"New Library Will Chronicle First Ladies." The Washington Post, 26 January 1998.

The Washington Post, January 26, 1998

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January 26, 1998, Monday, Final Edition

SECTION: STYLE; Pg. C01

LENGTH: 1526 words

HEADLINE: New Library Will Chronicle First Ladies; Visitors to Be Welcomed At Ohio Site as Well as Online

BYLINE: Donnie Radcliffe, Special to The Washington Post

BODY:

"I hope some day," Harry Truman wrote in 1960, "someone will take time to evaluate the true role of the wife of a president, and to assess the
many burdens she has to bear and the contributions she makes."

   Nearly 40 years later, that prospect is about to become reality. Tomorrow at the Renwick Gallery, the creation of the National First Ladies'
   Library, including a comprehensive online annotated bibliography, will be announced. The library's books, documents and audiotapes will be
   located in Canton, Ohio, in the childhood home of Ida Saxton McKinley, the 20th first lady. But the virtual library will be available to anyone with
   a computer and a modem.

   The bibliography will not shy away from controversial aspects of the 43 first ladies' lives, said author and historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony, who
   compiled it. On the Florence Harding page, for instance, a researcher will be able to reference a book by Warren Harding's alleged mistress, Nan
   Britton, who claimed that she bore his daughter. She wrote in detail about assignations with the president, which she said took place in an
   anteroom off the Oval Office.

   Similarly, stories about Hillary Rodham Clinton's role in dealing with the current presidential imbroglio will be listed, but not until 1999, Anthony
   cautioned. The bibliography, he said, will be updated each January. It will be launched next month, by Mrs. Clinton, who is scheduled to access
   the new database for the first time from her White House computer.

   The new library is "just kind of asking for equal time, trying to ensure there is equal focus and emphasis given and an equal history," said
   Frances Hughes Glendening, Maryland's first lady and the library's vice chairwoman. "That's the whole point: There is a significant gap in our
   historical perspective because we do not chronicle the achievements, accomplishments and contributions of women."

From the beginning, first ladies have been controversial.

"Almost regardless of what an individual chose to do, she would be criticized," Hillary Clinton said in a recent interview. "There wasn't any safe
harbor in the public arena or any particular choice that would be universally accepted."

   Two centuries ago, in a letter delivered to her niece, the first first lady, Martha Washington, lamented that her role was "more like a state
   prisoner than anything else." Eleanor Roosevelt, 150 years later, traveled the country on behalf of her ailing husband and was criticized for it.
   But in the last half century, Americans have accepted a limited public role for presidents' wives.

   "First ladies are aware that they have this great platform that they'll never have again," Nancy Reagan said in a phone interview from California.
   "It goes by very, very quickly. If you don't use it, you're a fool," said Mrs. Reagan, who launched the memorable "Just Say No" program against
   drug abuse.

The library, said Rosalynn Carter from Atlanta, "will be a great resource for news reporters, historians, teachers, students and biographers.
They're really the ones who influence opinion."

In addition to providing a repository for the papers of those first ladies whose husbands don't have presidential libraries, Mrs. Clinton said, the
new library will demonstrate that "there isn't any cookie-cutter formula for being a first lady."

   Since the authors of the Constitution neglected to provide a job description for the first lady, "what you get," said Edith Mayo, the library's
   executive adviser, "is women using everyday life and everyday materials to structure a really important role, created out of a vacuum. It's quite
   a stunning achievement."

   Mayo was the curator who revamped the popular exhibit on first ladies at the National Museum of American History in 1992, focusing more on
   the developing political role, public image and contributions of first ladies than on their gowns. Inside the museum, initial reaction to the change
   was "cautious," she said.

   "I think the perception of men who were the naysayers was that women visitors were only interested in gowns. A variation on that is: What
   could first ladies ever have done that could possibly be interesting that you could put into an exhibition?" Mayo said. "When they found there
   was interesting material, that died away. And then the question was: Would the public like it?"

The exhibit remains the most popular in the museum.

Until recently, "even women's historians were not particularly interested in first ladies' history," Mayo said. "The perception was that these
women had not achieved on their own, but through marriage to a man who ultimately became president."

Yet today, as Mrs. Carter said, the public has "a fascination" with the position. "A natural curiosity," said Mrs. Reagan. All six living first ladies
are honorary chairwomen of the library.

   It took another political wife to organize the grass-roots effort that has established the library. Mary Rodusky Regula, a former schoolteacher
   and the wife of Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), said she had long been frustrated by how little people seem to know about the presidents' wives. "It
   wasn't until the 1970s," she said, "that we decided women had any part in this nation's history."

Regula began a fund-raising campaign after she was unable to find good reference material about Mary Todd Lincoln for a speech she had to
deliver. When a search of the Library of Congress and presidential sites around the country turned up nothing, she set out to fill the void.

   Her husband, then ranking minority member on the Interior subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, had been instrumental in
   negotiating a deal under which a local Ohio nonprofit organization was permitted to occupy the old McKinley home in return for its upkeep and
   interior renovation. That arrangement called for setting aside several public rooms, and this is the space the new library will occupy. Its
   computerized database will be located two doors away in a seven-story building and will be maintained by Stark State College of Technology. All
   funds were raised privately.

The Victorian house was where Ida Saxton McKinley grew up and became engaged to future president William McKinley. It served as their home
away from Washington during his 14 years in Congress, and after McKinley was assassinated, she lived there until her death in 1907.

   At various times a tavern, an inn and a brothel, the house was restored in the 1970s by Saxton descendants. In 1991, because it was the only
   remaining home of President McKinley, the National Park Service bought the house for $ 1.1 million and turned occupancy over to the Stark
   Foundation on the condition that no additional federal funds be spent on it.

   At first, Mary Regula envisioned leaving the rooms as they were. But as she and her 13-member site committee got deeper into the project,
   expectations grew. They planned to duplicate the Victorian decor of McKinley's era as closely as possible. This entailed, for example, 18
   different wallpaper patterns in the parlor alone.

The library's goals expanded, as well, to include recognition of contemporary "first women" of achievement (the first annual First Women Awards
Dinner will be held in Washington in early May) and women's history in general.

That field of study has grown increasingly popular on U.S. campuses and now focuses on "the intersection of the public and private lives of
women," Mayo said. "The first ladies are the major exemplars of when your private life becomes public."

   Kent State University President Carol Cartwright, a member of the advisory board, said the library will be relevant because the changing roles of
   presidents' wives, "from social hostess to social activist and from silent partner to full partner," mirrors the changing roles of all American
   women.

   Still, "people shouldn't mistake this as a feminist issue," said Ray Ivey, vice president of the Consolidated Natural Gas Foundation and one of five
   men on the library's 17-member board of directors. "It's not an advocacy organization. The fact that John Adams's wife beat him up constantly
   because he wasn't putting the right to vote for women into the Constitution they were writing is immaterial."

In discussing the project, the current and former first ladies kept coming back to the trials they faced trying to take on social issues during their
time in the White House.

"It was really hard for me to convey to the American people what I was trying to do on mental health," Mrs. Carter said. "After the first few
meetings no reporters would come. One told me it wasn't a sexy issue."

"I know that nobody [in the White House] was really very happy about my taking on the drug program," Mrs. Reagan said. "Everybody thought it
should be something else. They would have preferred that I take on something less controversial."

Mrs. Clinton, who knows something about controversy, said that although the library will include the journals of several first ladies, historians
won't find hers there. She isn't keeping one.

Why not?

"I just think," she said, "it would not be a wise thing for me to do."