An interesting (and lengthy) article here on First Ladies and how quickly they move into media narrative-driven caricatures. The author — Carl Sferrazza Anthony — specializes in studying the First Ladies, and finds that the media usually just likes to pigeon-hole First Ladies into a convenient archetype and be done with it.
Ever since Laura Bush showed Michelle Obama the family quarters, the centennial of that tradition, I’ve had a steady avalanche of media inquiries on the subject. As historian of the National First Ladies Library and author of both biographies and overviews of the role, its been disheartening for me to realize how eagerly the media disregards history. The foreign press seemed the most inquisitive about this American phenomenon of investing so much fascination with the wives who happened to be married to the presidents, but the U.S. media was essentially seeking a quote to confirm the narrative about Mrs. Obama that was already solidifying. Reporters have tended to fall back on a false counterpoint as old as Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison: “traditionalist” or “activist” (sorry, make that Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton — the media considers anything before Eleanor Roosevelt irrelevant).
The reality is that even the most public traditionalist ends up a stealth activist (Nancy Reagan was the first to urge her husband’s dialogue with the Soviets, Mamie Eisenhower isolated Ike from Joe McCarthy by barring the Senator from an annual Senate dinner at the time of his Red-baiting hearings, Nellie Taft — remembered for starting the cherry blossom trees — was the first to initiate policy, health and safety standards in the federal workplace). Conversely, the publicly acknowledged activist is often a covert traditionalist (Hillary Clinton redecorated the Blue Room, Eleanor Roosevelt served tea from a silver service, Rosalynn Carter sponsored a poetry festival).
In response to the inquiries, my instinct was to offer facts: Born in 1964, Michelle Obama is a “Baby Boomer” like Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton, the so-designated generation born between 1945 and 1964. She will be 45 when she becomes First Lady, the same age that Hillary Clinton was her when her tenure began. She’s the third native Chicagoan, after Betty Ford and Hillary Clinton and fourth to earn a graduate degree, after Pat Nixon, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. She has two daughters — like Laura Bush, Lady Bird Johnson, and Pat Nixon — closer in age to Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton than to the Kennedy children. She is the second lawyer — Hillary was the first, and the second to continue working after her children were born — yes, you guessed it, Hillary was the first. I got a lot of silence in reaction. One reporter finally said it — she still saw Michelle as the “anti-Laura” or the “black Jackie” — but not the “new Hillary.”
Interesting stuff. Read the whole thing.