The Presidents' Wives, Reassessing the Office of the First Lady (review)

The Presidents' Wives, Reassessing the Office of the First Lady. By Robert P. Watson. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000; pp. 275. $55.00 cloth; $19.95 paper.

More than a few scholars have observed that Hillary Rodham Clinton's political activism is merely the most recent manifestation of the influence that first ladies have exercised since the administration of George Washington. Still, East Wing studies have not kept pace with those of the West Wing. Although there are several excellent analyses of the first ladies, the focus tends to be biographical. More overarching and theoretical treatments, as seen in the communications-centered study of Myra Gutin, are only now becoming more common. It is this development that Robert P. Watson seeks to encourage with his book, The Presidents' Wives, Reassessing the Office of the First Lady.

Watson states that "this book is dedicated to reassessing the hidden history of the presidency and examining the unknown institution of the White House: the first lady" (3). In keeping with this goal, the book provides a great deal of factual information about the first ladies. Case studies and illustrative examples are drawn from the 18th century to the present day. These discussions are informative and highly accessible. Yet The Presidents' Wives also has a deeper level of analysis. Through an historical survey, and most particularly through an examination of several public opinion polls, this book seeks to determine what forces have shaped the first ladyship. This understanding, in turn, facilitates defining the choices and challenges that confront first ladies in the present and in the immediate future.

Six factors are named as having had the greatest effect on the development of the first ladyship. These are the constitutional powers and responsibilities of the president; presidential campaigns, and related practices of the political parties and media; ideals of the family and gender roles; the physical location of the office in the White House, where it is in relatively close proximity to the West Wing; the vague legal and constitutional parameters of the first lady's office; and history and culture. Watson also gives extended consideration to a seventh factor, the impact of personality on the first ladyship. His discussion of historical eras in the development of the first ladyship and the first lady's office, similarly, considers the intersection of the first ladies' personal identity with the institutional development of the presidency and the evolution of women's political participation. He also applies James David Barber's theory of presidential character to the first ladies.

The latter portion of the book is dedicated to considering the effect of public opinion on the first ladyship. Of course, at least three of the six factors above--namely, campaigning, ideals of the family, and culture-can be subsumed under this theme. Unfortunately, public opinion data about the first ladies before Rodham Clinton is generally limited to scattered (and not necessarily comparable) approval ratings. Accordingly, only the public opinion of recent years can be assessed. Even so, Watson continues to study all the first ladies by focusing on those polls that have "ranked" all the first ladies. In addition to the data provided by Good Housekeeping (1980) and by the Siena Research Institute (1982 and 1993), Watson conducted his own polls of presidency scholars and of "women in public life" during the mid-1990s.

Watson delineates patterns of responses among these polls in order to test hypotheses about the popularity of the first ladies. He concludes that the public's evaluations of and judgments about these individuals are extremely complex. Any suggestion that these women can simply be classified as traditional or activist--with the former earning more accolades than the latter--must be rejected. The rankings actually indicate some support for political activism, suggesting that the first lady may have more discretion in her choice of roles than many have previously believed.

The Presidents' Wives encourages more synthetic thinking about the...