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Natives’ Return: LBJ’S Texas White House and Lady Bird’s Wildflowers
- University of Nevada Press
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Natives’ Return LBJ’s Texas White House and Lady Bird’s Wildflowers V e r a n o r w o o d [ 57 ] When Lady Bird Johnson passed away on July 11,2007,she was laid to rest next to her husband in the private family cemetery on the Hill Country ranch on the Pedernales River that had served as the “Texas White House” during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency and had been their home since the 1950s. Press coverage and memorial tributes to Mrs. Johnson mentioned her love of the place and went on to chronicle her contributions to highway beautification, wildflower preservation, and various other conservation initiatives, as well as her role as a key advisor and emotional support for her husband throughout his political career. Since his death in 1973, Johnson’s legacy has been the subject of much scholarly attention; we are now just beginning to understand Mrs. Johnson’s legacy. In this essay I examine how Lady Bird, aiming to make her mark as First Lady,used her attachment to the Texas Hill Country ranch to engage a larger national and international environmental agenda of her own. Hal Rothman’s fine book, LBJ’s White House “Our Heart’s Home,” probes the meanings of the ranch for Johnson during his presidency. Their reference to the place as “our heart’s home” suggests that Lyndon and Lady Bird shared a sense of the importance of the ranch to their lives before, during, and after the presidency. There were not only personal but political reasons why LBJ decided to buy a dilapidated ranch in the Hill Country. His family was from the area and his purchase of the ranch on the Pedernales River was a homecoming but, as Rothman notes, a homecoming of one who had risen from a poor, rural background to a seat of national and international power. The ranch and Johnson’s improvements of it became a physical embodiment of the history of the man: “The ranch became a symbol of Johnson—his presidency, his roots, his belief in the ability of people to achieve their dreams.”1 Rothman and others have linked Johnson’s history on the [ 58 ] c i T i e s a n d n aT u r e land with his support for the conservation movement as part of his “Great Society ” initiatives. Johnson cast himself as a “conservation farmer” and the ranch as a model of scientific range management. Rothman argues that “Johnson understood poor people and ambition, and he respected practices that developed the land: agriculture, animal husbandry, and similar economic endeavors” and these views led to his vision of the ranch as representing not only remedies for the nation’s ills during the tumultuous 1960s, but also for poverty he encountered in developing countries. This very regional place then participated not only in national agendas but also international initiatives like the“Green Revolution.”2 Yet Johnson experienced some difficulty in having the ranch serve as a pure expression of western regionalism and as an expression of American power as a nation and in the world. The Johnson persona on the ranch was very much the modern cowboy. He enjoyed giving visiting dignitaries and reporters joy rides around the ranch in his convertible. His rural roots were ridiculed in the press after one ride in which it was reported he sped down ranch roads throwing empty beer cans out the window. Although the Johnson team did what they could to repair the image of LBJ as “litterbug,” the alternative narrative which pictured the president and Lady Bird strolling the ranch picking up “beer cans and other refuse” was believed by some to damage his image as a powerful figure. This was especially so since this particular tale hit the press as Lady Bird was beginning to articulate her ideas for her beautification programs.3 Lewis L. Gould’s biographies of Mrs. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment and Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady provide a comprehensive history of how she came to the decision to make beautification, especially of the highways, her primary initiative as First Lady. As Gould notes, both Johnsons saw the beautification agenda to be integrally a part of the War on Poverty and the construction of the Great Society. Parks and gardens in blighted urban areas improved the quality of life and developed community as well as providing jobs for local residents. They worked together on the various legislative and...