From Classroom to White House ALSO by JAMES MCMURTRY LONGO
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From Classroom to White House ALSO BY JAMES MCMURTRY LONGO Isabel Orleans-Bragança: The Brazilian Princess Who Freed the Slaves (McFarland, 2008) From Classroom to White House The Presidents and First Ladies as Students and Teachers JAMES MCMURTRY LONGO McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Longo, James McMurtry. From classroom to White House : the presidents and first ladies as students and teachers / James McMurtry Longo. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6486-9 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Presidents—United States—Biography. 2. Presidents— Education—United States. 3. Presidents’ spouses—United States—Biography. 4. Presidents’ spouses—Education—United States. I. Title E176.1L86 2012 973.009'9—dc23 [B] 2011040865 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2012 James McMurtry Longo. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: White House drawing by Robin Bauguess; background images © Shutterstock 2012 Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com To Patrick L. Right, teacher, friend, president. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I am very grateful for the many named and unnamed people who gener- ously helped to make this book a reality. A special thank you is due to my friends and colleagues at Washington and Jefferson College, especially Diane Day Brzustowicz whose hard work, intelligence, input and insights nurtured and sustained this manuscript from beginning to end. Rosalie Carpenter, Richard and Patti Easton, Heather Painter, and the staff of the W&J Technology Center have all provided time and help when needed. Amy Holscher read many early drafts of the book and her suggestions, comments, and questions proved to be invaluable. Thanks to Will, Ben, Jackson, and Charlie for loaning Amy to the project. My mentors at Harvard University, Donald Oliver, Vito Perrone, Martha Savery, and Harold Howe II, inspired, nurtured, and focused my initial research. Docents, volunteers, rangers, and librarians at the Adams National Historic Park, the Andrew Johnson Historic Site, the Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site, the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, the Dixon Disciples of Christ Church, the Edward Devotion School, the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, the Franklin Pierce Homestead, the Groton School, James Buchanan’s Wheatland, the James Garfield National Historic Site, the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site, the John F. Kennedy National Historic Site, Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Visitor’s Center, the Ohio Historical Society Grant School House, the Ohio Historical Society Harding Home, the Poland Ohio School District, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, the William Howard Taft National Historic Site, and the National First Ladies Library have been consistently kind, generous, and helpful in sharing their time, stories, and knowledge about the student and teaching days of the presidents and first ladies. The professionalism and expertise of the presidential libraries and museums staffs, especially the photo archival staffs of the George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S Truman libraries and muse- ums have made this research experience a pleasant and enjoyable one. A special photo thank you goes to Scott Goldsmith. One final nod of appreci ation to Helen vii viii Acknowledgments Thomas for her insights and recollections of the presidents and first ladies from JFK to Michelle and Barack Obama. Thank you Helen. Lastly, I would like to thank my wife Mary Jo Harwood, my mother Mary McMurtry Longo and my brother Dennis Michael Longo for their spirited assis- tance, and Patrick Right, Jeanne Norberg, and Noel, Patti, Nicholas and Alyssa Haydon for sharing my journey. Table of Contents Acknowledgments vii Preface 1 Part One. Founding Fathers, Mothers, and Son Martha Dandridge Custis and George Washington: “Illiterate, Unlearned and Unread” 7 Abigail Smith, John Adams, and the Remarkable Smith Sisters: “We Should Have More Learned Women” 12 Thomas Jefferson:“The Destinies of My Life” 17 Dolley Payne Todd and James Madison: “Three Hours Out of Twenty-Four for Sleep?” 22 Elizabeth Kortright and James Monroe: “My Plan of Life Is Now Fixed” 25 Louisa Johnson and John Quincy Adams: “I Hope I Grow a Better Boy” 29 Part Two. The Golden Age of Education—For Some Rachel Donelson Robards and Andrew Jackson: “He Never Stayed Throwed” 37 Hannah Hoes and Martin Van Buren: “The Village Academy” 42 Anna Symmes and William Henry Harrison: “He Can Neither Breed, Plead, nor Preach” 45 Letitia Christian, Julia Gardiner, and John Tyler: “The Rebellious Former Student, Lived and Died a Rebel” 49 Sarah Childress and James K. Polk: “Her Occupation as a School Teacher Barred Her from Social Equality” 53 ix x Table of Contents Margaret Smith and Zachary Taylor: “Of Very Ordinary Capacity” 55 Abigail Powers and Millard Fillmore: “A Very Rough and Uncultivated Place” 58 Jane Appleton and Franklin Pierce: “There Are Scores of Men in the Country That Seem Brighter than He Is” 61 James Buchanan: “Misconduct, Arrogant Attitude, and Disrespect for Teachers” 65 Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln: “The Most Important Subject” 68 Eliza McCardle and Andrew Johnson: “If He Can Only Educate Himself, He Has a Destiny” 72 Julia Dent and Ulysses S. Grant: “I Did Not Take Hold of My Studies with Avidity” 74 Lucy Webb and Rutherford B. Hayes: “Elections without Education ... Must Always and Everywhere Be a Farce” 79 Lucretia Rudolph and James Garfield: “Outrages of the Schoolhouse” 83 Chester A. Arthur: “Pupils Are Altogether Separated from the Surroundings of Savage Life” 88 Frances Folsom and Grover Cleveland: “As a Student, Grover Did Not Shine” 92 Caroline Scott and Benjamin Harrison: “Abstain from Eating Cucumbers” 95 Ida Saxton and William McKinley: “No Startling Tales Are Told of His Precocity” 99 Part Three. The Twentieth Century Edith Carow and Teddy Roosevelt: “We Call the Man Fanatic” 105 Helen Herron and William Howard Taft: “To Live and Die a Professor” 109 Ellen Axson, Edith Bolling Galt, and Woodrow Wilson: “To Transform Thoughtless Boys into Thinking Men” 114 Florence Kling and Warren G. Harding: “Naturally Smart” 119 Grace Goodhue and Calvin Coolidge: “A Professionally Trained Teacher” 123 Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover: “A Whole New World of Ideas” 128 Table of Contents xi Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt: “I Never Forgot a Damn Thing She Ever Taught Me” 131 Bess Wallace and Harry S Truman: “Nobody Thought That He’d Go Far” 137 Mamie Doud and Dwight Eisenhower: “A Lackluster Student” 140 Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy: “If You Study Too Much, You’re Liable to Go Crazy” 145 Claudia Taylor and Lyndon Johnson: “Scars on the Hopeful Face of a Young Child” 150 Pat Ryan and Richard Nixon: “I Had a Saint of a Teacher” 155 Betty Bloomer and Jerry Ford: “We Do Not Need That Kind of Character in Our Girls” 158 Rosalynn Smith and Jimmy Carter: “Stretching Our Minds and Stretching Our Hearts” 162 Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan: “The Last Kid Chosen” 166 Barbara Pierce and George H.W. Bush: “Faking His Way through Reading” 171 Part Four. The Twenty-First Century Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton: “I Want to Be a Teacher or a Nuclear Physicist” 179 Laura Welch and George W. Bush: “The Absolute Profession” 183 Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama: “The Chance to Succeed” 189 Bibliography 197 Index 211 This page intentionally left blank Preface Half the presidents and first ladies of the United States have been teachers at some point in their careers; but all have been students. This book focuses primarily on their days spent in the classroom, the ups and downs of education during their White House years, and lastly, who was educated and who was not getting educated at their time in history. It tries to answer two simple questions. What kind of students and teachers were our presidents and first ladies? And how have students, teachers, and schools changed over the years? The original idea for this book grew out of conversations I had in graduate school with Harold Howe II, United States commissioner of education in the Kennedy-Johnson administration. “Doc” Howe shared many wonderful stories with me of how Lyndon Johnson the teacher influenced Lyndon Johnson the president. These conversations made me wonder if other presidents or first ladies once taught. To my surprise, I discovered dozens of former teachers occupied the White House and that they taught a variety of subjects, at all grade levels, and in nearly every type of school. I decided to take the opportunity to be taught by a president myself. When- ever possible, I traveled to Plains, Georgia, to attend the Sunday school class former president Jimmy Carter taught there. I was impressed with his skills as a teacher and enjoyed the stories he sometimes shared about his own days as a student. His stories and a quote I came across from President John F. Kennedy’s mother convinced me to also look into the student experiences of White House couples. Rose Kennedy wrote, “I suppose it is part of the mystique surrounding the presidency that anyone who occupies the office is endowed with qualities that are extraordinary and he must have passed through childhood in a glow of virtue. I can state that was not the case with Jack.” She was right. I discovered few White House occupants “passed through childhood in a glow of virtue.” One of President Kennedy’s high school reports read, “Studies at the last minute, keeps appointments late, has little sense of material value, and can sel- dom locate his possessions.” An instructor of future president George H.