First Ladies For Dummies. Marcus A. Stadelmann, PhD

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СКАЧАТЬ Watergate scandal in the 1970s changed things. Suddenly, the media believed that it had an obligation to be a watchdog over the presidents and First Ladies. This new role allowed the media not only to check presidents for public mistakes and policy failures but also to report on First Ladies and their activities. This role for the media won’t change as long as juicy scandals continue to garner large audiences. Future First Ladies have to expect to have their lives scrutinized and any minor wrongdoing reported. Hillary Clinton found that out the hard way in 1993 with the Whitewater scandal, where the Clinton’s were accused of financial wrongdoings (see Chapter 18) and again in 2015, after her term as First Lady had ended in 2001, when the media reported on her using her private server for classified emails. Today, scrutiny of First Ladies does not even end after their terms have ended. Melania Trump ran into a similar problem when her nude photoshoot of 2000 was revealed during the 2016 campaign.

Ranking U.S. First Ladies

      One of the best academic evaluations of U.S. First Ladies was released in 2014, in a joint effort by both the Siena College Research Institute and C-SPAN (National Cable Satellite Corporation), a network created to show public affairs programming. The survey was conducted in 2013, and its results were released in 2014. A total of 242 experts on First Ladies in the United States were asked to rank the First Ladies based on ten criteria (see the section “Discussing ten evaluation criteria”). Rankings of all the First Ladies are rare, they are-time consuming, expensive, and there isn’t much demand for them.

      Note: Because the study was done in 2013–2014, it obviously doesn’t include either Melania Trump or Dr. Jill Biden, who became First Lady in 2017 and 2021, respectively. It further excludes Harriet Lane, who was President Buchanan’s niece and became his First Lady because he was a lifelong bachelor. I and many other academics do count her as a First Lady, and in Chapter 21, she is among my choices for the ten most influential First Ladies. Finally, the study excludes the four First Ladies who died before their husbands became president and Anna Harrison who never had a chance to became First Lady after her husband died a month into office.

      The Siena Research Institute Survey

The Siena Research Institute Survey was the first survey on First Ladies in the United States. It’s conducted about every ten years, and it asks history and political science professors at American universities, as well as other experts on First Ladies, to rank the U.S. First Ladies on a scale of one to five based on ten separate categories (see the section “Discussing ten evaluation criteria”). Unlike surveys on American presidents, there were no other surveys to compare results to and thus the Siena College Research Institutes findings are the only comprehensive survey on U.S. First Ladies, establishing a benchmark for First Lady studies. Table 2-1 presents its rankings in order.

TABLE 2-1 First Lady Rankings

Ranking	C-SPAN Academic Survey
1	Eleanor Roosevelt
2	Abigail Adams
3	Jaqueline Kennedy
4	Dolley Madison
5	Michelle Obama
6	Hillary Clinton
7	Lady Bird Johnson
8	Betty Ford
9	Martha Washington
10	Rosalynn Carter
11	Barbara Bush
12	Laura Bush
13	Edith Roosevelt
14	Edith Wilson
15	Nancy Reagan
16	Bess Truman
17	Lou Hoover
18	Louisa Adams
19	Ellen Wilson
20	Lucy Hayes
21	Grace Coolidge
22	Julia Grant
23	Sarah Polk
24	Mamie Eisenhower
25	Helen Taft
26	Francis Cleveland
27	Julia Tyler
28	Lucretia Garfield
29	Caroline Harrison
30	Elizabeth Monroe
31	Mary Lincoln
32	Abigail Fillmore
33	Pat Nixon
34	Ida McKinley
35	Margaret Taylor
36	Florence Harding
37	Letitia Tyler
38	Eliza Johnson
39	Jane Pierce

      Source: Siena College Research Institute/C-Span study of the first ladies of the United States, 2014. Retrieved at: https://scri.siena.edu/first-ladies-study/

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