First Ladies

Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women

Contributors

By Susan Swain

By C-SPAN

Foreword by Richard Norton Smith

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$21.99

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$28.99 CAD

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  1. Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD
  2. ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD
  3. Hardcover $28.99 $36.50 CAD

A look inside the personal life of every first lady in American history, based on original interviews with major historians

C-SPAN’s yearlong history series, First Ladies: Influence and Image, featured interviews with more than fifty preeminent historians and biographers. In this informative book, these experts paint intimate portraits of all forty-five first ladies — their lives, ambitions, and unique partnerships with their presidential spouses. Susan Swain and the C-SPAN team elicit the details that made these women who they were: how Martha Washington intentionally set the standards followed by first ladies for the next century; how Edith Wilson was complicit in the cover-up when President Wilson became incapacitated after a stroke; and how Mamie Eisenhower used the new medium of television to reinforce her, and her husband’s, positive public images.

This book provides an up-close historical look at these fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the White House, sometimes at great personal cost, while supporting their families and famous husbands — and sometimes changing history. Complete with illustrations and essential biographical details, it is an illuminating, entertaining, and ultimately inspiring read.

On Sale
Oct 4, 2016
Page Count
496 pages
Publisher
PublicAffairs
ISBN-13
9781610397179

Susan Swain

About the Author

Susan Swain is C-SPAN’s co-CEO and, in addition to her senior management role at the network, has been an on-camera host for C-SPAN for more than thirty years, interviewing public officials, historians, and journalists for the public affairs network. She lives in the Washington, DC, suburbs.

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C-SPAN

About the Author

Brian Lamb is C-SPAN’s founding CEO and chairman and longtime on-camera interviewer. Lamb lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Susan Swain is President & co-Chief Operating Officer of C-SPAN. For more than twenty-five years, she has been an on-air interviewer for the program. A regular moderator of Washington Journal, she’s interviewed hundreds of members of Congress, policy experts, journalists and several presidents. She lives in Northern Virginia.

Mark Farkas has been involved in C-SPAN feature productions for a quarter-century. In addition to his projects on the U.S. Capitol and the White House, Farkas was executive producer for C-SPAN’s 1999-2000 Peabody Award-winning series “American Presidents: Life Portraits;” the 1998 “Alexis deTocqueville Tour,” and 1994’s “Lincoln-Douglas Debates.”

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