The wife of the president occupies a central but largely undefined role beyond ceremonial duties and expectations of help in campaigning, outreach and family life. Each First Lady has imposed her own stamp upon the role. In the late twentieth century many especially Republicans, appeared feminine, dutiful wives in their public persona. Others have brought more extensive questions and changes to the White House, evoking both admiration and rejection. Their iconic status is memorialized in a Smithsonian Institution exhibit of First Ladies in characteristic gowns.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), for example, proved an outspoken liberal during her husband’s four terms and afterwards, when she remained active in the Democratic Party and international affairs. This evoked both devotion and hatred that often divided along political and social lines. Her successors, Democrat Elizabeth Virginia Wallace (“Bess”) Truman (1885–1982) and Republican Mamie Geneva Dowd Eisenhower (1896–1979), took on more typically domestic roles in the 1950s, embodying small-town, Midwestern values; vice-presidential candidate wife Patricia Ryan Nixon (1912–93) also symbolized these values when her husband refuted influencepeddling charges by referring to her plain cloth coat. While Mrs Nixon would later become a protector in her husband’s scandal-ridden administration, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929–94) brought youth (aged thirty-one), beauty style and patrician charm to her husband’s brief Democratic presidency and became a beloved symbol as widow and mother after his death. She also made the role of First Lady more publicly active in terms of restoration of the White House and support for the Arts. Her cosmopolitan charm on a state visit to Paris led her husband to quip that he was the man who had accompanied Jackie to France.

After Kennedy’s assassination, Democrat Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson (1912– ) promoted local and national beautification. Similarly after Nixon’s resignation, another Republican wife, Elizabeth Bloomer “Betty” Ford (1918–), restored light to White House life. She also became a mentor in discussing her battles with cancer and drug and alcohol dependency which led to the formation of the Betty Ford Clinic.

In the 1970s, Democratic wife Rosalyn Smith Carter (1927–) established a more “hands-on” position in government, attending Cabinet meetings and touring internationally which led to accusations of interference that also plagued her Republican successor, Nancy Davis Reagan (1923–). Reagan used her position to campaign against drugs (“Just Say No!”); her love of designer clothes, wealthy friends, astrology and her influence on her husband were all attacked by critics. Barbara Pierce Bush (1925–), although devoted to literacy campaigns, also restored domesticity to the White House.

The last First Lady of the millennium, Hillary Rodham Clinton, revived many of Eleanor Roosevelt’s liberal public roles—and vicious criticisms. Her search for a balance between feminist independence and American expectations of wives and mothers has been evident in changes of style and presentations of self. With her intelligence, legal background and drive, she initially appeared as a “partner” in the administration, notably in healthcare reform, but galvanized hatred among conservatives for this and other policy and personal issues. Public sympathy for her grew during the impeachment procedures. In 2000 she moved out of the White House to pursue her senatorial bid in New York, an independent career no former First Lady has ever attempted within her political marriage. Whether she marks a new role model for the First Lady will be tested by future candidates and perhaps by the “first man” to shape this public/private role.