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EDITH ROOSEVELT: MODERN FIRST LADY

© John S. Cooper

Columnist Emily Edson Briggs called Julia Dent Grant "the first lady of the land." Lucy Webb Hayes was the first to be officially called "The First Lady." But it was Edith Carow Roosevelt who actually was the first modern First Lady, and created much of what the position is today.

Edith was Theodore Roosevelt's second wife, but may well have been his first choice. Edith grew up in the same Union Square neighborhood where the Roosevelts lived. Corrine, Theodore's sister, was her best friend. Although Theodore was three years older than Edith, they moved in the same social circles. Edith claimed that, before Theodore went to Harvard, he proposed marriage to her. She refused, agreeing with her parents' advice that she was too young.

Theodore went to Harvard, and met the beautiful Alice Lee. They married, but she died of kidney disease four years later. After his "cowboy phase" (see my earlier article on Theodore Roosevelt), he returned to New York and he and Edith resumed their acquaintance. They were married on December 2, 1886. In addition to raising Alice, Theodore's daughter from his first marriage, Theodore and Edith had five children of their own.

Edith received her little formal education at the Comstock School in New York, but her real education came at home. She was raised in an "erudite setting" which provided her a complete education. Theodore admitted that her education was much broader than his own and that he often got credit for her ideas. He once told a friend that Edith was "better read" and that he valued her judgment and came to depend on her advice. "Whenever I go against her judgment, I regret it."

Managing a large household and then serving as the wife of an assistant Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York gave Edith a great deal of experience in executive management and social graces. She was ready and very confident when Theodore became President.

In her almost eight years as First Lady, Edith initiated major changes in the way the White House was run. She solved the problem of separating the President's personal residence from his official home, developed a new model for dealing with the increasing demand for information about the President's family, removed herself from official decisions about entertaining by hiring professional caterers, and hired a secretary to handle her official correspondence. She institutionalized the role of the First Lady in a way that had never been done before.

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