First Ladies by Betty Boyd Caroli

Author:Betty Boyd Caroli [Caroli, Betty Boyd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190669157
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

8

The Turbulent Sixties

IN FEBRUARY 1960, WHEN the field of likely nominees for that year’s presidential election had narrowed to five, Newsweek compared the men’s wives and predicted that one of them would preside over the White House in the next four years. As it turned out, two of them did; and before the decade ended, three of the five had served as First Lady. With very different personalities and priorities, each carved out an individual response to a turbulent period in American history—one of exhilaration, then questioning and delusion as attention turned from space exploration and the Peace Corps to John Kennedy’s assassination and then to Vietnam. In less than a decade, the style of First Ladies changed too, so that campaigning became a requirement instead of an option. Acting as White House hostess dropped as a priority; spearheading substantive reforms rose. In short, the president’s wife moved out of the society columns and on to the front page.

Of the five singled out by Newsweek before the major parties convened to choose their candidates, only Evelyn Symington fell from national prominence. Muriel Humphrey, the most traditional of the five and the one who described herself as a “mother of an ordinary family,” never lived in the White House, but she saw her husband take the vice presidency in 1965, and after his death she served briefly as a United States senator from Minnesota. The remaining three in Newsweek’s list, Pat Nixon, the disciplined “super-duper” wife of the vice president, Lady Bird Johnson, the “human-dynamo businesswoman,” and Jacqueline Kennedy, the youthful, “stunning egghead,” all got a chance to preside over the White House.1

As soon as the two major parties made their nominations in 1960, attention focused on Thelma (“Pat”) Ryan Nixon and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, whom the New York Times described as “fantastically chic.” Beginning what became almost unqualified adulation of everything the Kennedys said or did, the Times announced in mid-July that Jackie had already captured “fashion’s high vote” by showing an interest in clothes that paralleled her husband’s approach to politics: both the Kennedys combined “confidence, individuality, a mind of [their] own and a knowledge of issues.”2 Photogenic Pat Nixon, already a familiar face since her husband had just completed eight years as vice president, fared less well in the Times, but crowds came out to see her campaign for the Republicans.

This prominent role for candidates’ wives marked a new development, fostered by the proliferation of television sets. By 1960, nearly 90 percent of American homes boasted at least one set. (The figure had been less than 50 percent when the Trumans left Washington in 1953.) Mamie Eisenhower had not ignored the medium—she had chatted amiably with Edward R. Murrow on “See It Now,” but the aging military wife lacked the charisma of a star. Both candidates’ spouses tried to do better in 1960, and one major newspaper emphasized how they had broken precedents: “Never before have the wives of both candidates been so active.… Mrs. Nixon sits in

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