1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910735593503321

Autore

Beasley Maurine Hoffman

Titolo

First ladies and the press : the unfinished partnership of the media age / / Maurine H. Beasley ; foreword by Caryl Rivers

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Evanston, Ill., : Northwestern University Press, 2005

ISBN

0-8101-6234-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (360 p.)

Collana

Visions of the American press

Disciplina

973.91092

Soggetti

Presidents' spouses - Press coverage - United States

Mass media - Political aspects - United States

Press and politics - United States

Presidents' spouses - United States

United States Politics and government Miscellanea

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-313) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Eleanor Roosevelt and the "newspaper girls" -- Early first ladies and the public sphere -- Jackie Kennedy and the construction of Camelot -- First ladies as political helpmates : Lady Bird Johnson and Pat Nixon -- First ladies and feminism : Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter -- First ladies and image-making : Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush -- Hillary Rodham Clinton as media polarizer -- Laura Bush as emblem of national caring -- Looking ahead.

Sommario/riassunto

At her first press conference, Eleanor Roosevelt, uncertain of her role as hostess or leader, passed a box of candied grapefruit peel to the thirty-five women journalists. Nearly sixty years later, Hillary Clinton, an accomplished professional woman and lawyer, tried to mollify her critics by handing out her chocolate-chip cookie recipe. These exchanges tells us as much about the social--and political--roles of women in America as they do about the relation of the first lady to the press and the public. Looking at the personal interaction between each first lady from Martha Washington to Laura Bush and the mass media of her day, Maurine H. Beasley traces the growth of the institution of the first lady as a part of the American political system. Her work shows how media coverage of first ladies, often limited to stereotypical ideas



about women, has not adequately reflected the importance of their role.