First Ladies of the United States: Florence Harding

1Although Eleanor Roosevelt has been credited with having “shattered the ceremonial mold in which the role of the first lady had traditionally been fashioned,” the first cracks in that mold were made by an earlier occupant of that office, Florence Kling Harding (Goodwin, 1995: 10). Eleanor's influence is well known; Florence's, however, has been largely neglected, if not scorned. Yet she took a pioneering role in Harding's campaign and in his presidency, as contemporaries recognized: “She shares his life in a fuller, deeper, and wider measure than do the wives of most public men” (Time Magazine, March 17, 1923).1 Her political instincts and her empathy with average Americans, especially veterans and the underprivileged, her interest in women's new roles in politics, and her understanding of the importance of cultivating her own position as a celebrity figure all informed her vision of her post. A survivor of tragedy and chronic illness in her own life, she saw an opportunity in the White House for both outreach and activism.

Yet her current position in the rankings of first ladies—fourth from the bottom in the 2014 Sienna College poll—belies this fully dimensioned woman and her influence (see Sienna College Research Institute/CSPAN, 2014). Her husband's poor reputation, also largely undeserved, has undoubtedly contributed to this ranking. The media, meanwhile, have played up their version of scandalous elements in the Hardings’ marriage to the current day. In July 2014 her husband's love letters to his mistress, Carrie Phillips—originally found in 1964 and sealed for fifty years—were released at the Library of Congress. Portrayals of the Hardings’ marriage focused once again on the salacious, and the New York Times of July 7, 2014 completely ignored Florence's contributions except in her act of burning her own correspondence, as “legend has it” (Smith, 2014). And, even as this book goes to press, associations of scandal with the Hardings are once more in the public eye: recent DNA tests show that Warren G. Harding had a “love child” with a young friend, Nan Britton, in 1919 (NPR, 2015). In the extensive coverage of this story as well, his wife's role in his life and administration has scarcely been mentioned...