President of the United States, Mrs. Adams continued a formal pattern of entertaining. With the removal of the capital to Washington in 1800, she became the first First Lady to preside over the White House, or President's House as it was then known. The city was wilderness, the President's House far from completion. She found the unfinished mansion in Washington "habitable" and the location "beautiful" but complained that, despite the thick woods nearby, she could find no one willing to chop and haul firewood for the First Family. Mrs. Adams' health, never robust, suffered in Washington. She took an active role in politics and policy, unlike the quiet presence of Martha Washington. She was so politically active that her political opponents came to refer to her as "Mrs. President". The Adamses retired to Quincy in 1801 after John Adams' defeat for a second term as President of the United States. She followed her son's political career earnestly, as her letters to contemporaries show. In later years she renewed correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, whose political opposition to her husband had hurt her deeply. Abigail and John's marriage relationship is well documented through their correspondence and other writings. Letters exchanged throughout John's political obligations indicate that his trust in Abigail's knowledge was sincere. "She could quote poetry more readily than could John Adams," states McCullogh. Their correspondence illuminated their mutual emotional and intellectual respect. Adams often excused himself to Abigail for his "vanity" (see McCullough's John Adams p. 272), exposing his need for her approval. Abigail Adams died on October 28, 1818, of typhoid fever, several years before her son became president, and is buried beside her husband in a crypt located in the United First Parish Church (also known as the Church of the Presidents) in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was 73 years old, exactly two weeks shy of her 74th birthday. Her last words were, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long |
Abigail Smith |
| 50 | Symmes, Anna Tuthill | 25 Jul 1775 | 25 Feb 1864 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the wife of President William Henry Harrison and grandmother of President Benjamin Harrison, was nominally First Lady of the United States during her husband's one-month term in 1841, but she never entered the White House. |
Anna Tuthill Symmes |
| 51 | Taft, William Howard | 15 Sep 1857 | 08 Mar 1930 |  27th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the 27th President of the United States and later the 10th Chief Justice of the United States. Born in 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, into the powerful Taft family, Taft graduated from Yale College Phi Beta Kappa in 1878,and from Cincinnati Law School in 1880. Then he worked in a number of local legal positions until being appointed an Ohio Superior Court judge in 1887. In 1890 Taft was appointed Solicitor General of the United States and in 1891 a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt, then a political ally of Taft, appointed Taft Secretary of War to groom Taft as his successor to the presidency. Riding a wave of popular support of President (and fellow Republican) Theodore Roosevelt, Taft won an easy victory in his 1908 bid for the presidency. In his first and only term, President Taft's domestic agenda emphasized trust-busting, civil service reform, strengthening the Interstate Commerce Commission, improving the performance of the postal service, and passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. Abroad, Taft sought to further the economic development of undeveloped nations in Latin America and Asia through the method he termed "Dollar Diplomacy." However, Taft often alienated his own key constituencies, and was overwhelmingly defeated in his bid for a second term in the presidential election of 1912. After leaving office, Taft spent his time in academia, arbitration, and the search for world peace through his self-founded League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, after the First World War, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft Chief Justice of the United States. Taft served in this capacity until his death in 1930. Weighing over 300 pounds on average, Taft was physically the heaviest American president ever elected. |
William Howard Taft |
| 52 | Taylor, Zachary | 24 Nov 1784 | 09 Jul 1850 |  12th President Of The United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Millard Fillmore Preceded by James K. Polk Succeeded by Millard Fillmore Was the twelfth President of the United States(November 24, 1784 - July 9, 1850 He was an American military leader and the twelfth President of the United States. Known as "Old Rough and Ready," Taylor had a 40-year military career in the U.S. Army, serving in the War of 1812, Black Hawk War, and Second Seminole War before achieving fame leading U.S. troops to victory at several critical battles of the Mexican-American War. A Southern slaveholder who opposed the spread of slavery to the territories, he was uninterested in politics but was recruited by the Whig Party as their nominee in the 1848 presidential election. In the election, Taylor defeated the Democratic nominee, Lewis Cass, and became the second U.S. president never to hold any prior office (George Washington had been the first). Taylor was also the last southerner to be elected president until Woodrow Wilson. (Andrew Johnson became president through succession). As president, Taylor urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died of acute gastroenteritis just 16 months into his term. Vice President Millard Fillmore then became President. |
Zachary Taylor |
| 53 | Truman, Harry S. | 08 May 1884 | 26 Dec 1972 |  33rd President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his fourth term. During World War I, Truman served as an artillery officer, making him the only president to have seen combat in World War I (his successor Eisenhower spent the war training tank crews in Pennsylvania). After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county commissioner in Missouri and eventually a United States senator. After he gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944. Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs. The disorderly postwar reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win re-election in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his re-election he was able to pass only one of the proposals in his Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the military and to create loyalty checks which dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office, even though he strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign affairs, with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign. Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen." He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly-regarded predecessor. At different points in his presidency, Truman earned both the lowest public approval ratings that had ever been recorded, and the highest approval ratings to be recorded until 1991. Despite negative public opinion during his term in office, popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates. Most American historians consider Truman one of the greatest U.S. Presidents. wikipedia.org |
Harry S. Truman |
| 54 | Tyler, John | 29 Mar 1790 | 18 Jan 1862 |  9th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President None Preceded by William Henry Harrison Succeeded by James K. Polk Was the tenth President of the United States (1841-1845) and the first to succeed to the office following the death of a predecessor. A longtime Democratic-Republican, Tyler was nonetheless elected Vice President on the Whig ticket. Upon the death of President William Henry Harrison on April 4, 1841, only a month after his inauguration, the nation was briefly in a state of confusion regarding the process of succession. Ultimately the situation was settled with Tyler becoming President both in name and in fact. Tyler took the oath of office on April 6, 1841, setting a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually be codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment. At 51 years old, he was the youngest U.S. president to take office to that point (whereas Harrison had been the oldest man to take office as president). Arguably the most famous and significant achievement of Tyler's administration was the annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1845. Tyler was the first president born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, the only president to have held the office of President pro tempore of the Senate, and the only former president elected to office in the government of the Confederacy during the Civil War (though he died before he assumed said office). |
John Tyler |
| 55 | Van Buren, Martin | 05 Dec 1782 | 24 Jul 1862 |  8th President of the U.S. Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson Preceded by Andrew Jackson Succeeded by William Henry Harrison Was the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841. Before his presidency, he served as the eighth Vice President (1833-1837) and the 10th Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson. He was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, a dominant figure in the Second Party System, and the first president who was not of British (i.e. English, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish) descent?his ancestry was Dutch. He was the first president to be born an American citizen(his predecessors were born British subjects before the American Revolution), and is also the only president not to have spoken English as a first language, having grown up speaking Dutch. Moreover, he was the first president from New York. Van Buren was the third president to serve only one term, after John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams. He also was one of the central figures in developing modern political organizations. As Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State and then Vice President, he was a key figure in building the organizational structure for Jacksonian democracy, particularly in New York State. However, as a president, his administration was largely characterized by the economic hardship of his time, the Panic of 1837. Between the bloodless Aroostook War and the Caroline Affair, relations with Britain and its colonies in Canada also proved to be strained. Whether these were directly his fault, Van Buren was voted out of office after four years, with a close popular vote but a rout in the electoral vote. In 1848, he ran for president on a third-party ticket, the Free Soil Party. Martin Van Buren is one of only two people, the other being Thomas Jefferson, to serve as Secretary of State, Vice President and President. |
Martin Van Buren |
| 56 | Wallace, Elizabeth "Bess" | 13 Feb 1885 | 18 Oct 1982 |  First Lady Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mrs. Harry S. Truman, wife of the 33rd President of the United States, was born on February 13, 1885, at 117 West Ruby Street in Independence, Missouri. The oldest child of David Willock Wallace and Madge Gates Wallace, she was christened Elizabeth Virginia, but throughout her life was called Bess. Her father held several public offices, including County Treasurer, and was Deputy Surveyor in the Kansas City office of the United States Bureau of Customs at the time of his death in 1903. After her father died, Bess, her mother and three brothers moved into the house of her maternal grandfather, George Porterfield Gates, a co-founder of the successful Independence flour mill, the Waggoner-Gates Milling Company. The Gates' house, located at 219 North Delaware Street, continued to be Bess Wallace's home for the remainder of her life. An only daughter, Bess Wallace acquired a reputation as a tomboy. "The first girl I ever knew who cold whistle through her teeth and bat a ball as far as any boy in the neighborhood," said a classmate. She graduated from Independence High School in 1901 in the same class as Harry S. Truman and later studied language and literature at Barstow, a girl's finishing school in Kansas City, Missouri. After completing school Bessie Wallace, as she was often referred to in the social columns of the Independence paper, stayed at home with her widowed mother and helped run the household. In 1917, Miss Wallace became engaged to Harry S. Truman whom she had known since childhood. President Truman in his Memoirs recalls that when his family moved to Independence in 1890 his mother took him to Sunday school at the First Presbyterian Church. "We made a number of new acquaintances," he said, "and I became interested in one in particular. She had golden curls and has, to this day , the most beautiful blue eyes. We went to Sunday school, public school from the fifth grade through high school, graduated in the same class, and marched down life's road together. For me she still has the blue eyes and golden hair of yesteryear." The Trumans were married in Independence, on June 28, 1919, in Mrs. Truman's church, the Trinity Episcopal. The previous month Mr. Truman had received his discharge from the Army after serving overseas in World War I. Their only child, Mary Margaret, was born on February 17, 1924. In 1934, the family moved to Washington, DC when after serving his political apprenticeship in local politics, Mr. Truman was elected United States Senator from Missouri. During the next ten years while Truman served as Senator, Mrs. Truman and Margaret stayed in Washington from January through June, while Congress was in session, and in Independence during the remainder of the year. In Washington they lived in a succession of small apartments. Mrs. Truman became a member of the Congressional Club and the PEO Sisterhood. With the outbreak of World War II, she also became active in the H Street United Service Organization and in the Red Cross work of the Senate Wives Club. After her husband gained national prominence as Chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (the Truman Committee), Mrs. Truman joined his office staff as a clerk, answering his personal mail and editing committee reports. When Mr. Truman became President on April 12, 1945, after serving only eighty-two days as Vice President, Mrs. Truman became the country's First Lady. She was considered one of the hardest-working of all the White House hostesses. She reinstituted the formal White House social season, which had been interrupted by the war, and personally directed the detailed planning of all social events from formal state receptions to teas and musicales. She was interested in the history of the White House and insisted on observing the protocol and precedents established by her predecessors. When asked about her favorite period of White House history, she replied that it was during the Monroe Administration. Perhaps she was taken with this period because she identified with the quiet and charming Elizabeth Monroe. As First Lady she attended numerous teas and luncheons given in her honor, sometimes having two or three engagements a day. While she abolished Mrs. Roosevelt's custom of holding press conferences, she was meticulous in answering the large volume of mail she received as the wife of the President. Many have described her as a "down-to-earth" First Lady who rode to her old beauty shop in her chauffeured limousine and continued to pay only $3.00 for her weekly manicure, shampoo and set because she "saw no reason to change." While she was in the White House, Mrs. Truman served as Honorary President of the Girl Scouts, the Womens' National Democratic Club, and the Washington Animal Rescue League. She was Honorary Chairman of the American Red Cross. She was chosen for honorary membership by many other organizations. Among them were the American Newspaper Women's Club, the Daughters of Colonial Wars, and the Women's National Farm and Garden Association. Mrs. Truman was once asked by a reporter what she wanted to do when her husband was no longer President, and she replied "Return to Independence." For her, Independence was first and foremost home. At the end of President Truman's second term, the couple gladly returned to their family home in Independence. In 1953, Mrs. Truman accompanied her husband on a visit to Hawaii and in 1956 and 1958 on trips to Europe. The Trumans' also made trips to New York to visit their daughter, her husband Clifton Daniel, to whom she was married in 1956, and their four sons. Several times during these years Mrs. Truman's name appeared on the Gallup Poll's list of American women admired the most. Possibly one of the more revealing statements written about Bess Wallace Truman was published in McCall's magazine (April 1949). The magazine quoted Jonathan Daniels, former Press Secretary to President Roosevelt, as saying "Bess Truman is a lady unchanged by the White House and determined to remain always what she is." Perhaps because of her reluctance to grant interviews or hold press conferences it has been difficult for most people to determine just what Bess Truman "is." Margaret Truman Daniel in her book Souvenir noted that writers have wanted to tell the public more about her mother--more than the fact that her favorite color is blue, that she loves roses, and the her favorite dessert is Ozark Pudding. "My mother, whose public facade has been unvaryingly sedate and whose public utterances have been unfailingly courteous but cryptic, is perhaps the least understood member of our family. She is a woman of tremendous character, which the public may sense, but in addition she is a warmhearted, kind lady, with a robust sense of humor, a merry, twinkling wit, and a tremendous capacity for enjoying life." After President Truman's death on December 26, 1972, Mrs. Truman continued to live in her home on Delaware Street where she received visits from close friends and relatives as well as distinguished visitors from all over the world who came to pay their respects. During the years when she was meeting hundreds of people every week, Mrs. Truman often amazed those to whom she had been introduced only once by remembering their names. "Friends and acquaintances agree that loyalty and sincerity were the mainsprings of Mrs. Truman's character," one writer has observed. "She seldom thinks of the effect she is creating. She exists principally in her relationships with family and friends. To her, duty is a pleasant, everyday word."* Mrs. Truman died at her home on October 18, 1982 at the age of ninety-seven. Funeral services were held on October 21st at the Trinity Episcopal Church to which she had belonged many years. The invited guests included the President's wife, Nancy Reagan, and former First Ladies Rosalynn Carter and Betty Ford. Mrs. Truman is buried beside her husband in the courtyard of the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence. *Essary Helen. "The President's Boss--Bess Truman." Look, Vol 13, March 1, 1949, p. 59. |
Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace |
| 57 | Washington, George | 22 Feb 1732 | 14 Dec 1799 |  George Washington Portrait by Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopeida Led the Continental Army to victory over the Kingdom of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) Washington was chosen to be the commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces in 1775. The following year, he forced the British out of Boston, lost New York City, and crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey and defeated the surprised enemy units later that year. As a result of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured the two main British combat armies Saratoga and Yorktown. Negotiating with Congress, the colonial states, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, Washington retired to his plantation on Mount Vernon |
George Washington |
| 58 | Wilson, Thomas Woodrow | 28 Dec 1856 | 03 Feb 1924 |  28th President of the Of the United States Courtesy of: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912. In his first term, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America's first-ever federal progressive income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. Wilson brought many white Southerners into his administration, and tolerated their expansion of segregation in many federal agencies. Narrowly re-elected in 1916, Wilson's second term centered on World War I. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan "he kept us out of the war," but U.S. neutrality was challenged in early 1917 when the German government proposed to Mexico in the Zimmermann Telegram a military alliance in a war against the U.S. (promising the return of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas), and began unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson in April 1917 asked Congress to declare war. He focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war primarily in the hands of the Army. On the home front, he began the United States' first draft since the US civil war in 1917, raised billions in war funding through Liberty Bonds, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union growth, supervised agriculture and food production through the Lever Act, took over control of the railroads, enacted the first federal drug prohibition, and suppressed anti-war movements. National women's suffrage was also achieved under Wilson's presidency. In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. Largely for his efforts to form the League, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, during the bitter fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over the U.S. joining the League of Nations, Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke. He refused to compromise, effectively destroying any chance for ratification. The League of Nations was established anyway, but the United States never joined. Wilson's idealistic internationalism, now referred to as "Wilsonianism", which calls for the United States to enter the world arena to fight for democracy, has been a contentious position in American foreign policy, serving as a model for "idealists" to emulate and "realists" to reject ever since. |
Thomas Woodrow Wilson |