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Mr. and Mrs.President

See How They Ran

That past president was Thomas Jefferson. And though he was no more a misogynist than any other founder, he did have special reasons for trying to eliminate even the limited political influence that some elite women exercised in the early years of the republic. Shattered by the loss of his wife, Jefferson was famously uneasy around women. More important, ceremonial rituals instituted by the first first ladies, including Martha Washington's practice of greeting guests at her "levees" on a raised platform, struck him as monarchical affectations. And female-dominated social events smacked of salon intrigue and other trappings of old regime court life.

Jeffersonian rules. Committed to the austere republican politics of virtue, a politics supposedly free of behind-the-scenes deal making, the third president permitted only two yearly receptions at the President's House in the new capital of Washington City. Apart from those, political wives could appear at his home only as deferential companions at the small dinners to which Jefferson alternately invited political foes and friends–dinners at which politics was a strictly forbidden subject.

The attempt to banish women from the political life of the nation–and its almost immediate failure–provide the subject of Catherine Allgor's new and illuminating book, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. But though her focus is the early republic, her concern with the blurred lines between official and unofficial politics, government and society, image making and power sharing, resonates loudly in our own time. That interest is shared not only by scholars and journalists but by an ever curious American public that has made "First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image," since its opening in 1992, one of the most popular standing exhibits at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Allgor, a professor of history at Simmons College, offers the best explanation for this interest bordering on obsession: "In politics, there really is no behind the scenes. What we've always thought of as behind the scenes is center stage." Jefferson himself assumed a feminine role at his intimate dinners, not only presiding at the table but personally serving his guests ("being Mother," in the phrase of the day) while he lectured on lofty philosophical themes. He did so, Allgor explains, because he knew, despite his principles, that the personal touch and face-to-face dealings associated with "society"–the realm that was softened and civilized by the presence of women–were absolutely indispensable to the business of governing.

Lady days. Jefferson's successor, James Madison, and his forceful wife, Dolley, destroyed any pretense that a democratic government could function without the lubricant of informal social dealings–or the presence of women. In addition to renovating and decorating the President's House to make it more inviting, Dolley instituted weekly state dinners and Wednesday evening "drawing rooms" that brought together cabinet secretaries, congressmen, and visitors of all partisan and regional stripes. But Dolley did even more than provide the setting where deals were made and a national governing class was formed. She and other political wives partook of both, advancing their husbands' positions and playing a critical role in the game of patronage. "The personal relations that had seemed the hallmark and the stigma of court life proved even more necessary when building an antimonarchical system from the ground up," notes Allgor.

But that was then; this is now, when women not only vote but govern. What matters the ceremonial role of first lady when real power can be had? Well, when it comes to presidential politics, it matters a lot. In fact, as historian Gil Troy argues in Mr. and Mrs. President, the role of first lady has become even more important during the past half century. That's attributable to many factors: the growth of government, the cult of celebrity, the power (and voracious appetite) of the national media, and even what the McGill University professor calls "the vagaries of modern marriage, and the feminist and sexual revolutions." As a result, since Eleanor Roosevelt's time, first ladies have been even more ruthlessly exposed to Americans' ambivalent expectations. Walking a delicate tightrope, Troy says, they must be strong helpmates, projecting the image of the ideal wife in the ideal marriage but never appearing to be eager for power themselves.

Hence Hillary Clinton's early debacle. True, she wasn't the first to slip. Eleanor Roosevelt skirted disapproval by taking on a quasi-official position with the Office of Civilian Defense and pressing her liberal agenda for the expansion of social welfare. Nancy Reagan seemed to overstep bounds by influencing some of her husband's staffing and scheduling decisions. But no modern first lady went so far as Hillary did in the early years of the Clinton administration. Trying to be a copresident in such ways as her leadership of the healthcare reform effort, she quickly incurred many Americans' dislike.

Yet the irony of Hillary's first-ladydom was that she most successfully advanced her political ambitions when she seemed to suppress them. Indeed, she came powerfully into her own during the impeachment ordeal, playing a role she had played before: that of the forbearing and forgiving wife. And she shone at it, Troy points out, being featured on the cover of the December 1998 issue of Vogue as a fully self-possessed but dutiful mate even as events pressed toward the February impeachment. Building on her triumph, she executed another self-transformation at the end of 1999 in order to lay siege to a New York Senate seat. "She jettisoned the identity of Mrs. Clinton," Troy says, "and she emerged as Hillary, exclamation point."

For Laura Bush and those first ladies who follow, the moral is clear: Sometimes it pays to be the lady. And sometimes not.