The Political Role of the First Lady in the Twentieth Century

Kirsten Kuptz

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9783638264129
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: A, Johns Hopkins University (-), language: English, abstract: The president of the United States is in the center of the American political system.Accordingly, this institution, its development, its position within polity, and its incumbentshave been and still are subject of scrutiny in the field of political science. While a myriad ofscholars studied the U.S. presidency, the 'office'1 of the First Lady has remained widelyomitted from consideration until the 1980s. Since then, this general neglect was remedied inthat several political scientists began to pay attention to the outstanding role of thepresidential spouse which obviously holds an enormous potential of power. Being the personclosest to the most powerful man in the United States or rather the world, the First Lady canexert momentous influence on her husband and, therefore, public policy. As the presidencyitself, the institution of the First Ladyship has considerably changed during American history.While until the first decade of the twentieth century the presidential wife's role was largelylimited to hostess and ceremonial functions, her scope of responsibilities and duties hastremendously extended since then. However, as the First Lady is neither an elected nor anappointed member of the White House, and the Constitution remains silent about her office, itis largely shaped and defined by its respective occupant. Consequently, the institution of theFirst Ladyship to be found today does result not only from changing societal and politicaldevelopments and public expectations, but also to a high degree from the way presidentialwives have carried out their office. With the emergence of a more active First Ladyship, presidential spouses were confronted with growing criticism on the part of feminists as wellas traditionalists who disapproved their 'illegitimate exercise' of power.Yet it is not clear in how far First Lady can influence American politics and to what degreethey actually make use of their power. This paper tries to examine these questions, focusing on the potential of politicalinfluence the office of the First Lady contains. Since the major changes of the First Ladyshiptook place during the twentieth century, the scope of this paper is limited to this time period. [...] 1 Although the First Ladyship is strictly speaking no office, at least no formal one, for the sake of simplicity andlegibility, in the remainder of this paper it is referred to as 'office'.