And it doesn’t come with political aspects, but you’re treated as if it did.” “You have all of the public aspects of the job. “When people are going to criticize everything from the causes you support to the china that you pick to the clothing that you wear, how do you navigate that?” asks Lisa Kathleen Graddy, curator of the first ladies collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. From Louisa Adams to Melania Trump, numerous first ladies have proven reluctant to take on the role. Shortly after Martha Washington became the inaugural first lady of the United States, she described her life in a letter to her niece as “more like a state prisoner than anything else.” Though Washington eventually adjusted to her status as a presidential spouse, her initial reaction to the unofficial position proved prescient for generations of first ladies.
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