Ellen and Edith

Ellen and Edith PDF Author: Kristie Miller
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700621059
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The wives of Woodrow Wilson were strikingly different from each other. Ellen Axson Wilson, quiet and intellectual, died after just a year and a half in the White House and is thought to have had little impact on history. Edith Bolling Wilson was flamboyant and confident but left a legacy of controversy. Yet, as Kristie Miller shows, each played a significant role in the White House. Miller presents a rich and complex portrait of Wilson's wives, one that compels us to reconsider our understanding of both women. Ellen comes into clear focus as an artist and intellectual who dedicated her talents to an ambitious man whose success enabled her to have a significant influence on the institution of the first lady. Miller's assessment of Edith Wilson goes beyond previous flattering accounts and critical assessments. She examines a woman who overstepped her role by hiding her husband's serious illness to allow him to remain in office. But, Miller concludes, Edith was acting as she knew her husband would have wished. Miller explains clearly how these women influenced Woodrow Wilson's life and career. But she keeps her focus on the women themselves, placing their concerns and emotions in the foreground. She presents a balanced appraisal of each woman's strengths and weaknesses. She argues for Ellen's influence not only on her husband but on subsequent first ladies. She strives for an understanding of the controversial Edith, who saw herself as Wilson's principal advisor and, some would argue, acted as shadow president after his stroke. Miller also helps us better appreciate the role of Mary Allen Hulbert Peck, whose role as Wilson's "playmate" complemented that of Ellen-but was intolerable to Edith. Especially because Woodrow Wilson continues to be one of the most-studied American presidents, the task of recognizing and understanding the influence of his wives is an important one. Drawing extensively on the Woodrow Wilson papers and newly available material, Miller's book answers that call with a sensitive and compelling narrative of how private and public emotions interacted at a pivotal moment in the history of first ladies.

Ellen and Edith

Ellen and Edith PDF Author: Kristie Miller
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700621059
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book

Book Description
The wives of Woodrow Wilson were strikingly different from each other. Ellen Axson Wilson, quiet and intellectual, died after just a year and a half in the White House and is thought to have had little impact on history. Edith Bolling Wilson was flamboyant and confident but left a legacy of controversy. Yet, as Kristie Miller shows, each played a significant role in the White House. Miller presents a rich and complex portrait of Wilson's wives, one that compels us to reconsider our understanding of both women. Ellen comes into clear focus as an artist and intellectual who dedicated her talents to an ambitious man whose success enabled her to have a significant influence on the institution of the first lady. Miller's assessment of Edith Wilson goes beyond previous flattering accounts and critical assessments. She examines a woman who overstepped her role by hiding her husband's serious illness to allow him to remain in office. But, Miller concludes, Edith was acting as she knew her husband would have wished. Miller explains clearly how these women influenced Woodrow Wilson's life and career. But she keeps her focus on the women themselves, placing their concerns and emotions in the foreground. She presents a balanced appraisal of each woman's strengths and weaknesses. She argues for Ellen's influence not only on her husband but on subsequent first ladies. She strives for an understanding of the controversial Edith, who saw herself as Wilson's principal advisor and, some would argue, acted as shadow president after his stroke. Miller also helps us better appreciate the role of Mary Allen Hulbert Peck, whose role as Wilson's "playmate" complemented that of Ellen-but was intolerable to Edith. Especially because Woodrow Wilson continues to be one of the most-studied American presidents, the task of recognizing and understanding the influence of his wives is an important one. Drawing extensively on the Woodrow Wilson papers and newly available material, Miller's book answers that call with a sensitive and compelling narrative of how private and public emotions interacted at a pivotal moment in the history of first ladies.

Edith and Woodrow

Edith and Woodrow PDF Author: Phyllis Lee Levin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074321756X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
Elegantly written, tirelessly researched, full of shocking revelations, Edith and Woodrow offers the definitive examination of the controversial role Woodrow Wilson's second wife played in running the country. "The story of Wilson's second marriage, and of the large events on which its shadow was cast, is darker and more devious, and more astonishing, than previously recorded." -- from the Preface Constructing a thrilling, tightly contained narrative around a trove of previously undisclosed documents, medical diagnoses, White House memoranda, and internal documents, acclaimed journalist and historian Phyllis Lee Levin sheds new light on the central role of Edith Bolling Galt in Woodrow Wilson's administration. Shortly after Ellen Wilson's death on the eve of World War I in 1914, President Wilson was swept off his feet by Edith Bolling Galt. They were married in December 1915, and, Levin shows, Edith Wilson set out immediately to consolidate her influence on him and tried to destroy his relationships with Colonel House, his closest friend and adviser, and with Joe Tumulty, his longtime secretary. Wilson resisted these efforts, but Edith was persistent and eventually succeeded. With the quick ending of World War I following America's entry in 1918, Wilson left for the Paris Peace Conference, where he pushed for the establishment of the League of Nations. Congress, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, resisted the idea of an international body that would require one country to go to the defense of another and blocked ratification. Defiant, Wilson set out on a cross-country tour to convince the American people to support him. It was during the middle of this tour, in the fall of 1919, that he suffered a devastating stroke and was rushed back to Washington. Although there has always been controversy regarding Edith Wilson's role in the eighteen months remaining of Wilson's second term, it is clear now from newly released medical records that the stroke had totally incapacitated him. Citing this information and numerous specific memoranda, journals, and diaries, Levin makes a powerfully persuasive case that Mrs. Wilson all but singlehandedly ran the country during this time. Ten years in the making, Edith and Woodrow is a magnificent, dramatic, and deeply rewarding work of history.

Edith Ellen Eddy

Edith Ellen Eddy PDF Author: Julee Ann Granger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972216906
Category : Individuality
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Tomboy Edith Ellen Eddy is not a typical little girl. Her parents try to change her until they realize her zest for life is missing.

Madam President

Madam President PDF Author: William Hazelgrove
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621575527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

My Memoir

My Memoir PDF Author: Edith Bolling Galt Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description


Closer to Nowhere

Closer to Nowhere PDF Author: Ellen Hopkins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593108639
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
#1 New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins's poignant middle grade novel in verse about coming to terms with indelible truths of family and belonging--now in paperback! For the most part, Hannah's life is just how she wants it. She has two supportive parents, she's popular at school, and she's been killing it at gymnastics. But when her cousin Cal moves in with her family, everything changes. Cal tells half-truths and tall tales, pranks Hannah constantly, and seems to be the reason her parents are fighting more and more. Nothing is how it used to be. She knows that Cal went through a lot after his mom died and she is trying to be patient, but most days Hannah just wishes Cal never moved in. For his part, Cal is trying his hardest to fit in, but not everyone is as appreciative of his unique sense of humor and storytelling gifts as he is. Humor and stories might be his defense mechanism, but if Cal doesn't let his walls down soon, he might push away the very people who are trying their best to love him. Told in verse from the alternating perspectives of Hannah and Cal, this is a story of two cousins who are more alike than they realize and the family they both want to save.

Ellen Axson Wilson

Ellen Axson Wilson PDF Author: Frances Wright Saunders
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description


Edith Kermit Roosevelt

Edith Kermit Roosevelt PDF Author: Lewis L. Gould
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780700619023
Category : Presidents' spouses
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This biography of Theodore Roosevelt's wife presents a more complex and interesting figure than the somewhat secularized saint Edith Roosevelt has become in the literature on first ladies.

Frank

Frank PDF Author: Annette B. Dunlap
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438428162
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
When she married forty-nine-year-old President Grover Cleveland in a White House ceremony on June 2, 1886, Frances Folsom Cleveland was only twenty-one years old, making her the nation's youngest First Lady. Despite her age, however, Washington society marveled at how quickly the inexperienced Mrs. Cleveland (known as "Frank" to her family and friends) established herself as a social leader and capable spouse. Her popular Saturday receptions and glittering formal social events, combined with the warm and winning personality she displayed during her first two years in the White House, made her one of America's most popular First Ladies. Yet, as Annette Dunlap demonstrates in Frank, there was more to this charming and resolute woman than her social and entertaining skills. Active in New York society during the four years between the two Cleveland administrations, Frances built relationships with many of the nation's elite that helped return her husband to the White House for a second term. She played a pivotal role in keeping Cleveland's operation for cancer a secret, and as the country's economic picture and Cleveland's political popularity deteriorated, she coped admirably with criticism of herself and her husband, as well as lies about her children's health. Even though she shared her husband's opposition to women's suffrage, favoring instead an exalted role for women in the home, she struggled with Cleveland's possessiveness. A strong and opinionated woman in her own right, she developed her own network of associations that promoted kindergartens, mission work, and charitable activities that alleviated conditions for the poor. The first widowed former First Lady to remarry, Frances found new life as a political activist, taking a strong stand for military preparedness and promoting the need for a just and lasting peace at the end of World War I. She maintained leadership roles in several organizations well into her seventies, including the board of trustees of her alma mater, Wells College. Her lasting contributions to both early and higher education, as well as her work on behalf of the poor, may well make Frances Folsom Cleveland one of America's most underrated First Ladies.

Keeping the House

Keeping the House PDF Author: Ellen Baker
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588366294
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Set in the conformist 1950s and reaching back to span two world wars, Ellen Baker’ s superb novel is the story of a newlywed who falls in love with a grand abandoned house and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. Like Whitney Otto’s How to Make an American Quilt in its intimate portrayal of women’ s lives, and reminiscent of novels by Elizabeth Berg and Anne Tyler, Keeping the House is a rich tapestry of a novel that introduces a wonderful new fiction writer. When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, in 1950, she discovers all too soon that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life by keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, and fretting about dinner menus. She even gives up her dream of flying an airplane, trying instead to fit in at the stuffy Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon, though, her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by the vacant house on the hill. As Dolly’s life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the story of three generations of Mickelson men and women: Wilma Mickelson, who came to Pine Rapids as a new bride in 1896 and fell in love with a man who was not her husband; her oldest son, Jack, who fought as a Marine in the trenches of World War I; and Jack’s son, JJ, a troubled veteran of World War II, who returns home to discover Dolly in his grandparents’ house. As the crisis in Dolly’s marriage escalates, she not only escapes into JJ’s stories of his family’s past but finds in them parallels to her own life. As Keeping the House moves back and forth in time, it eloquently explores themes of wartime heroism and passionate love, of the struggles of men’s struggles with fatherhood and war and of women’s conflicts with issues of conformity, identity, forbidden dreams, and love. Beautifully written and atmospheric, Keeping the House illuminates the courage it takes to shape and reshape a life, and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another person’s desires. Keeping the House is an unforgettable novel about small-town life and big matters of the heart.