Author: Alice Clarke

Americans, once they had elected a President, have always tended, barring catastrophes, to protect their investment. They choose him and consider that the question of their good judgment is involved in his standing. It is a personal and kindly attitude as distinguished from their obvious patriotic duty to uphold the presidency. Curiously, they are generally less kind to his wife. Human nature breaks out all over as she takes her prominent place in the White House goldfish bowl.  — Doris Fleeson, political columnist, Threshold of Tomorrow: the Great Society

The year 2012 celebrates the centennial birthdays of two American First Ladies who served consecutively: Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969), and Patricia Nixon, the wife of Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974). Claudia Alton Taylor, born on December 22, 1912 and nicknamed Lady Bird, and Thelma Catherine Ryan, born on March 16, 1912 and nicknamed Pat, had a surprising number of things in common: losing their mothers before reaching adulthood, always being referred to by nicknames, displaying precocious intellectual skills throughout their school years, procuring a BA at a time when few women completed university, a propensity for travel, receiving marriage proposals from their husbands on the first date, actively supporting their husbands from the onset of their political careers, bearing two daughters each, and finally, enduring abject criticism of their husbands’ presidencies.