Edith Bolling Galt Wilson
Though the new First Lady had sound qualifications for the role of hostess, the social aspect of the administration was overshadowed by war in Europe and abandoned after the United States entered the conflict in 1917. Edith Wilson submerged her own life in her husband's, trying to keep him fit under tremendous strain. She accompanied him to Europe when the Allies conferred on terms of peace, and played a political role, being compared, in some circles, to royalty.
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Acting Presidency
Wilson returned to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. His health failed in September 1919; a stroke left him partly paralyzed. His constant attendant, Edith Wilson took over many routine duties and details of government. It was Mrs. Wilson who, (probably), commuted the death sentence of Robert Stroud to life imprisonment, (at the request of his mother). However, she claimed she did not initiate programs or make major decisions, stating that she never tried to control the executive branch. Edith also strongly opposed allowing Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall to assume the powers of the presidency.[1] She selected matters for her husband's attention and let everything else go to the heads of departments or remain in abeyance. In My Memoir, published in 1939, she called her role a "stewardship" and stated emphatically that her husband's doctors had urged that course upon her. Others, however, disagreed with her version of events and called it revisionism. One historian, Phyllis Levin, a former reporter for the New York Times, wrote, Edith Wilson was "a woman of narrow views and formidable determination" and blamed her for numerous diplomatic failures that occurred during her husband's incapacitation. However, she has also been praised for successes during her time as unofficial acting president.
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Later years
In 1921, the Wilsons retired to a comfortable home in northwest Washington, where President Wilson died three years later. A highly respected figure in the society of the capital, though rumored to be quite open in her admiration for younger men, Edith Wilson lived on to ride in John F. Kennedy's inaugural parade. She died on the morning of December 28, 1961, the 105th anniversary of her second husband's birth. She was 89 years old at her death, making her the fourth longest lived first lady after Bess Wallace Truman, Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford. On the day of her death, she was to have been the guest of honor at the dedication ceremony for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia.[2] Mrs. Wilson left her home to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to be made into a museum honoring her husband. The Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964.
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References
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External links
- Original text based on White House biography
- Edith Wilson: The Secret President
| Honorary titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ellen Axson Wilson |
First Lady of the United States 1915 – 1921 |
Succeeded by Florence Harding |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Woodrow Wilson |
Acting President of the United States (Unofficial) October 2, 1919–March 4, 1921 |
Succeeded by Warren G. Harding |
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