Watergate scandal in the 1970s changed things. Suddenly, the media believed that it had an obligation to be a watchdog over the presidents and First Ladies. This new role allowed the media not only to check presidents for public mistakes and policy failures but also to report on First Ladies and their activities. This role for the media won’t change as long as juicy scandals continue to garner large audiences. Future First Ladies have to expect to have their lives scrutinized and any minor wrongdoing reported. Hillary Clinton found that out the hard way in 1993 with the Whitewater scandal, where the Clinton’s were accused of financial wrongdoings (see Chapter 18) and again in 2015, after her term as First Lady had ended in 2001, when the media reported on her using her private server for classified emails. Today, scrutiny of First Ladies does not even end after their terms have ended. Melania Trump ran into a similar problem when her nude photoshoot of 2000 was revealed during the 2016 campaign.
Ranking U.S. First Ladies
One of the best academic evaluations of U.S. First Ladies was released in 2014, in a joint effort by both the Siena College Research Institute and C-SPAN (National Cable Satellite Corporation), a network created to show public affairs programming. The survey was conducted in 2013, and its results were released in 2014. A total of 242 experts on First Ladies in the United States were asked to rank the First Ladies based on ten criteria (see the section “Discussing ten evaluation criteria”). Rankings of all the First Ladies are rare, they are-time consuming, expensive, and there isn’t much demand for them.
Note: Because the study was done in 2013–2014, it obviously doesn’t include either Melania Trump or Dr. Jill Biden, who became First Lady in 2017 and 2021, respectively. It further excludes Harriet Lane, who was President Buchanan’s niece and became his First Lady because he was a lifelong bachelor. I and many other academics do count her as a First Lady, and in Chapter 21, she is among my choices for the ten most influential First Ladies. Finally, the study excludes the four First Ladies who died before their husbands became president and Anna Harrison who never had a chance to became First Lady after her husband died a month into office.
The Siena Research Institute Survey
TABLE 2-1 First Lady Rankings
| Ranking | C-SPAN Academic Survey |
|---|---|
| 1 | Eleanor Roosevelt |
| 2 | Abigail Adams |
| 3 | Jaqueline Kennedy |
| 4 | Dolley Madison |
| 5 | Michelle Obama |
| 6 | Hillary Clinton |
| 7 | Lady Bird Johnson |
| 8 | Betty Ford |
| 9 | Martha Washington |
| 10 | Rosalynn Carter |
| 11 | Barbara Bush |
| 12 | Laura Bush |
| 13 | Edith Roosevelt |
| 14 | Edith Wilson |
| 15 | Nancy Reagan |
| 16 | Bess Truman |
| 17 | Lou Hoover |
| 18 | Louisa Adams |
| 19 | Ellen Wilson |
| 20 | Lucy Hayes |
| 21 | Grace Coolidge |
| 22 | Julia Grant |
| 23 | Sarah Polk |
| 24 | Mamie Eisenhower |
| 25 | Helen Taft |
| 26 | Francis Cleveland |
| 27 | Julia Tyler |
| 28 | Lucretia Garfield |
| 29 | Caroline Harrison |
| 30 | Elizabeth Monroe |
| 31 | Mary Lincoln |
| 32 | Abigail Fillmore |
| 33 | Pat Nixon |
| 34 | Ida McKinley |
| 35 | Margaret Taylor |
| 36 | Florence Harding |
| 37 | Letitia Tyler |
| 38 | Eliza Johnson |
| 39 | Jane Pierce |
Source: Siena College Research Institute/C-Span study of the first ladies of the United States, 2014. Retrieved at: https://scri.siena.edu/first-ladies-study/
