Lesson Plans from EDSITEment

On March 31, 1776, future First Lady Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, who was soon to be appointed a member of the committee drafting the Declaration of Independence:

Learning Objectives

After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to:

Guiding Question:

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

Review the lessons in this unit. Select a variety of archival materials from the various lessons to use in your classroom discussions of the First Ladies. Bookmark them, if practical, or download and print out the archival documents you select and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
Locate individual biographies of the First Ladies available through the EDSITEment resource White House website, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed National First Ladies Library. Resources from your school or local library would also be suitable.
Hillary Rodham Clinton can serve as a powerful example of the contemporary First Lady (career as a lawyer, advocate for children and health care, successful campaign for senator); however, discussions of Mrs. Clinton's role during the tumultuous years of her husband's presidency should be handled with sensitivity.
The Digital Classroom, available through EDSITEment, offers a series of worksheets for analyzing primary source documents, including written documents and photographs, that you may wish to use or adapt to help students in reviewing the materials presented in this unit.
Tips on using the NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL) search function within the National Archives and Records Administration website:
- Select "NAIL Standard Search" from the opening screen.
- Check the option to receive "Only Descriptions Linked to Digital Copies" in your search results (located near the top of the page).
- Appropriate keywords are provided for individual searches within the lessons in this unit. Notice that NAIL offers two fields for entering search terms, with options to qualify your search by using "and," "or" and "not" to define the relationship between the search terms.
- When you have entered your search term(s), click "Submit Search" near the top or bottom of the page.
- When search results are returned, click "Display Results."
- To go to one of the pages indicated in your search results, select the page using the check box in the far right column of the search results page, and click "Display Selected Hits" at the top of the page.

Suggested Activities

How have First Ladies traditionally been viewed? How much has that view changed in two centuries? To answer these questions, begin by comparing visual images of First Ladies and their husbands from the nation's early years and more recent times. (Note: The photograph analysis worksheet available through the EDSITEment-reviewed The Digital Classroom may be useful in comparing the portraits in this lesson.)

1. Share with your class portraits of Abigail Adams and President John Adams from the original paintings by Gilbert Stuart, available through the EDSITEment-reviewed American Memory. Despite similar poses, these portraits are quite different. What details do the students notice in the two portraits? (For example, the President is shown with a book.) How do these portraits differ from each other? What reasons can the students offer for these differences? What is their significance?

2. Now share with your class official White House portraits from the EDSITEment resource American Memory of Jimmy Carter (color version or black and white) and Rosalynn Carter (color version or black and white), created in January and February 1977, respectively. What differences do students recognize between the two modern portraits? Are the differences similar or dissimilar to those present in the Adams portraits created nearly 200 years earlier? Does this indicate a change in the public image of a First Lady?

3. Ask students to think about whether the role of First Lady might have changed between 1977 and today. In what ways? Why?

If desired, the students can look at home for news or magazine articles or web news about the First Lady.

Traditionally, the First Lady has been regarded primarily as a political helpmate for her husband, a social leader in Washington, and an unofficial representative of the female population throughout the United States.

Pass out to small groups an appropriate number of the following images. Appoint a spokesperson for each group. Give the groups time to analyze their images. (The document analysis worksheets available through the EDSITEment resource The Digital Classroom [www.nara.gov/education] may be useful in completing this analysis.) Then, the group spokesperson should share the image with the class, describe it and hypothesize about the First Lady role represented. Make a list of the traditional First Lady roles that come up through this discussion and save it for future reference.

Setting Fashion Standards

Circumstances and individual personalities have sometimes resulted in a First Lady taking on responsibilities not generally (or at least not publicly) associated with the role.

Share with your class the story of Dolly Madison and the British attack on the White House, a brief version of which is available on The White House for Kids, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed National First Ladies Library. Discuss the story with the class. What do students think of Mrs. Madison's actions? Do they think she did more than would have been expected of a First Lady?

Pass out to small groups an appropriate number of images from the list below. Appoint a spokesperson for each group. Give the groups time to analyze the image. (The document analysis worksheets available through the EDSITEment resource The Digital Classroom may be useful in completing this analysis.) Then, the spokesperson should share the image with the class, describe it and hypothesize about the First Lady role represented. Make a list of these non-traditional First Lady roles as they are discussed and save it for future reference.

Advising the President

Give your students the opportunity to get to know some of the nation's First Ladies with whom they are likely to be less familiar. An expanded knowledge base about First Ladies will help students clarify what they learned in Lessons 2 and 3. Surveying many First Ladies will also prepare students for the culminating activity found in Lesson 5.

Biographies of all of the First Ladies are available online through the White House website and through the National First Ladies Library, both accessible through links from the EDSITEment resource American Memory. Provide students, working individually or in small groups, with biographies of one or more First Ladies. Cover as many of the First Ladies as appropriate to the class.

Review with students the traditional and non-traditional roles of the First Lady that were discussed in Lessons 2 and 3 of this unit, and ask students to find examples of those roles in the biographies of First Ladies. Does the information in the biographies support the documentary evidence of the traditional and non-traditional roles the students have already studied? Have the non-traditional roles received more or less public attention and recognition than the traditional roles? Why do students think this is the case? Do the lists of roles need to be redefined? Is the distinction between traditional and non-traditional roles a valid one? Does the current First Lady fall more into the category of traditional roles or non-traditional roles? Has the role of the First Lady changed? In what ways?

Why are some First Ladies more memorable than others?

At home, your students will conduct a poll of adults to find out which First Ladies come to mind for them.

1. Let students decide the "ground rules" for the poll, such as:

Write to the First Lady
Your students can send an e-mail to the First Lady. Additional contact information is available through the White House website.
The First "First Gentleman"
There has never been a "First Gentleman," though someday there will be! Would that person perform the same duties as the First Lady? Do your students expect to see a female President in America's future? What characteristics would they want her to have? What hurdles would she have to overcome in order to be a successful candidate? What hurdles would her husband have to overcome to be a successful First Gentleman? Encourage discussion about how the roles of women have changed since the administration of George Washington.
Today's Independent Girl (or Boy)
When she was 14 years old, Lou Henry (future wife of Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States) wrote a very intriguing essay titled "The Independent Girl," available through the EDSITEment-reviewed Digital Classroom's NAIL Digital Copies Search by searching on "Independent Girl" and "Hoover." The essay, which revealed much of the writer's own vivacious and independent spirit, closes with the prophecy that the independent girl would sooner or later "meet a spirit equally as independent as her own . . . and with combined strength go forth to meet the world."

Would such a statement likely appear in an essay written today? How would the subject of individual independence be treated today by a young person? After hearing the teacher read selections from the future Mrs. Hoover's essay, students can discuss or write brief essays on the subject, "Today's Independent Girl (or Boy)."
Mapping First Ladies
For a geography extension, create a map showing where First Ladies grew up. Students could also map the birthplaces of Presidents and compare the maps. For example, Virginia has the nickname "Birthplace of Presidents" since more Presidents have been born in Virginia than anywhere else. Should any state be called "Birthplace of First Ladies"?
The Quality of a First Lady's Life
Have students conduct simple statistical research on the quality of life for First Ladies. The role of First Lady, the culmination of a lifetime partnership with a powerful man, would appear to be exciting and rewarding. Do students think the role has tended to provide a high quality of life for the women involved?

One objective standard of quality of life is longevity; statistically, women have tended to live longer than men - an average of two years longer for people born since 1900. Using the brief biography of each President found at the EDSITEment-reviewed website The American President or another similar resource such as an almanac, have students determine the life span of every deceased President and every First Lady by subtracting the year of birth from the year of death. Use a division of labor to gather the statistics, with each student doing the math for about one to three individuals.

If appropriate, allow students to determine how to organize the information they've gathered (e.g., in a graphic organizer such as a bar graph). On average, have First Ladies tended to live longer than their President husbands? Did the trend change at some point? What factors might account for any changes in this trend?
First Ladies and Their Causes
The causes associated with First Ladies (for example, Eleanor Roosevelt as an advocate for Civil Rights, Lady Bird Johnson for the environment, Nancy Reagan for reduction of drug abuse) and the First Lady's involvement could be fruitfully studied. What did the First Lady do? Where does the country stand now on that particular issue?
First Lady Firsts
Interested students could compile a list of First Lady firsts. For example:
- Dolly Madison was the first First Lady to attend her husband's swearing-in ceremony. She also started the traditional Easter Egg Roll on the Capitol grounds and planted the first tree on the White House lawn in a public celebration.
- Julia Tyler began the tradition of playing "Hail to the Chief" when the president entered a room, and hired her own press secretary to control news coverage of her activities as First Lady.
- Julia Grant was the first wife of a President to write her memoirs.
First Ladies and Traditional Roles for Women
First Ladies have been faced with an ambivalent role. They have been expected to exemplify an era's prevailing modes of proper conduct for women, even though some of them were ambitious in a way not in keeping with the prevailing mode. Interested students can interview adult women in their own families to see how they balance demands placed upon them and use this information as a point of comparison to the First Ladies they have studied. Contemporary women juggle many of the same competing roles as the First Ladies: mothers, wives, volunteers, workers and maybe even social activists. Their experiences might shed some light on the pressures women (such as First Ladies) face as they assume multiple roles. Students should share their findings with the class. How does the situation of a contemporary woman compare to that faced by First Ladies in history? What is the same? What is different? How does the historical moment affect contemporary women? How did the historical moment of any particular First Lady affect her?
Related EDSITEment Lessons
For related activities, see these other EDSITEment lesson plans for Grades 3-5:
I've Just Seen a Face: Portraits
I Do Solemnly Swear: Inaugurations

Remember the Ladies: The First Ladies

Introduction

Learning Objectives

Guiding Question:

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

Suggested Activities

Extending the Lesson

Selected EDSITEment Websites