Edith Bolling Galt Wilson

Infobox First Lady
honorific-prefix =
name = Edith Bolling Galt Wilson
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office = First Lady of the United States
term_start = December 18 1915
term_end = March 4 1921
predecessor = Ellen Axson Wilson
successor = Florence Harding
birth_date = birth date|1872|10|15
birth_place = Wytheville, Virginia
death_date = death date and age|1961|12|28|1872|10|15
death_place = Washington
nationality = American
party =
spouse = Woodrow Wilson
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Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (October 15, 1872 – December 28, 1961), second wife of Woodrow Wilson, was First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921. She has been labeled "the Secret President" and "the first woman to run the government" for the role she played when her husband suffered prolonged and disabling illness. Some even refer to her as "the first female president of the United States."

Early life

A descendant of the Plantagenets, of colonial Virginia settlers and the famous American Indian, Pocahontas, through Pocahontas' granddaughter Jane Rolfe Bolling, Edith was born in Wytheville in 1872, seventh among eleven children of Sallie White and Judge William Holcombe Bolling. Her paternal great-grandmother, Catherine Payne Bolling, was the daughter of Martha Dandridge Payne, whose father Nathaniel West Dandrige was a first cousin of Martha Dandridge Custis, wife of George Washington. At 15 Edith went to Martha Washington College to study music, with a second year at a smaller school in Richmond, Virginia.

While visiting a married sister in Washington, D.C., Edith met Norman Galt, a prosperous jeweler; in 1896 they were married. For 12 years she lived as a contented young matron in the capital, with vacations abroad. However, her personal life was not without tragedy: she gave birth to a son in 1903 who lived only for a few days (the difficult birth also left her unable to bear additional children), and in 1908 her husband died unexpectedly. Edith Galt then chose a manager who operated the family's jewelry firm with financial success.

First Lady

Marriage and early First Ladyship

By a quirk of fate and a chain of friendships, Edith Galt met President Wilson in 1915, when he was still mourning his first wife, Ellen Wilson. A man who depended on female companionship, Wilson took an instant liking to the widow Galt, who was charming, intelligent, and plumply pretty. His admiration grew swiftly into love. In proposing to her, he made the poignant statement that "in this place time is not measured by weeks, or months, or years, but by deep human experiences..."; they were married on December 18, 1915, at her home. They had been a romantic item for such a short period of time that Washington wags were quick to poke fun at the marriage. As one joke went, when Edith Galt heard the President propose marriage, she nearly fell out of bed. Additionally, a typographical error in a Washington newspaper was much closer to the mark than intended. Prior to their marriage an item meant to describe the president's social evening at a local theater with Mrs. Galt included the phrase "rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt." What was printed in the first run of the Washington Post was the phrase "rather than paying attention to the play the President spent the evening "entering" Mrs. Galt." [emphasis added] The first run of the paper was recalled, but there were a few copies which were not recovered, and which are now highly prized collectibles.

Hostessing and the First World War

Though the new First Lady had sound qualifications for the role of hostess, the social aspect of the administration was overshadowed by war in Europe and abandoned after the United States entered the conflict in 1917. Edith Wilson submerged her own life in her husband's, trying to keep him fit under tremendous strain. She accompanied him to Europe when the Allies conferred on terms of peace, and played a political role, being compared, in some circles, to royalty.

Acting Presidency

Wilson returned to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. His health failed in September 1919; a stroke left him partly paralyzed. His constant attendant, Edith Wilson took over many routine duties and details of government. It was Mrs. Wilson who, (probably), commuted the death sentence of Robert Stroud to life imprisonment, (at the request of his mother). However, she claimed she did not initiate programs or make major decisions, stating that she never tried to control the executive branch. Edith also strongly opposed allowing Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall to assume the powers of the presidency. [ [http://www.thomasrileymarshall.com He Almost Changed the World: ] ] She selected matters for her husband's attention and let everything else go to the heads of departments or remain in abeyance. In "My Memoir", published in 1939, she called her role a "stewardship" and stated emphatically that her husband's doctors had urged that course upon her. Others, however, disagreed with her version of events and called it revisionism. One historian, Phyllis Levin, a former reporter for the New York Times, wrote, Edith Wilson was "a woman of narrow views and formidable determination" and blamed her for numerous diplomatic failures that occurred during her husband's incapacitation. However, she has also been praised for successes during her time as unofficial acting president.

Later years

In 1921, the Wilsons retired to a comfortable home in northwest Washington, where President Wilson died three years later. A highly respected figure in the society of the capital, though rumored to be quite open in her admiration for younger men, Edith Wilson lived on to ride in John F. Kennedy's inaugural parade. She died on the morning of December 28, 1961, the 105th anniversary of her second husband's birth. She was 89 years old at her death, making her the fourth longest lived first lady after Bess Wallace Truman, Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford. On the day of her death, she was to have been the guest of honor at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401748.html From Its Hapless Beginning, Span's Reputation Only Fell - washingtonpost.com ] ] Mrs. Wilson left her home to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to be made into a museum honoring her husband. The Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964.

References

External links

*"Original text based on [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/ew28-2.html White House biography] "
* [http://www.american-presidents.org/2007/11/edith-wilson-secret-president.html Edith Wilson: The Secret President]

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