Do You Know the U.S. First Ladies?

The Nashville home of former First Lady Sarah Polk was known as “Polk Place,” and it received leaders from both the Union and Confederate armies as neutral ground during the Civil War.

Abigail Powers met future President Millard Fillmore when he attended a class she was teaching in New York. (She was 21 and he was 19 at the time.) Abigail Fillmore was also the first First Lady to hold a job after marriage.

Barbara Bush was the second person in U.S. history to be the wife of one President and the mother of another (the first was Abigail Adams). Bush also held a distant relation to a third President: She was a fourth cousin of Franklin Pierce.

During the tomb dedication of President Ulysses S. Grant in New York in 1897, an early Edison "moving picture" was there to capture the event on film. Grant's wife, Julia, attended the event, making it the first known recording of a First Lady. The movie of the dedication was shown in nickelodeons and theaters at the time but is unfortunately now considered to be lost.

In 1919, two years into his second term, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. For the final two years of his presidency, Wilson's executive branch was run by his wife, Edith. Known by historians as the "first woman to run the government," Edith pre-screened all matters of state and took over many routine duties and details of government.

Despite the 27-year age difference between them, Frances Folsom and Grover Cleveland married in 1886, one year after he took office. The new First Lady was a hit as the White House hostess and became one of the most popular women to hold the position. After her husband died in 1908, Frances lived another 39 years in Princeton, New Jersey.

The wife of 19th President Rutherford B. Hayes, Lucy banned alcohol from the White House during her husband's term, which earned her the derisive nickname "Lemonade Lucy." Despite that, Mrs. Hayes was overall a popular First Lady, and her public support for mental health care and education set the standard for political activity in her position.

Michelle Obama is the only First Lady to have graduated from Princeton University. In fact, she is the only First Lady to have attended an Ivy League university for her undergraduate degree. She then attended Harvard Law School. Her now-husband, Barack, also attended Harvard Law, but it wasn't until after graduation that the two met at a law firm in Chicago. The couple married in 1992.

Thanks to her husband's four electoral victories, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt served in her position for 12 consecutive years — longer than any other First Lady. During her tenure, Eleanor was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences and traveled across the country giving lectures and radio broadcasts.

Nancy Reagan was a successful actress, starring in films such as "Shadow on the Wall" and "Night Into Morning," before she married actor and aspiring politician Ronald Reagan. Nancy eventually retired from Hollywood and became a full-time political wife. Ronald went on to become governor of California in 1967 and was inaugurated as President in 1981.

Rosalynn Smith married Jimmy Carter in 1946, and the two are still together as of 2022, remaining the longest-married presidential couple in U.S. history. In 2021, President Carter explained the secret to their enduring relationship: "Every day there needs to be reconciliation and communication between the two spouses. We don't go to sleep with some remaining differences between us."

Pictured here is the 8-cent Martha Washington stamp, which was issued in 1902 as the first official U.S. stamp featuring an American woman. During her tenure as the country's original First Lady, Martha's welcoming nature helped others view the presidential couple as average Americans instead of royalty.

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York. Jackie, as she was popularly known, married then-Congressman John F. Kennedy in 1953, and in 1960, he won his campaign for the presidency of the United States. As First Lady, Jackie became an icon of American culture. Following her husband's untimely death, Jackie went on to marry shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.

First Lady Betty Ford was groundbreaking in how open she was about her own personal struggles with addiction. In 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which treats people affected by substance abuse and mental health issues.

Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000, became secretary of state in 2009, and was named the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.

Mamie Eisenhower was known for her style, and she loved pink so much that she decorated the White House master bedroom pink and wore a pink rhinestone dress to the inaugural ball. A hue known as “Mamie pink” became a popular shade for home decorators.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, Pat Nixon went on to work as an economist for the federal Office of Price Administration during World War II.

A lifelong advocate for civil rights, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the NAACP while serving as First Lady in the 1930s, and in 1945, she joined the board of both the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality.

Nearly 150 years before women received the right to vote, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John Adams, a member of the Continental Congress, urging him to support women’s rights. “In the new code of laws,” she wrote, “I would desire you remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”

Several years before the phrase was associated with the film of the same name, “Steel Magnolia” was a nickname given to First Lady Rosalynn Carter for her combination of sweetness and toughness.