The First Ladies of the United States of America

by Allida Black, Michelle Obama (Foreword)

Profiles the women who have served in the role of First Lady. Illustrated with portraits from the White House Collection.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Brenda]

Very good short profiles of America’s First Ladies from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Beautiful pictures of the First Ladies are included. Very interesting read. Does not take long to read.

[Kumari de Silva]

Nice overview of each of our first ladies. Sets a neutral to positive tone on each one. For example, the less educated ones are lauded for being fine hostesses. For being charming or lovely or friendly and other pretty basic compliments. Many of the "first ladies" were actually relatives other than the president's wife for various reasons. One president for example was a widower, another a bachelor, still another had a wife in ill health. When the hostess was other than the wife, the book is rather curt on information which is too bad. We'd like to know about ALL of the first ladies.

I bought this book while in Kentucky at Mary Todd Lincoln's home. The docent told us the Todd family owned slaves. What Mary thought of this, (she was dating Abraham Lincoln!) the docent told us "is not known." That's a shame. I would be very curious to know. I would be curious to know about all the first ladies who served prior to the Civil War how they felt about slaves or if they owned slaves. I think such information would help me understand them more fully. I think it is something that must be known to history and is just left out of this book to be politic. I had to knock off a star for that.

I was very sad to note how many of these women lost children to early deaths. Many of them had quite tragic lives. Overall an interesting book about women in a pretty exclusive club.

[Sarah Elizabeth]

This book serves as a good general primer of the women who supported the man in the highest political office in the country. Some were the wives of the president, other the daughters, and still others just dear friends who took on the social hosting role of welcoming the world to the center of American government.

This would be a useful jumping off point to learn more about the basics of each woman, but there isn't any real depth or new knowledge.

[Sarah]

An easy read, not too critical of any First Lady, it attempts to view each woman from a positive perspective, which is to say it is a somewhat sugar-coated narrative. I love history though and I enjoyed reading about some of the lesser-known First Ladies like Sarah polk and lou Hoover. The earlier First Ladies were extensions of their husbands, I like the ladies who had opinions. :)

[Dionne]

While these are short, mini-biographies of the first ladies they are packed with great information. The author does a great job of describing these women in a concise way.

[William Razavi]

About a page for each First Lady along with a full page portrait makes for a very rudimentary guide to the First Ladies (through 2017).
The text has some bad editing where it clearly has been copied and pasted from the previous edition and thus ends up with some errors and places where updated information hasn't been corrected in different parts of the text.
The tone is uniformly positive. I can understand this as a choice especially when it comes to the subjects who are either still in office, still alive or from recent memory. This isn't Kenneth Anger's White House Babylon so you're not going to learn what Nancy Reagan was allegedly famous for in Hollywood or why Martha Jefferson and Sally Hemmings looked so similar.
So, this is okay for some basic information but is otherwise more of a tease.

[Goose]

Each presidential wife or acting first lady gets her due in this collection of brief biographical sketches. If you have an interest in first ladies this is a good starting point. Don't expect too much depth but do expect to have your curiosity piqued by more than one first lady. If this sends readers into the stacks for biographies on either the first ladies or the presidents, then this slight tome has done it's job.

[Stormy]

This has a short biography and profile picture/painting of each first lady. Many interesting facts. For instance, who knew Calvin Coolidge's wife, Grace, was so beautiful?! And Mary Todd Lincoln... a fascinating and tragic life.

[Cathy]

Now I know everything about the First Ladies. There are many tragic stories...losing babies and young children to early diseases they had no cure for. And, a fair number of First Ladies were infirmed by a number of maladies common for the times.

[Becky]

A great coffee table book for those that want to learn a little about each first lady. This book gives you one page on the wives of the presidents and their impact on their husbands and America.

[Staci]

so many second marriages...

[ACRL]

Read by ACRL Member of the Week Anne Beaubien. Learn more about Anne on the ACRL Insider blog.

[April Suter]

I bought this at Jimmy Carter's Museum. Learned a few things about the women in the White House.