First Ladies (78 page)

35
. Papers of William H. Taft, Library of Congress. William's first letter to Helen is in Series II (1879–1885), reel 609, dated April 19, 1882 and addressed to “My dear Miss Herron.”

36
. Letter of April 29, 1884, Papers of William H. Taft.

37
. Letter of October 11, 1884, Papers of William H, Taft.

38
. Letter of June 17, 1885, Papers of William H. Taft.

39
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 20.

40
. George E. Mowry,
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era
(New York, 1958), p. 234.

41
. Judith Icke Anderson,
William Howard Taft: An Intimate Biography
(New York, 1981), p. 48.

42
. Henry F. Pringle,
Life and Times of William Howard Taft,
2 vols. (New York, 1939), vol. 1, p. 160.

43
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 30.

44
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 33.

45
. For a full discussion of how Helen Taft used her White House years to showcase American music and performers, see Lewis L. Gould,
Helen Taft: Our Musical First Lady
(Lawrence, 2010).

46
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 233.

47
. Anderson,
William H. Taft,
p. 85.

48
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 280.

49
. Henry F. Pringle,
Theodore Roosevelt, A Biography
(New York, 1931), p. 259.

50
. Pringle,
Life and Times of William Howard Taft,
vol. 1, p. 315. Helen Taft skips the details of her appointment with the president (although it is documented in many other places), but she makes no secret of her disdain for the “fixed groove” of judicial life. See
Recollections,
p. 263.

51
. Anderson,
William Howard Taft,
p. 111.

52
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 324.

53
. Butt,
Letters,
p. 362.

54
. Irwin Hood Hoover,
Forty-Two Years in the While House
(Boston, 1934), p. 40.

55
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 331.

56
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 332.

57
. Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances S. Leighton,
It Was Fun Working at the White House
(New York, 1969), p. 26. Lillian Parks reports her mother's recollection of inauguration day in 1909, but it should be noted that the book was published well after Richard Nixon's famous comment about not being “kicked around.” However, Irwin Hoover,
Forty-Two Years in the White House,
was published well ahead of Nixon (1934), and on p. 45, Hoover gives a similar report of Taft's statement.

58
.
New York Times,
May 18, 1909, p. 1; July 30, 1909, p. 1.

59
. Anderson,
William Howard Taft,
p. 166.

60
. Pringle,
William Howard Taft,
vol. 2, p. 603.

61
. George Griswold Hill, “The Wife of the New President,”
Ladies' Home Journal
(March 1909), p. 6.

62
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 365.

63
. Butt,
Letters,
p. 362.

64
. Butt,
Letters,
p. 623.

65
. Taft,
Recollections,
p. 349.

66
. Elizabeth Jaffray,
Secrets of the White House
(New York, 1927), p. 7.

67
. Ellen Maury Slayden,
Washington Wife: Journal of Ellen Maury Slayden, 1897–1919
(New York, 1962), pp. 156–157.

68
. Pringle,
Life and Times of William Howard Taft,
vol. 2, p. 1076, cites a letter from a Washington jeweler who advised against changing the monogram because the piece would be ruined.

69
. Papers of William H. Taft, July 8, 1895, Series II, reel 24.

70
. Stanley Kutler, biographical entry for Helen Herron Taft in
Notable American Women,
vol. 3, p. 420.

71
. Anderson,
William Howard Taft,
pp. 161–164.

72
. George Griswold Hill, “The Wife of the New President,”
Ladies' Home Journal
(March 1907), p. 7.

73
. Butt,
Letters,
p. 234.

74
. Theodore Roosevelt,
An Autobiography
(New York, 1924), p. 357.

75
. Archibald Butt,
Taft and Roosevelt
(New York, 1930), p. 436.

76
. Pringle,
Life and Times of William Howard Taft,
vol. 2, p. 622.

77
. Eleanor Wilson McAdoo,
The Woodrow Wilsons
(New York, 1937), p. 50.

78
. Frances Wright Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson: First Lady Between Two Worlds
(Chapel Hill, 1985), p. 18.

79
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
p. 15.

80
. Arthur Link, biographical entry for Ellen Axson Wilson in
Notable American Women,
vol. 3, p. 627.

81
. The League had originated in a student rebellion against the National Academy of Design and although the League quickly achieved a reputation as a serious place to study, it lacked the prestige of the Academy. See Michael E. Landgren,
Years of Art
(New York, 1940),
passim
.

82
. On admission of women to study at art schools in the United States, see Charlotte Streiffer Rubinstein,
American Women Artists: From Early Indian Times To the Present
(Boston, 1982), p. 441.

83
. Ellen Axson lived only three blocks from the League's studios at 38 West Fourteenth Street. The student body numbered 500, and the faculty included, by the year she left, George De Forest Brush and Thomas Eakins. See Landgren,
Years of Art,
p. 46.

84
. Eleanor Wilson McAddo,
The Priceless Gift
(New York, 1962), p. 88.

85
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 122.

86
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 122.

87
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 122.

88
. Rubinstein,
American Women Artists,
p. 89.

89
. Cornelia Crow Carr,
Harriet Hosmer: Letters and Memories
(New York, 1912), p. 35. I am indebted to Enid Bell, the sculptor, for information on Harriet Hosmer and other women artists of the nineteenth century.

90
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
p. 79.

91
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 81. See
Papers of Woodrow Wilson,
vol. 3, p. 494, for text of letter of October 31, 1884.

92
. Arthur S. Link et al., eds.,
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson,
53 vols. (Princeton, 1966–1986), vol. 3, p. 494, gives text of letter of November 28, 1884.

93
. John A. Garraty,
Woodrow Wilson
(New York, 1956), p. 16.

94
. Carl F. Price,
Wesleyan's First Century
(Middleton, 1932), pp. 161–162.

95
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilmn,
p. 70.

96
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
p. 89.

97
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 181.

98
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson, passim,
esp. p. 147.

99
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
p. 110.

100
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
pp. 188, 201–202.

101
. Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
p. 201.

102
. McAdoo,
Priceless Gift,
p. 256. Frances Wright Saunders, in letters to the author, pointed out that Woodrow would not have approved of coeducational schools for his daughters and that Goucher did have a Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

103
. Hester E. Hosford, “New Ladies of the White House,”
The Independent,
vol. 73 (November 21, 1912), pp. 1159–1165.

104
. Slayden,
Washington Wife,
pp. 224–225.

105
.
Ladies' Home Journal,
vol. 30 (May 1913), pp. 18–19.

106
. Mabel Potter Daggett, “Woodrow Wilson's Wife,”
Good Housekeeping,
vol. 56 (March 1913), pp. 316–323.

107
. “New Mistress of the White House,”
Current Opinion
(March 1913), pp. 195–196

108
. Daggett, “Woodrow Wilson's Wife,” p. 320.

109
. Frances McGregor Gordon, “The Tact of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson,”
Collier's,
vol. 50 (March 8, 1913), p. 13, gives a contemporary account. For historians' evaluations, see Saunders,
Ellen Axson Wilson,
pp. 214–215. Bryan's motives at the 1912 Democratic convention remain the subject of much speculation. See George E. Mowry, “Election of 1912,” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., et al., eds.,
History of American Presidential Elections,
4 vols. (New York, 1971), vol. 3, pp. 2150–2151.

110
. Daggett, “Woodrow Wilson's Wife,” p. 322.

111
. Mrs. Ernest P. Bicknell, “The Home-Maker of the White House,”
Survey,
vol. 33 (October 3, 1914), p. 19.

112
. Parks and Leighton,
It Was Fun,
p. 36.

113
. Arthur S. Link,
Wilson: The New Freedom
(Princeton, 1956), pp. 247–249.

114
. Bicknell, “Home-Maker,” p. 20.

115
. McAdoo,
Woodrow Wilsons,
p. 201.

116
. McAdoo,
Woodrow Wilsons,
p. 201.

117
.
New York Times,
August 7, 1914, p. 1; September 15, 1914, p. 10.

118
. McAdoo,
Woodrow Wilsons,
p. 247. No president since John Adams had addressed Congress in person.

119
. Edith Boiling Wilson,
My Memoir
(New York, 1939), p. 38. This autobiography has been judged unreliable in many areas, and Edith herself gave contradictory accounts of events, as, for example, her first meeting with Woodrow.

120
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 33.

121
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 18.

122
. Arthur S. Link, biographical entry for Edith Boiling Galt Wilson, in Sicherman et al., eds.,
Notable American Women: The Modern Period,
p. 740.

123
. Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Library of Congress, reel 71.

124
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 146.

125
. Jaffray,
Secrets of the White House,
p. 58.

126
.
New York Times,
March 5, 1913, p. 8.

127
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 125.

128
.
New York Times,
July 10, 1977, p. 42.

129
. Alden Hatch,
Edith Bolling Wilson: First Lady Extraordinary
(New York, 1961), p. 80.

130
.
New York Times,
January 10, 1918, p. 1; Sally Hunter Graham, “Woodrow Wilson, Alice Paul, and the Woman Suffrage Movement,”
Political Science Quarterly,
vol. 98 (Winter 1983–84), pp. 665–679, presents evidence showing a gradual shift in the president's position.

131
.
New York Times,
January 9, 1918, p. 12.

132
. Charles A. Selden, “Mrs. Woodrow Wilson: Wife and Secretary Who Kept the President Alive During the World's Greatest Crisis,”
Ladies' Home Journal
(October 1921), p. 20.

133
. Dudley Harmon, “What is Mrs. Wilson Doing?”
Ladies' Home Journal
(July 1918), p. 22.

134
. Florence Jaffray Harriman,
From Pinafores to Politics
(New York, 1923), p. 325.

135
. Selden, “Mrs. Woodrow Wilson,” p. 156.

136
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 289.

137
. Jaffray,
Secrets of the White House,
p. 71.

138
. Gene Smith,
When the Cheering Stopped
(New York, 1964), p. 112.

139
. Robert J. Bender, “Signed—Edith Bolling Wilson,”
Collier's,
vol. 65 (March 1920), p. 5.

140
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 299.

141
. Barbara Klaw, “Lady Bird Johnson Remembers,”
American Heritage
(December 1980), p. 7.

142
. Edith James, Mabel E. Deutrich, and Virginia C. Purdy, “Edith Bolling Wilson: A Documentary View,” in Mabel E. Deutrich and Virginia C. Purdy, eds.,
Clio Was a Woman: Studies in the History of American Women
(Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 238.

143
. Judith Weaver, “Edith Bolling Wilson as First Lady: A Study in the Power of Personalities,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly
(Winter 1985), p. 51.

144
. Wilson,
My Memoir,
p. 297. According to Edith, she had suggested that Woodrow consider a compromise with senators who opposed him, and he had replied: “Little girl, don't you desert me; that I cannot stand.”

145
. Weaver, “Edith Bolling Wilson,” p, 70.

146
. On December 11, 1975, the National Broadcasting Company included in a publicity release this summary of Edith Wilson: “During an era when women had not yet been given the right to vote, Mrs. Wilson virtually took over the reins of the White House when her husband collapsed.” Cited in Deutrich and Purdy,
Clio Was a Woman,
pp. 239–240.

147
. Hatch,
Edith Bolling Wilson;
Ishbel Ross,
Power With Grace
(New York, 1975).

148
. Gregg Phifer, “Edith Bolling Wilson: Gatekeeper Extraordinary,”
Speech Monographs,
vol. 38 (1971), pp. 277–289.