Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century (review)

First-lady studies have undergone a progressive development and maturation in recent years. From a virtually exclusive focus on the women's life stories, they now include more conceptual analyses conducted by scholars from an increasingly diverse set of disciplines. Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century continues this advancement, bringing together communication and media studies specialists to examine the public communication practices of the presidents' wives. "Rhetoric" is defined in the broadest of terms. Florence Harding's endorsement of various groups, the talent of Grace Coolidge and Bess Truman for "social diplomacy," and Jacqueline Kennedy's attentiveness to nonverbal communication and visual presentation, for example, are each acknowledged and weighed. With ceremony and symbol also identified as modes of public communication, the power of the first ladies can be more fully recognized and more comprehensively assessed.

Whether participating in electoral or policy campaigns, whether serving as presidential hostesses or surrogates, presidents' wives engage in public communication. As editor Molly Meijer Wertheimer notes, these women have each "invent[ed] a public persona while onstage, amid much public scrutiny and criticism. No matter how much experience she has had with audiences and the media, this cannot be an easy task" (3). The twin themes of invention and struggle, with due recognition given the societal and political constraints historically imposed on wives in the public sphere, unify this edited collection. At the same time, the diversity of the first ladies and of their rhetorical practices allows the authors to showcase a wide variety of research designs. The result is a coherent survey of the first ladies' communication practices, which resists simple dichotomies of speech or silence, voice or oppression, power or dependence.

Each chapter of Inventing a Voice investigates how a first lady strategically used rhetorical communication during her years in the White House. The general structure of the chapters is consistent, with a biographical overview setting the context for analysis of the individual's rhetoric, followed by an assessment of her legacy for future first ladies. By examining first ladies from Ida McKinley to Laura Bush, the collection encompasses the full twentieth century. This is a period in which both mass communication and the presidency underwent extraordinary changes, singly and in conjunction with one another. And yet, as the authors demonstrate, no linear development is seen in the position of the first lady. Even as expectations grew that the president's wife would assume an increasingly public role, successive first ladies expressed distinctive visions of the president's wife as a presidential aide.

Many would agree that this role has been conceived in contrasting terms. Ida McKinley, Edith Wilson, Mamie Eisenhower, and Nancy Reagan apparently share little in common beyond their status as presidential wives. Ida McKinley "projected a traditional model of matrimonial expectations that stereotyped women of the day" (40). Edith Wilson, described as lacking personal political ambition, assumed what she described as a "stewardship" following her husband's stroke. Mamie Eisenhower "excelled in her role as hostess for an emerging world power, as her husband's political partner, as correspondent, and as the embodiment of a traditional woman in the media" (238). Nancy Reagan is described as "a model of participation for the roles of political partner, hostess, public relations specialist, and advocate. But, it is as a wife that Nancy Reagan [by her own words] finds her most challenging and rewarding role" (384). Here is the commonalty shared by all first ladies: They function—and are judged—as gender role models for wives and women throughout the country. Inventing a Voice presents the rhetorical analysis that provides evidence for this assertion, assessing the first ladies as public communicators of values and ideals.

The rhetorical practices of these women are also examined as reflective of their political priorities as elite members of a presidential administration. As highly visible women in the...