Edith Wilson | |
|---|---|
 Edith Wilsonc. 1915 | |
| First Lady of the United States | |
| In role December 20, 1915 – March 4, 1921 | |
| President | Woodrow Wilson |
| Preceded by | Margaret Woodrow Wilson |
| Succeeded by | Florence Harding |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Edith Bolling (1872-10-15)October 15, 1872 Wytheville, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | December 28, 1961(1961-12-28) (aged 89) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Washington National Cathedral |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
| Signature |  |
Edith Wilson (néeBolling, formerlyGalt; October 15, 1872 – December 28, 1961) wasFirst Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921 as the second wife of PresidentWoodrow Wilson. She married thewidower Wilson in December 1915, during his first term as president. Edith Wilson played an influential role inPresident Wilson's administration following the severestroke he suffered in October 1919. For the remainder of her husband's presidency, she managed the office of the president, a role she later described as a "stewardship", and determined which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the attention of the bedridden president.[1][2]
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Edith Bolling was born October 15, 1872, inWytheville, Virginia, tocircuit court judge William Holcombe Bolling and his wife Sarah "Sallie" Spears (née White).[3] Her birthplace, the Bolling Home, is now a museum located inWytheville's Historic District.[4]
Bolling was a descendant of thefirst settlers to arrive at theVirginia Colony. Through her father, she was also a descendant of Mataoka, better known asPocahontas.[5][6][7] Her father was descended from Pocahontas's granddaughterJane Rolfe, who marriedRobert Bolling,[8] a wealthyslave-owning planter and merchant.[9][10] Additionally, she was related, either by blood or through marriage, toThomas Jefferson,Martha Washington,Letitia Tyler, and theHarrison family.[11]
Edith was the seventh of eleven children, two of whom died in infancy.[12] The Bollings were some of the oldest members of Virginia'sslave-owning,planter elite prior to theAmerican Civil War. After the war ended andslavery was abolished, Edith's father turned to the practice oflaw to support his family.[13] Unable to pay taxes on his extensive properties, and forced to give up the family'splantation seat, William Holcombe Bolling moved to Wytheville, where most of his children were born.[14]
The Bolling household was a large one, and Edith grew up within the confines of a sprawling, extended family. In addition to eight surviving siblings, Edith's grandmothers, aunts and cousins also lived in the Bolling household. Many of the women in Edith's family lost husbands during the war.[15] The Bollings had been staunch supporters of theConfederate States of America, were proud of their Southern planter heritage, and in early childhood, taught Edith in the post‑Civil War South's narrative of theLost Cause. As was often the case among the planter elite, the Bollings justified slave ownership, saying that the slaves that they owned had been content with their lives asslaves and had little desire for freedom.[16]
Edith had little formal education. While her sisters were enrolled in local schools, she was taught how to read and write at home. Their paternal grandmother, Anne Wiggington Bolling, played a large role in her education. Crippled by aspinal cord injury, Grandmother Bolling was confined to bed. Edith had the responsibility to wash her clothing, turn her in bed at night, and look after her 26canaries.[citation needed]
In turn, Grandmother Bolling oversaw Edith's education, teaching her reading, writing, basic math skills, speaking ahybrid language of French and English, and making dresses. She also instilled in Edith a tendency to make quick judgments and hold strong opinions, personality traits Edith would exhibit her entire life.[17] William Bolling readclassicEnglish literature aloud to his family at night, hired a tutor to teach Edith, and sometimes took her on his travels. The Bolling family attended church regularly, and Edith became a lifelong, practicingEpiscopalian.[18]
When Edith was 15, her father enrolled her at Martha Washington College (a precursor ofEmory and Henry College), afinishing school for girls inAbingdon, Virginia.[18] William Holcombe Bolling chose it for its excellent music program.[19] Edith proved to be an undisciplined, ill-prepared student. She was miserable there, complaining of the school's austerity: the food was poorly prepared, the rooms too cold, and the daily curriculum excessively rigorous, intimidating, and too strictly regimented.[20] Edith left after only one semester.[21] Two years later, Edith's father enrolled her in Powell's School for Girls inRichmond, Virginia. Years later, Edith noted that her time at Powell's was the happiest time of her life.[17] Unfortunately for Edith, the school closed at the end of the year after the headmaster suffered an accident that cost him his leg. Concerned about the cost of Edith's education, William Bolling refused to pay for any additional schooling, choosing instead to focus on educating her three brothers.[22]
While visiting her married sister inWashington, D.C., Edith met Norman Galt (1864–1908), a prominent jeweler ofGalt & Bro. The couple married on April 30, 1896, and lived in the capital for the next 12 years. In 1903, she bore a son who lived only for a few days. The difficult birth left her unable to have more children.[23] In January 1908, Norman Galt died unexpectedly at the age of 43. Edith hired a manager to oversee his business, paid off his debts, and with the income left to her by her late husband, toured Europe.[24]
In March 1915, the widow Galt was introduced to recently widowed U.S. PresidentWoodrow Wilson at theWhite House byHelen Woodrow Bones (1874–1951). Bones was the president's first cousin and served as the official White House hostess after the death of Wilson's wife,Ellen Wilson. Wilson took an instant liking to Galt and proposed soon after meeting her. However, the couple were troubled by rumors that Wilson had cheated on his wife with Galt[25] and even that Wilson and Galt had murdered the First Lady. Distressed at the effect such wild speculation could have on respect for the presidency and on his personal reputation, Wilson suggested that Edith Bolling Galt back out of their engagement. Instead, she insisted on postponing the wedding until the end of the official year of mourning for Ellen Axson Wilson.[26]
Wilson married Galt on December 18, 1915, at her home in Washington, D.C.[27] There were 40 guests. The groom's pastor, Reverend Dr. James H. Taylor of Central Presbyterian Church, and the bride's, Reverend Dr. Herbert Scott Smith of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., officiated jointly at the ceremony.[citation needed][28]
As First Lady duringWorld War I, Edith Bolling Wilson had relatively few opportunities to be a social hostess, especially after the United States' entry into the war in April 1917.[27] In wartime, she observed gasless Sundays, meatless Mondays, and wheatless Wednesdays to set an example for the federal rationing effort. Similarly, she set sheep to graze on the White House lawn rather than use manpower to mow it, and had their wool auctioned off for the benefit of theAmerican Red Cross.[29] Additionally, Edith Wilson became the first First Lady to travel to Europe during her term. She visited Europe with her husband on two separate occasions, in 1918 and 1919, to visit troops and to sign theTreaty of Versailles. During this time, her presence amongst the female royalty of Europe helped to cement America's status as a world power and propelled the position of First Lady to an equivalent standing in international politics.[30] Meanwhile, Woodrow Wilson's health was failing under the stress of the presidency, and she devoted much effort to trying to keep him fit.[27]
Following his attendance at theParis Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States to campaign against strong non-interventionist sentiment for the ratification of thepeace treaty and of theLeague of Nations Covenant. However, in October he suffered a stroke that left him bedridden and partially paralyzed.[31]
Edith Wilson and others in the President's inner circle (including his physician and a few close friends) hid the true extent of the president's illness and disability from the American public.[31][32][33] Edith also took over a number of routine duties and details of the executive branch of the government from the onset of Wilson's illness until he left office almost a year and a half later. From October 1919 to the end of Wilson's term on March 4, 1921, Edith, acting in a role she later described as a "stewardship", decided who and which communications and matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president.[34] Edith Wilson later wrote:
I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I, myself, never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband.
Edith became the sole communication link between the President and his Cabinet. She required they send her all pressing matters, memos, correspondence, questions, and requests.[30]
Edith took her role very seriously, even successfully pushing for the removal of Secretary of StateRobert Lansing after he conducted a series of Cabinet meetings without the President (or Edith herself) present.[35][36] She also refused to allow theBritish ambassador,Edward Grey, an opportunity to present hiscredentials to the president unless Grey dismissed an aide who was known to have made demeaning comments about her.[30][37] She assisted President Wilson in filling out paperwork, and would often add new notes or suggestions. She was made privy to classified information, and was entrusted with the responsibility of encoding and decoding encrypted messages.[38]
InMy Memoir, published in 1939, Edith Wilson justified her self-proclaimed role of presidential "steward", arguing that her actions on behalf of Woodrow Wilson's presidency were sanctioned by Wilson's doctors; that they told her to do so for her husband's mental health.[39] Edith Wilson maintained that she was simply a vessel of information for President Wilson; however, others in the White House did not trust her. Some believed that the marriage between Edith and Woodrow was hasty and controversial. Others did not approve of the marriage because they believed that Woodrow and Edith had begun communicating with each other while Woodrow was still married to Ellen Wilson.[38]
In 1921,Joe Tumulty (Wilson's chief of staff) wrote: "No public man ever had a more devoted helpmate, and no wife a husband more dependent upon her sympathetic understanding of his problems ... Mrs. Wilson's strong physical constitution, combined with strength of character and purpose, has sustained her under a strain which must have wrecked most women."[40] In subsequent decades, however, scholars were far more critical in their assessment of Edith Wilson's tenure as First Lady. Phyllis Lee Levin concluded that the effectiveness of Woodrow Wilson's policies was unnecessarily hampered by his wife, "a woman of narrow views and formidable determination".[41] Judith Weaver opined that Edith Wilson underestimated her own role in Wilson's presidency. While she may not have made critical decisions, she did influence both domestic and international policy given her role as presidential gatekeeper.[42]Howard Markel, a medical historian, has taken issue with Edith Wilson's claim of a benign "stewardship". Markel has opined that Edith Wilson "was, essentially, the nation's chief executive until her husband's second term concluded in March of 1921".[43] While a widow of moderate education for her time, she nevertheless attempted to protect her husband and his legacy, if not the presidency, even if it meant exceeding her role as First Lady.[44] This period of her life was dramatized in the 2021 historical fiction podcastEdith! starringRosamund Pike.[45][46]
Upon leaving the White House in March 1921, Edith and Woodrow Wilson moved into a home on S Street NW in Washington, D.C. There she cared for the former president until his death on February 3, 1924. In subsequent years, she headed the Woman's National Democratic Club's board of governors when the club opened formally in 1924 and published her memoir in 1939.[47]
On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan'sattack on Pearl Harbor, PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress todeclare war, taking pains to draw a link with Wilson's April 1917 declaration of war. Edith Wilson was present duringRoosevelt's address to Congress.[48] On April 14, 1945, she attended Roosevelt's funeral at the White House.[49] She later attended the January 20, 1961inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.[50]
Edith Wilson died ofcongestive heart failure on December 28, 1961, at age 89. She was to have been the guest of honor that day at the dedication ceremony for theWoodrow Wilson Bridge across thePotomac River betweenMaryland andVirginia, on what would have been her husband's 105th birthday.[51] She was buried next to her husband at theWashington National Cathedral.[52]
Wilson left her home to theNational Trust for Historic Preservation, with a condition that it be made into a museum honoring her husband. TheWoodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964. To theLibrary of Congress, Mrs. Wilson donated first President Wilson's presidential papers in 1939, then his personal library in 1946.[53]
The Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Foundation & Museum in Wytheville, Virginia was established in 2008. The foundation has stabilized the first lady's birthplace and childhood home; it had been identified in May 2013 by Preservation Virginia as an Endangered Historic Site. The foundation's programs and exhibits aspire to build public awareness "honoring Mrs. Wilson's name, the contributions she made to this country, the institution of the presidency, and for the example she sets for women." The Foundation shares First Lady Mrs. Wilson's journey "From Wytheville to The White House".[citation needed]
In 2015, a former historic bank building in Wytheville, located on Main Street, was dedicated to the First Lady and bears her name. Adapted as the Bolling Wilson Hotel, it serves Wytheville residents and travelers alike.[54]
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| Honorary titles | ||
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| Preceded by | First Lady of the United States 1915–1921 | Succeeded by |
