January 23, 2001

first lady

As the inauguration approaches, my eleven-year old daughter asked a question that I couldn't answer: why do we call the president's wife the First Lady? I was stumped.

The earliest uses of first lady were in various phrases describing an important or prominent woman. Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, was called "first lady of the bed-chamber," and I'm sure she had some interesting secrets. There were also such titles as "first lady of honor" and "first lady of the Admiralty." The even more grandiose title "first lady in (of) the land" dates to 1834, and was used by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1851: "She was so beautiful and so good, and not proud she! though she looked like the first lady in the land."

As for titles of presidents' wives, Martha Washington preferred Lady Washington; Abigail Adams, Mrs. President; Dolley Madison, Queen Dolley; Julia Tyler, Mrs. Presidentress; and Mary Todd Lincoln, Mrs. President Lincoln.

The earliest use of first lady (or First Lady) to refer to a president's wife was when President Zachary Taylor eulogized Dolley Madison in 1849: "She will never be forgotten because she was truly our First Lady for a half-century." (Hillary Clinton mentioned this in her 1999 speech celebrating the Dolley Madison Commemorative Silver Dollar).

In the second part of the 19th century, there are only scattered references to the president's wife as first lady. The Dictionary of Americanisms cites William Howard Russell, who quotes another journalist's reference to Mary Todd Lincoln: "The gentleman who furnished fashionable paragraphs for the Washington paper has some charming little pieces of gossip about 'the first Lady in the Land'" (1863). In an 1877 article in The Independent, reporter Mary Clemmer Ames officially designates Lucy Webb Hayes as "First Lady."

Aside from these 19th century examples, the term first lady to describe a president's wife was not common until the 20th century. Charles Nirdlinger's play "Dolly Madison, or the First Lady of the Land" (starring Elsie Ferguson) was performed in New York in 1911. Kathleen Prindiville's book, "First Ladies," was published in 1941. And the OED has this 1948 cite from The Chicago Tribune: "Mrs. Thomas E. Dewey disclosed today what kind of first lady she will be."

The last 20 years or so has spawned other terms for members of the president's family. One of the earliest references to "First Dog" was in 1978, used as an honorific title for Amy Carter's spaniel. Will "First Gentleman" ever be used for the president's husband?

Carol