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Imagine it's April 15th, 1945, and you're on a train rolling out of the station in Poughkeepsie, New York. You're the Secretary of Labor, and this morning, you attended the burial of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at his Hyde Park estate. You stare out the window, images of somber faces and a flag-draped coffin playing through your mind.

Pulling yourself from your thoughts, you turn your attention to the woman sitting across from you, Bess Truman, the new First Lady of the United States. She fidgets with a handkerchief in her lap. You sigh and lean forward. "It was a shock to us all, and I'm sure especially for you and Harry." She nods, her red-rimmed eyes meeting your gaze. "I'm not cut out for the spotlight. I never wanted this. Harry's only been Vice President for three months.

I never imagined he would suddenly become president. I don't know anything about being the first lady. Of course, it must be overwhelming. But I hear Eleanor plans to introduce you to the White House reporters before your first press conference. That's a good start. Bess bites her lip, anxiety flooding her face. I dread the thought. Eleanor is so comfortable with the press, so at ease with public life. I'm nothing like her. Eleanor is certainly unique.

She shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes. You reach out and squeeze her hand gently.

There's no rulebook for being first lady. Yes, you'll have certain ceremonial duties that can be avoided, but you don't have to follow Eleanor's footsteps exactly. Did you know that she was the only first lady to hold press conferences? Is that so? Yes, she was the first. You're not obligated to continue the tradition. If you're uncomfortable with it, then don't do it.

Hope flickers in her eyes. "You really think I can cancel the press conference?" "Of course. There's no one way to be First Lady. Eleanor found her own way, and you will too." Bess relaxes into her seat, breathing a sigh of relief. But as you turn to watch the landscape roll past, you can't help but worry for her. You don't doubt her commitment to supporting her husband, but you know that nothing can prepare her for the intense scrutiny she will face as First Lady.

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In April 1945, the sudden death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt thrust Harry Truman into the presidency and his wife Bess Truman into the role of First Lady. Unlike her predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman was an extremely private person. Taking advice from Labor Secretary Francis Perkins, she ended Eleanor Roosevelt's practice of holding regular press conferences.

As First Lady, Mrs. Truman preferred to support her husband behind the scenes as a close advisor and sounding board. To discuss the enormous pressure faced by modern First Ladies, from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama, as well as the ways First Ladies find to support one another, I'm joined today by journalist Kate Anderson Brower. She's the author of several books, including First Women, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies. Here's our conversation.

Kate Anderson Brower, welcome back to American History Tellers. Thanks for having me, Lindsay. Now, last time we spoke to you, it was about the American History Tellers book. But today I'd like to talk to you about your book, First Women. What was the impetus for writing about first ladies? Well, I wrote a book called The Residence about the people who work at the White House behind the scenes and women.

They all told me that the person who makes all the decisions in the White House is really the first lady. And so it made me think about the role of the first lady and how important it is in the actual running of the White House and then also how complicated that position has always been. It's very fraught in our history. And I looked at first ladies from Jackie Kennedy until Michelle Obama and sort of delved into how they dealt with this very undefined role. They're just trying to live their lives differently.

in the White House, raise kids, trying to figure out what to do with their platform. It's a very challenging job. And you, of course, were familiar with the White House because you covered the Obama administration for Bloomberg and worked from the White House. During that time, you and a small group of journalists had lunch with First Lady Michelle Obama. To give us a sense of how, perhaps under the microscope, a first lady can be,

Could you tell us about something Michelle Obama said during that lunch, an offhand comment that just kind of blew up into a much bigger thing?

Well, it's kind of funny because I got a little in trouble for this. My editor was not so happy with me because I overlooked this statement. It was a very formal lunch in the old family dining room on the state floor of the White House. And she was talking to about a dozen reporters who cover the East Wing, mostly women. And she was talking about a whole range of issues. And it was to celebrate the Let's Move campaign anniversary.

The campaign she established as first lady to get children to eat healthier and end childhood obesity. Because, as you know, every first lady comes up with a campaign that's sort of apolitical or a project that's apolitical. And she made some offhand comment about her husband finally stopping smoking. He had quit finally this time. Everyone knew he, you know, had struggled emotionally.

I was trying to quit on the campaign, and I remember walking back to my desk in the basement of the White House where all the reporters sit. You know, it's this tiny little closet area, and there are these little cubicles. And I filed the story, and my editor called and said—

What about the smoking? You know, and I didn't think that much of it, but the AP story led with the smoking. It became something that the White House had to put out a press release about to respond to. And so it just made me see in very stark relief how under the microscope a first lady is. They can't say anything casually.

Now, you start your book with one of the most famous of all first ladies, Jackie Kennedy, having a meeting with Hillary Clinton in 1993. Hillary had at that point been first lady for just about seven months.

And Jackie was giving Hillary Clinton some advice. What was it? You know, it was to focus on Chelsea. She knew what it was like to raise Caroline and JFK Jr. for the couple years that they were in the White House. And I think a lot of first ladies felt specifically concerned for Chelsea because she was an only child. And so being under the microscope alone is very difficult.

But there was a time when Hillary, they were on this yacht, and Hillary got up on the diving board, and she stood there terrified, and everyone was telling her to jump. And Jackie told her, you know, don't do it. You don't have to jump. And Hillary actually got down. And so I thought this was kind of a metaphor for how Jackie understood what it was like

for Hillary to be facing the difficulties and the pressure of being first lady. And I think it's probably something only first ladies really understand and can communicate to each other because there's no handbook for incoming first ladies. There's very little official protocol, no note written and left like the presidents do for one another. But there is something outgoing first ladies do do for incoming first ladies. What's that?

Well, that's a White House tour, and that's usually a really important part of the transition. It happens after the election and before the inauguration, so often in the winter, late fall, early winter, where, you know, Melania Trump came and sat with Michelle Obama and got a tour of the White House.

This happens every transition. So, you know, Barbara Bush gave Hillary Clinton a tour of the White House. And often it can be awkward because it's, you know, if your husband was a one-term president. For instance, for Betty Ford, it was very difficult to give Rosalind Carter a tour of the White House because she was still so angry and bitter that her husband was defeated. I interviewed several first ladies and also their chiefs of staff and press secretaries and

And they said it's very hard for the first lady to put aside that sense of upset and anger when their husband loses. But the tour is very important. There's actually a place on the second floor of the White House in the private residence where the first lady will take the incoming first lady and show her where she can peek down and see her husband at work in the Oval Office.

which I think also draws to mind and makes you think about the intense level of isolation that goes on in that house because, you know, you're in this fishbowl and so much is expected of you. Lady Bird Johnson said that a first lady is a showman and a salesman, a clothes horse and a publicity sounding board person.

And they can never please everyone all the time. So there is this sense of camaraderie around them, which I found really interesting. It's unusual to think about, but I suppose this tour is actually very practical because probably many incoming families have not spent much time in the house they're going to be living in for the next four years. Give us an idea of where the family lives within the White House and how is it a domestic place?

That reminds me, Lindsay, of one tour that's really great to talk about is the Bush daughters giving the Obama daughters a tour of the third floor. So it is a house. It's where they live on the second and third floors of the White House. On the second floor, you have the kitchen, a family dining room, the West Sitting Hall, the Yellow Oval Room.

They spent a lot of time in the West Sitting Hall. It's kind of a family room. And then on the third floor is the Solarium, which is another kind of major hangout room that's changed over the years. You know, when the Johnsons were in office, it was a teenage hangout. When the Obamas were in office, it's where Sasha and Malia Obama would have sleepovers. And it has this sweeping view of

of the mall. So you can see the Lincoln Memorial. You can see the Washington Monument. It's a really beautiful space and every family loves that space.

But there's a banister and a way you can slide down it right near the solarium. And Jenna and Barbara Bush love showing Sasha and Malia Obama how to do that. And I think also the fact that they were two sisters who were moving into the White House and two sisters leaving. And also how historic it was when the Obamas moved in as the first black family in the White House.

I interviewed butlers who told me, I mean, mostly black butlers from the D.C. area, and they said they never thought they would see this day. They had tears in their eyes. Both Mrs. Obama and President Obama have said that the butlers reminded them of members of their own family, especially Michelle Obama. She had relatives in Chicago who worked in the service industry. And so there was a special bond that the Obamas had to the staff at the White House.

You mentioned the occasional bitter feelings and rivalry that some of these first ladies must inevitably feel. But I suppose, too, that this is a very small sorority and they can develop great empathy for each other. What might be some ways that they do support each other, even perhaps after they left the White House?

I was so intrigued by that question when I was working on this book. And I went to the presidential libraries and dug through letters and saw this really intense friendship that Lady Bird Johnson had developed with a lot of first ladies, including Barbara Bush, who was a Republican from Texas.

They both were from Texas. They had that in common. And then Lady Bird was second lady when Jackie Kennedy was first lady. And so she was there when JFK was killed. She was in the motorcade. She was on the plane. So she saw the trauma of that very closely. And she wrote a letter to Caroline Kennedy, and this was excellent.

after Jackie's death. And then she wrote another letter after John Jr.'s death. So in 1994, after Jackie died, she wrote about Jackie's funeral to Caroline and Jackie's daughter and said, as I looked at the faces of the crowds and they were deep everywhere along the streets, I felt the keen edge of their sorrow. And to me, that just shows what a beautiful writer Lady Bird was. And she wrote every single day she was in the White House. And there's a book called The White House Diary, which

For anyone interested in what it's like to be a First Lady, I really recommend it. And then after John died, she wrote to Caroline. You know, this was just a few years after her mother dies, her brother dies in the plane crash. And Lady Bird wrote, It's particularly painful for me thinking of all the suffering your family has had to bear. He was the nation's child, too. Universally admired and respected, a promising life too early ended.

I thought that was really beautiful and touching, this woman who had seen the tragedy up close and was trying to soothe Caroline's pain or let her know that she was thinking about her. There is this tension, though, between first ladies that maybe gets transcended by, I guess I'll call it a sorority again. For instance, I know Jackie Kennedy said,

had a lot of trouble going back to the White House for understandable reasons until Pat Nixon asked her back for the unveiling of JFK's portrait there. Pat Nixon was a former rival during the 1960 campaign. What did she do to make Jackie comfortable enough to come back to the White House?

Well, she said that the press would never find out, or at least not find out while the Kennedys were there. And I think that was very important to Jackie. And that was the only way she would agree to come. It was 1971. The press was around, but they had no idea that the most famous living first lady was there to have dinner with.

the Nixons to see her portrait and her husband's portrait unveiled. And it's just this really beautiful moment where Trisha and Julie Nixon, who were in their 20s at the time, took Caroline and John Jr., who were still young kids, for this tour of the house where their last memories were of their father. I mean, JFK Jr. probably didn't have much memory at all. But when they went into the Oval Office, the

The Nixon family stood outside to give the Kennedys a chance to kind of be there by themselves. And then they had dinner. Jackie wrote Pat Nixon a letter. She said,

And this part I like the most. She said, the day I always dreaded turned out to be one of the most precious ones I've spent with my children. May God bless you all. Most gratefully, Jackie. American History Tellers is sponsored by Audible. Do you remember radio dramas? The Shadow? Orson Welles' War of the Worlds? With just a few sound effects, they could transport you anywhere. That's the power of listening. A direct line to your imagination. And that's why Audible is such a great place to let your imagination soar.

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You mentioned that the First Lady makes many, many decisions, maybe most of the household decisions in the White House. And, you know, after the tour, the incoming First Family then has to move in and make it their own. I'm wondering, how does that work? How do First Ladies make the White House their home?

Well, each one does it very differently. It's interesting that Laura Bush didn't bring anything. She brought one chest of drawers because to them, the Bushes saw what it was like to live in the White House with her father-in-law. And Barbara Bush was saying, you know, you don't need to bring anything. It's all there. It is like a very, very nice furnished Fifth Avenue penthouse. And that was how it was described to me by Michelle Obama's press secretary.

They can do a lot of work on the second and third floors of the White House, but they can't change much on the state floor. So if they want to redecorate the green room or the blue room, that is really off limits. The House belongs to every American, right? But on the second and third floor, you know, Michelle Obama brought in an interior designer.

who came in and kept some of the more formal furniture, but then also was able to kind of bring a more informal vibe. They were a very young family, relatively speaking. And so she loved some furniture from anthropology that he would mix in and pottery barn and things that were more accessible pieces that were mixed in with these historic pieces that are in the collection of the residents. So, I mean...

You do have historic pieces on the second and third floors of the White House. And it's very important to note that I think that they always think of themselves as temporary custodians of the White House. They never fully feel at home because how really, how could you? You're never fully able to unplug, I would think. And so that can be very stressful. First ladies also get to choose their staff and get very close to them.

This is more the domain of your first book. What is the relationship between First Ladies and their staff? First Ladies are very close to the staff. There are housekeepers who are upstairs making their beds, you know, making their children's beds. I think it's interesting, Marianne Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, who just recently passed away recently,

She insisted on doing her own laundry. And she had really great relationships with the staff. She grew up middle class. So I think for her, living in the White House was a strange experience. And she wanted to have a sense of normalcy. But the Obamas were very close to an assistant usher named Reginald Dixon.

And they brought Reginald Dixon to live with them in their home in D.C. after they left the White House. So the relationship can be close. It can also be difficult. I think the White House chef, Roland Mesnier, told me a story.

that just really stuck with me. He had worked for five presidents, from Jimmy Carter to President George W. Bush. And he said the hardest person for him to work for was Nancy Reagan. And he described this dinner in 1982. It was a state dinner for the Queen of the Netherlands. And Nancy Reagan had rejected all three dessert options that he made. So first ladies get to taste the dessert before a state dinner.

And finally, she told him that she wanted these elaborate sugar baskets made, and this was two days before the state dinner. And he looked at her and just said, but we only have two days. And she said, you have two days and two nights.

Throughout this conversation, I suppose I've been trying to remember the White House is a family home, but it's not any ordinary family home. And most families who reside there probably cannot find the sort of privacy that we private citizens are accustomed to. Is privacy even possible in the White House?

I think it's something every first family struggles with. I think that the resident staff, about 100 people, and there are about a dozen of whom who come in real constant contact with the family, make it their goal in life to make the first family feel comfortable. You know, if there is an argument going on on the second floor and the housekeepers are there, it's a real problem.

Right.

She called Worthington White, who was an usher at the White House, and he just described how she just wanted to sit by the pool with a book and how hard it was for her to actually do that. He got this call where she said, I just want to sit there. I don't want to see anybody. And he had to clear, you know, make sure that there were no tours going on, that she could actually just walk by herself with Secret Service kind of behind her, you

That kind of says it all. And then after she sat outside for a little bit, she grabbed him by his hands and looked him in the eyes and just said, thank you so much. The fact that that would be something that happens...

Yeah, it makes me think that if an hour alone with a book is that difficult, then it's not a big deal.

you might want to literally escape the White House. And so that prompts my next question. Have they? Yeah. There are some amazing stories of, you know, Hillary Clinton, where she walked around the city in disguise, right? Like with a hat and sunglasses on. Caroline Kennedy, her French teacher, would take her on a city bus and take her grocery shopping, go to museums. Jackie Kennedy said, you know, I really want her to get out of this place a little bit.

So the idea that you would want any semblance of normalcy makes sense to me. And Marianne Robinson, Michelle Obama's mom, could walk around because people didn't really recognize her. So she would go to the CVS. She would go to the mall. I think that for Michelle and Barack Obama, I never found out whether they ever left. I don't think they ever really could. So...

That's why presidents often go, you know, biking or golfing, just a way to get out of that fishbowl for a little bit. I'm glad you brought up the search for normalcy in this very abnormal environment. Because for first ladies who have children, juggling motherhood and the work of the first lady and this peculiar fishbowl they're in must be very, very difficult. Is it possible at all to try and have a normal family life?

You know, I think the Bush family was able to do it, Barbara Bush and George H.W. Bush, probably because they had grandkids, you know, they were older, so they had the very different experience from raising young kids in the White House. I think that

Michelle Obama's talked about having her daughter's friends come over and having to get clearance, you know, Social Security numbers and background checks on their parents and everything. It's just not a normal environment. And I think that's why the Obama daughters became close with Biden's granddaughters, because...

They were similar ages. And these are the only other people who really, again, understand what this world is really like. I have to write down this tip to get social security numbers and background checks on all my daughter's friends. We really can't talk about first ladies and not mention fashion, something the press certainly pays attention to. Can you share some anecdotes about first ladies, their dress, their appearance and how they embraced it and how they pushed back?

Well, I mean, when Michelle Obama got bangs, it was like a big deal, you know, it was kind of ridiculous. And she said, can everybody stop looking at my bangs and actually listen to what I have to say? And it's a larger kind of thing.

commentary on the way women are viewed in our society, right? That it's a lot about fashion. It's a lot about appearances. For first ladies, they can make fashion choices like Melania Trump with the I really don't care, do you jacket that become headline news around the world.

For state dinners, first ladies can wear dresses that are controversial depending on, you know, which designer they're supporting. And there was some hubbub about why Michelle Obama wasn't wearing a certain designer that every other first lady had. And she was really all about promoting young designers' fashion.

people of color, people who wouldn't have that opportunity if it were not for her. Because when she wore a dress at a state dinner, it was in the news immediately who that designer was. So she was using her platform to raise up other voices.

But of course, it is not always a fashion show. Sometimes first ladies just hang out in sweats. It was a big deal when Jackie Kennedy wore pants in the White House back in the 1960s. So sometimes they can just relax in their robe.

Throughout this conversation, we've kind of discussed how nonpartisan first ladies try to be and are kind of forced to be. But they are also involved in politics, whether they want to be or not, just by virtue of being married to the president. Some first ladies get involved in politics more than others. Which do you think might have been more political creatures and how did that go for them?

Well, Eleanor Roosevelt is not a huge character in my book. I wanted to start with Jackie Kennedy because I wanted to talk to people who remembered her. And I mean, as time passes, so many of my sources have since passed away. So that's really why I didn't cover Eleanor Roosevelt as much.

You know, her husband's advisors told her to stick to her knitting, which is kind of funny to look at because here is one of, I think, the most important first ladies because she was the person who paved the way for Hillary Clinton, right? She was the one who said she would use her intellect more.

to get involved in issues, to talk to voters. I think the most important role that first ladies play politically, aside from softening their husbands' images during a campaign, is really going out and being able to speak to the public and to report back to their husbands about what's going on in the world.

People are slightly less intimidated by a first lady. She can do roundtables. She can travel slightly more freely than the president. Rosalind Carter had weekly meetings with Jimmy Carter, and she insisted on it, and they would have a lunch every week together.

in the Oval Office, and she would come with her binder, and she would have a list of questions for him, and he would kind of joke, like, come on, not again, you know, this is another work meeting. But she did it so that she would know what to tell people when they asked her about the economy or

what was going on in the country and what he was going to do about it. And people told her they cared a lot about mental health issues. And she came back to him and said there should be a mental health focus in his administration. And she made that happen. So I think first ladies can be conduits for their husbands to the real world. And they're not only just conduits, they're confidants, sounding boards, important, close people that perhaps the president's

only place to really talk honestly and earnestly. And there's a story about Jackie Kennedy during one of the most perilous moments in our country, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tell us about that.

Well, it was in October 1962. And so this is the famous 13 days in the White House where the country was on the brink of a nuclear war, really, because it was discovered that the Soviets had put nuclear missiles in Cuba that could hit the U.S. within several minutes. And so JFK called Jackie Kennedy, who had just

after an hour and a half long drive from D.C. She had just gotten to their estate in Virginia, in the countryside. Caroline was five and John F. Kennedy Jr. was two. And he called her up and said, you know, can you come back? And she said, what do you mean? I just got here. And he said, I need you back here right now. And so she went back to the White House and was his confidant for those 13 days. And I think her role is really underestimated. You know, she would

walk around the South Lawn with him as he kind of mulled over his options. He would tell Jackie about telegrams he had gotten from the Soviet leader, Khrushchev. I mean, it was such an intense time. And then

When the cabinet members' wives started talking about leaving Washington if there was a nuclear strike, Jackie told him, I'm going to stay here with you. I want to walk out on the South Lawn with you and the children and we will die with you. You know, I can't imagine not being with you.

That's a pretty incredible thing. And she was very much a part of how he worked through the Cuban Missile Crisis. And I don't think people give her credit for that.

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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. We've mentioned a few times examples of friendships that have blossomed between first ladies. Who are some of the women who really get along well or did get along well?

First lady friends are, you know, Lady Bird Johnson was very close with Hillary Clinton and Jackie Kennedy. Barbara Bush was very close with Lady Bird. There is a great moment where Betty Ford, Rosalind Carter, and Lady Bird Johnson were on the porch of Lady Bird's Texas house.

And they were doing an interview together with Good Housekeeping, and a tour bus drove by. Everyone couldn't believe it. I mean, the cameras came out, and people were shocked to see three first ladies there together. They weren't expecting it. But those women, you know, supported the ERA together, the Equal Rights Amendment. They were very active in the feminist movement, regardless of what their husbands had to say about it, although all three of them had husbands that were fairly progressive women.

But they were three very strong first ladies. So they were incredibly close for their entire lives. So that's some of the first lady friends. But what about the first lady foes?

Well, Nancy Reagan had a very tough time with Barbara Bush. When Barbara Bush was second lady, so the vice president's wife, she would actually walk around with a copy of this Kitty Kelly biography of Nancy Reagan that was scathing, and she would have it with a book cover on it. But it gave her some pleasure to walk by Nancy Reagan holding that book. There was a lot of resentment between the two of them. I think that, you know,

From Nancy Reagan's perspective, her relationship with her kids was so bad. I mean, years went by when she wouldn't speak to Patti Davis, right? That was a very bad relationship. Patti Davis didn't even go to her grandmother's funeral, which was very difficult for Nancy Reagan.

And then you have Barbara Bush and this huge family, a lot of warmth there, a lot of love there. So I think the two of them had very little in common in that way. And then I think the class difference was a bit of a problem. They're both very wealthy people, but the Bushes are patrician, old money, and the Reagans were kind of new money, Hollywood. So there was also tension there. But if you look at Nancy Reagan's memoir, My Turn, which is just...

great White House memoir because it's very much an honest, real takedown of her critics. She's very harsh in this book. She dedicates the book to Ronnie, who always understood, and to my children, who I hope will understand. So that kind of says it all about Nancy Reagan's life was devoted to protecting her husband and nothing else mattered. And I think Barbara Bush's life was loving relationship with her husband, but she's

She was also very much focused on her kids. And so just two different approaches to being a wife and a mother. Yeah, I think perhaps these are the two largest roles that first ladies embody. The mother of the first children, right? But also the partner and I think you said it earlier, the softening of the president's image.

First ladies campaign for their husbands all the time. Rosalind Carter certainly did. And political campaigns get dirty. What is it like for first ladies to do this work? And how do they handle the possibility of defeat? I think Barbara Bush took the defeat by the Clintons very personally. Some of the comments that Bill Clinton made about Bush, implying that he wasn't all that smart. And there was definitely some residual anger there.

And I think for Barbara Bush, too, it's personal. I mean, she was so popular, she went to New Hampshire in 1992 to file the paperwork for her husband. She was one of the most popular first ladies probably because she was so apolitical. She really did not wade into politics easily.

She and Laura Bush are pro-choice, but neither of them would ever have come out and said anything when their husbands were in office. There's this understanding that you don't say anything to contradict your husband's policies. And then you have a Hillary Clinton who's so overtly political and has an office in the West Wing that ends up backfiring because people don't want to see that. I think that first ladies can really soften their husbands. I think

Michelle Obama, for instance, would talk about Barack Obama, you know, not picking up dirty laundry off the floor. It's a way of humanizing these larger-than-life characters that we put on a pedestal. And it's the wife that can really take them down a peg in a playful way. That's how they're the most effective, I think, politically. Right.

The presidency is probably rightfully regarded as one of the most stressful jobs anyone can have. And if you just look at, for instance, Obama's hair color over the several months in his first term, you know it has physical effects. How do first ladies manage their stress? I think that they exercise. Michelle Obama was often exercising. She had a trainer in the White House once.

Michelle Obama was such a unique first lady as the first black first lady who dealt with a tremendous amount of racism. And she had no one else to talk to about that. There was no other first lady who had been in such a position and the kind of vitriol that was heard.

constant on social media about her was really painful. A lot of them close off their consumption of news. Pat Nixon, you know, when Watergate was at its height, she didn't read the newspaper. And in some ways, I think it's kind of strange to say, well, we kept them from reading the newspaper since everything's on the phone anyway. But I think some first ladies really try not to engage with

social media or cable news because it would drive you absolutely crazy. Now, for your book, First Women, you were asked to write an interesting update, I guess two updates for the paperback edition in 2016, because we did not know at that time the outcome of the election. So you wrote a chapter on both Melania Trump and Bill Clinton, who would have been the first first gentleman.

We know that Hillary did not win the election, but I'm very curious, what did you write about Bill?

Well, I wrote an op-ed about Bill Clinton for The New York Times, and this was—I just looked back at it. It's funny to see. It was in July of 2016 when the majority of people did think that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election. And I talked to people like Ronald Reagan's social secretary who talked about a male spouse kind of tiptoeing into uncharted territory. And they said—

Reagan's social secretary, Gail Hodges-Burt, said a male spouse who wasn't a former president is a way to tiptoe into this uncharted territory instead of blasting our way into it.

The title of the op-ed was Bill Clinton, a perfectly imperfect first gentleman. The idea that he would come to the White House with all this knowledge, but also all of this baggage. And how would that maybe make it easier for first ladies in the future? No wife with Clinton's history of cheating and other things would be unscathed. I mean, the very idea that Jill Biden was divorced, right?

was actually kind of a thing. Betty Ford was also divorced. But an idea of a woman cheating on her husband, that's something that I think...

we have a hard time accepting. And the idea that these first ladies are held up to these different moral code of ethics than a man would be is interesting to me. But I think that Bill Clinton would have been more of an envoy to other countries and kind of a diplomat than just a presidential spouse. So it's hard to imagine him having an office in the East Wing. And

And finally, I suppose a difficult question. Which modern first lady do you think has had the biggest impact?

It's really hard to answer that question because so many of them have had a big impact. I mean, Michelle Obama just simply by being the first Black First Lady is such a huge moment in our history. And I also think Betty Ford, for what she did after she was in the White House. I mean, she had breast cancer when she was First Lady. Something I found very interesting was that Gerald Ford's press secretary, who I interviewed for the book, described to me of how they had put together a press release to say that

Mrs. Ford was going to be undergoing, you know, a minor medical procedure and basically just kind of to shut down questions about her absence. But Betty Ford said, I want you to tell them exactly what's happening. I have breast cancer. I'm getting a mastectomy. This is what's happening. And because she did that, so many women got mammograms and checkups. And

Gerald Ford described receiving so many letters from husbands thanking him for what she did and for supporting her the way he did. And I mean, she saved countless lives by doing that. And breast cancer was actually something people didn't talk about because the word breast was somehow, I don't know, controversial or offensive at the time. And so she changed the way we talk about breast cancer and then what she did.

by opening the Betty Ford Center in 1982 and talking about her own struggles with addiction was also really life-changing for many people. So I tend to agree with Gerald Ford that when the final tally is taken, her contributions to the country are bigger than his. It's the way she shaped the culture that has been such a lasting legacy for her. And Jill Biden's an important first because she is the first First Lady to ever have a job

outside of the White House. And that is a hugely important thing. She's an English teacher at a community college. She wanted to always have her own profession. And she's the first woman to ever do it, which hopefully will set the stage for the future. Well, Kate Anderson Brower, thank you so much for speaking with us again on American History Tellers. Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you.

That was my conversation with journalist Kate Anderson Brower. Her book, First Women, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, is available now from HarperCollins. From Wondery, this is the sixth and final episode of our series, First Ladies for American History Tellers.

In the next season, four U.S. presidents have been assassinated while in office, and many other assassination attempts have failed. We'll look at three of those deaths and a near miss to see what motivated these murderous plots and how they changed the course of our nation's history.

If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. Additional writing by Ellie Stanton. Voice acting by Cat Peoples. This episode was produced by Polly Stryker and Alida Rozanski. Our senior interview producer is Peter Arcuni. Coordinating producer is Desi Blaylock.

Managing Producer Matt Gant. Senior Managing Producer Ryan Moore. Senior Producer Andy Herman. Executive Producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.

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