This guide will give you information about the First Ladies of the United States. You can select a First Lady from the First Ladies of the United States tab above or from the one of the links to the right.
The Constitution provides guidance for the responsibilities of the president, but what about the first lady? No founding document exists that explains the duties of the first lady. Instead, generations of women have shaped how the modern Office of the First Lady formed, and the roles of the president’s spouse. Learn the usage of the title First Lady and explore the ways various first ladies throughout history used this position to effect changes at the White House and across the country.
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The role and title of First Lady did not emerge fully formed. In fact, the first mention of Martha Washington as a “first lady” did not occur until forty years after her death. There are a handful of historic records from the early nineteenth century that mention the term, but there is no definitive moment that the title “First Lady” came into existence. In the 1880s, the wife of President Grover Cleveland and popular White House resident, Frances Folsom Cleveland, became identified as “The First Lady of the Land,” and this title continued with Caroline Harrison, the spouse of President Benjamin Harrison. By the turn of the twentieth century, that term had grown in usage to describe other former presidential wives and White House hostesses. The title of “First Lady of the Land” gradually shortened to “First Lady” around the time of Lou Hoover. Following her, Eleanor Roosevelt came to the White House and popularized the title “First Lady” that is used today.
The role and position of the first ladies evolved much like the title of First Lady, not all at once, but over time. Although not a White House resident, the first of the presidential wives, Martha Washington, set a precedent by serving as social hostess during her husband’s two terms. After the completion of the White House in 1800, many of the nineteenth-century wives or female family members of presidents took on this same hostess role in the Executive Mansion. Presidential spouses of the time also took charge of domestic life in the White House but remained largely outside the public sphere.