Lady Bird Johnson: Private Biography and Public Policy of the First Lady
Graphics by Madeline Barber
For much of American history, the First Lady’s position was undefined and underemphasized. It was not until the 20th century when the role of the First Lady blossomed into a formal office with an explicit agenda and staff. Scholarship on First Ladies has followed a similar path. Biographies of the Presidents’ wives were almost nonexistent as a genre in comparison to the enormous amount of scholarship on Presidents themselves. However, in the late 20th century, the “cultural turn” in historiography enabled scholars to more thoroughly investigate the lives of First Ladies. Carl Anthony’s 1990 work First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents’ Wives and Their Power notably pioneered this approach. New scholarship that appreciates the effect First Ladies have in relation to their husbands’ time in office is useful because it helps historians understand, or even predict, some of the policies that come out of presidential administrations; under this approach, First Ladies are a power themselves within the executive branch with both their own agency to champion legislation and a concealed influence on the President. Therefore, just as Presidents’ lives are scoured over by those hoping to uncover the genesis of their most consequential political decisions, the lives of First Ladies should also be studied.
No work better accomplishes the analysis of political figures' characters than Robert Caro’s yet-unfinished 3,000 page biography of the 36th President, The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Although no First Lady, and, perhaps no non-President, will ever receive as monumental a biographical study, even less thorough investigations into the lives of First Ladies will reward historians with insights. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by virtue of its extreme length, cannot help but provide some of these insights for Lady Bird Johnson.
Three years after her marriage to Lyndon Johnson, Lady Bird’s husband was elected to represent Texas’s 10th District in the House of Representatives. The couple subsequently moved to Washington. Lady Bird was only twenty five; Caro documents her time as wife to a feverishly ambitious Congressman:
“Exploring Washington thrilled her—’I remember a song, ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland,’’ she says. ‘I’d just walk and explore, because it was all so fresh and new.’ But, because Lyndon worked all day, every day, and she was too shy to make friends, she did the exploring alone.”
This formative, if lonely, time in the life of the future First Lady was actually a continuation of the experiences that defined her early years. With respect to her childhood in Karnack, Texas, Caro informs us:
“She loved nature, the winding bayous of Lake Caddo, the moss hanging around her as she walked along the lake or rowed a boat on it, flowers (‘drifts of magnolia all through the woods in the Spring—and the daffodils in the yard. When the first one bloomed, I’d have a little ceremony, all by myself, and name it the queen’). But she boated and walked mostly alone.”
Lady Bird’s loneliness in rural Texas and in Washington did not, however, torment her but instead gave her an appreciation for the beautiful and inspiring world around her that is discernible throughout her later life. It gave her an appreciation, more than anything else, for flowers.
Lady Bird Johnson’s biography is an especially useful example in illustrating the usefulness of examining the lives of First Ladies because of how their ideas evolved into tangible policies of the federal government. A careful observer can draw an undeniable thread between the daffodils of Karnack and the 1965 Highway Beautification Act and, concurrently, the planting of millions of flowers throughout Washington. The longstanding tendency to focus only on the character of the President and not his spouse may lead one to dismiss legislation like this as an impromptu pet project of the First Lady instead of the result of personal experiences decades before. One may argue that Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification program was inconsequential for the history of the country and the study of politics. However, these views do not appreciate the true cultural sway and political power of the First Lady. It is not a mere coincidence that in the very same year that Lady Bird Johnson beautified Washington and the nation’s highways, the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg coined the term “flower power.” Furthermore, in the popular imagination, the most prominent symbol of the 1960s–rivaled perhaps only by the peace sign–became the flower.
To beautify the capital, Lady Bird Johnson used her own personal influence as First Lady to assemble a coalition of leaders, including the Secretary of the Interior and local D.C. officials, who could implement her vision. Community and school groups cleared litter and planted trees that even in the present day.form a canopy over Washington. However, the most ubiquitous portion of Lady Bird’s program was the mass planting of flowers by the National Park Service. These floral displays persist on the National Mall and throughout the city’s parks. Additionally, Lady Bird’s program demonstrably informed the aforementioned symbols of the 1960s. Protestors swarmed Washington in opposition to President Johnson’s continued participation in the Vietnam War. While protesting, including at the Pentagon, the activists frequently held flowers, quite possibly Lady Bird’s flowers, to contrast their pacifism with the police and military whom they confronted. These images were broadcast through the press and defined the motifs of the late 1960s.
Aside from the beautification of the capital, a separate effort, the Highway Beautification Act, originated privately in the mind of Lady Bird Johnson and made its public appearance in a January 1965 speech by President Johnson announcing that he wanted “to make sure that the America we see from these major highways is a beautiful America.” Later that year, it was the First Lady who lobbied members of the Senate and then House for the bill’s passage, and it was ultimately signed by the President in October.
Congressmembers’ recollections further reveal Lady Bird’s personal influence on this legislation. A young Republican Representative from Kansas, Bob Dole, jested over the First Lady’s influence on the bill by unsuccessfully offering an amendment replacing all instances of the term “Secretary of Commerce'' in the bill with the name “Lady Bird”. The night of the bill’s vote in the House, there was also a gala at the White House for legislators and their spouses. The Speaker of the House recalled years later receiving a call from the White House warning him,“Do not bring those members here until you’ve passed the Highway Beautification Act!” Lady Bird’s interest in ensuring the bill’s passage can safely be assumed. The bill, once successfully enacted, limited advertising on the sides of roads as well as heavily screened or banned junk yards alongside the Interstate Highway System, extending the First Lady’s program of beautification out from the capital tothe entire country.
When Lady Bird Johnson died at the age of 94 in 2007, the Washington Post eulogized her largely by reflecting on the legacy of her beautification program on the material betterment of the nation’s capital. Additionally, the Washington Post noted the aforementioned formative events in the early life of Lady Bird. This demonstrates the importance of analyzing the biographical details of First Ladies. The example of Lady Bird Johnson is only one of the more distinguishable examples. The modern phenomenon of First Ladies adopting signature issues continues: Laura Bush and education, and Michelle Obama and children’s health, for example. These examples may, if investigated further, be readily explained by details of the lives of the First Ladies. While these initiatives often manifest themselves in tangible policies, such as the Highway Beautification Act, they can also subtly show themselves through the Presidency itself. The spouse of the President exerts an immeasurable influence, that, in ignoring, a historian forfeits necessary perspectives on presidential administrations. Regardless of whether this influence is exerted in personal lobbying or programs undertaken through independent initiative, studying the personal stories of the First Ladies helps explain the ultimate interests and influences of the President’s better half.