Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment

by Lewis L. Gould

Lewis Gould shows why Mrs. Johnson ranks with Eleanor Roosevelt as a significant innovator of the First Lady role.
Building upon his much admired Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment, Gould has refocused and revised his thinking to create a fresh informative, and entertaining new portrait of LBJ's First Lady. Using Lady Bird's White House papers and interviews with her and her close associates, Gould captures both her spirit and considerable achievements during her tenure in the White House. He shows how Lady Bird's efforts to advance the cause of beautifying highways and the city of Washington, D.C. - which included attending legislative strategy sessions and lobbying for the programs that she endorsed - represented a new departure for a First Lady. He also tells how she devised and developed the staff, procedures, and tactics that subsequent First Ladies have since employed in the public arena.
The book sheds light on the personal side of Mrs. Johnson's activism as well, telling how her appearances on behalf of environmental issues were often marred by antiwar protests and how she agonized with her husband over his decision not to run for reelection. It also reveals details of her life after LBJ's death, showing that the consistency with which she pursued her vision of the environment has added to her historical influence.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1988

About the author

Lewis L. Gould is Eugene C. Barker Professor Emeritus in American History at the University of Texas in Austin. Gould earned an A.B. from Brown University in 1961, and an M.A. (1962) and Ph.D. (1966) from Yale University.

Reviews

[Carrol Kuhlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF Boring presentation of interesting material.