First Ladies by Caroli Betty

Author:Caroli, Betty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1987-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

That tolerance for difference served Bess Truman well when the time came to introduce her successor to the White House. After giving Mamie Doud Eisenhower (1953–1961) the traditional tour, Bess turned to one of the domestic staff and predicted a “lot of pink” in the years ahead. That maid had reason to recall those words later as she watched Mamie Eisenhower add “fluffy, fussy” touches everywhere, from the pink furniture in her bedroom123 down to pastel cloth covers on her lipstick holders.124 The First Lady’s favorite color fit well America’s mood in the 1950s when femininity meant opinionless dependence. Pink was, after all, the insignia of baby girls.

Mamie Eisenhower did not invent that model of femininity, but she represented it well, making clear by her every public utterance that she thought a wife’s role entirely secondary and supportive. Her thirty-six years of marriage had been a series of moves, averaging almost one per year, as she trailed her army husband from one assignment to another. When he went to Panama or the Philippines or Paris, she followed, and when she could not, as in the war years, she settled down in Washington to wait. When he took her along on tours of historic battlefields, she tried not to yawn, and when he relaxed on long golf trips where there was nothing to interest her, she improved her mahjongg and canasta, becoming a “demon” player.125 To the reporters who inquired in 1952 how she felt about her life, she replied she was “thankful for the privilege of tagging along by [Ike’s] side.”126

Even a magazine named Independent Woman accepted this concept of the perfect wife and put Mamie on its January 1953 cover. The new First Lady had adapted to each change in her husband’s career, Lenore Hailparn wrote, quickly rearranging successive new homes for his comfort. Mamie even carried swatches of her favorite colors to save time in the redecorating. A large part of an army wife’s job involved fitting in, the Independent Woman writer explained, and never distinguishing oneself or staying apart from the other spouses.127 Mamie had met that test well, and Hailparn predicted that similar behavior would assure her success in the White House.

Eleanor Roosevelt had made her first name familiar because of her ubiquitous presence and constant writing on behalf of one cause or another, but “Mamie” became a trademark for a certain style or taste. In addition to “Mamie’s Fudge,” there was “Mamie pink” and the famed “Mamie bangs.” Americans’ penchant for associating First Ladies with such matters went back to the nineteenth century, when women wore their hair à la Cleveland, but television and mass circulation magazines in the 1950s made Mamie familiar in a way that her predecessors had not achieved.

Public recognition of General Eisenhower’s wife (“Mrs. Ike”) had developed during World War II, when he was catapulted to fame as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and she was singled out by reporters for both her breezy manner and her example of the patient wife.

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