When was bess truman born

Remember me. First Ladies. Martha Washington 2. Abigail Adams 3. Martha Jjefferson "Patsy" Randolph 4. Dolley Madison 5. Elizabeth Kortright Monroe 6. Louisa Catherine Adams 7. Rachel Jackson 8. Hannah Hoes Van Buren 9.

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There would be no touring of coal mines -- which Eleanor Roosevelt once did -- for Bess Truman. As First Lady, she told them, "You don't need to know me. I'm only the president's wife and the mother of his daughter. She welcomed numerous women's groups to the White House, took a special interest in returning Korean veterans, and was active in exporting American theater abroad and raising funds for cancer research. She was also instrumental in preserving the historical integrity of the White House.

By the late s, the walls of the presidential mansion were crumbling. Many congressmen, reporters, and American citizens sought simply to demolish the old building and begin anew. Bess disagreed -- as did the President -- and fought to maintain the original walls inside a new steel structure, the more expensive option of the two. She openly lobbied congressional leaders and made a rare public statement urging the preservation of the original building.

Bess prevailed and Congress appropriated funds to renovate the White House. Away from the public eye, Bess was a significant presence in her husband's administration, just as she had been while he was in the Senate. While there is some question as to how much Harry consulted Bess about crucial decisions as President, it seems clear from his extensive correspondence to her that she wielded a sizable influence over his executive decision-making.

Indeed, Harry referred to Bess as his "chief advisor" and "full partner in all transactions -- politically and otherwise. What she could not stop, however, were those bold citizens who might follow her or even snap her photograph as they passed her on the street.

She invariably gave them not a smile, but a stone cold glare. The incident might not have generated as much attention as it did had it not been for the fact that, after the First Lady had accepted the invitation, the African-American jazz pianist Hazel Scott had been refused use of the hall for a public concert and the fact that she also happened to be married to the powerful African-American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell.

Part of the story of this incident that has never been included in studies of Bess Truman was he perspective of the Congressman. The commissioners were appointed by the President and could be removed by him as well. Truman had accepted the DAR invitation. Powell immediately sent a telegram urging the First Lady to rescind it. She refused, writing him that, "I regret that a conflict has arisen for which I am in nowise responsible.

In my opinion, my acceptance of the hospitality is not related to the merits of the issue which has since arisen. I deplore any action which denied artistic talent an opportunity to express itself because of prejudice against race or origin.

Angry at the attack on his wife, President Truman refused to ever have the Congressman and his wife invited to any White House events for the remainder of his term. Yet he may have also regretted the failure to coordinate the public response, later issuing a statement deploring such acts of bigotry. Senators supported the move to deny the DAR its tax status. Bess Truman received a share of support from conservative women who praised her for being a "retiring, charming and homey First Lady.

The press was uniform in avoiding direct attack on the First Lady, nor did African-American groups or publications, blaming instead the DAR. The controversy was one that dramatically illustrated the risk for political liability created by First Ladies who refused to acknowledge the symbolism of even their small gestures and who gave priority to their personal desires over prevailing public expectations.

Six years earlier, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had publicly resigned from the DAR and criticized the organization for refusing their auditorium for a concert by African-American opera singer Marian Anderson, a symbolic yet seminal moment of her tenure. In contrast, Bess Truman took the Powell reaction as a personal insult, seemingly refusing to grasp the power of the position she now held.

In later years, she never reflected on the incident, specifically, or on racial discrimination, generally. From another perspective, however, Mrs. As her weekly schedules illustrated, she felt it her duty to comply with as many of these requests as possible. Organizing her day with regularity and order from a tiny office area she created on the second floor, near the family rooms, the First Lady planned the most active social life the White House had seen in almost two decades.

She revived the traditional winter and spring schedule of dinners and receptions honoring members of different branches of the government. In planning the formal honor of state dinners for the large increase of foreign leaders who came to meet with the President, Mrs.

Throughout her eight years as First Lady, Bess Truman sponsored charities and causes associated with First Ladies, by opening fairs and sales, or accepting honorary membership or title of honorary chairmanship. She would greet leaders of various voluntary organizations in the White House and pose for photographs that were released to the press, or attended a charity luncheon as a headliner whose presence had helped to sell tickets.

Bess Truman did not have a particular demographic she chose to support but while she did not limit herself by the intention of any specific social problem, all were organizations intended to provide funding for the financially disadvantaged or living with physical challenges. She continued the Roosevelt fundraising efforts for the March of Dimes, which sought to eradicate polio, and provided consistent support for organizations including the Community Chest, the Salvation Army, the Girl Scouts, the Red Cross and Cerebral Palsy.

She handwrote her personal correspondence, including some responses to the public. Spending much of the summertime at her Missouri home, she cultivated her flower garden and even enjoyed grocery shopping for the household. In the private quarters of the White House, Bess Truman was not above occasionally cooking or cleaning for her own family, although she always had a housekeeper and servants to assist her when she wished. Nothing seemed to symbolize the return to regular, if mundane, life better than the visit by her Independence, Missouri bridge club, a dozen or so middle-aged, middle-class Midwestern housewives whose week of activities in Washington were covered by the press.

The Trumans also reflected some aspects of the so-called "Latin craze" that had a moment in the popular culture during the late s. After becoming First Lady, Mrs. Truman arranged to relocate from a hotel to the White House her weekly Spanish language classes with other Washington women, including Mamie Eisenhower. The First Lady also joined in the preparation of an elaborate Cuban cuisine feast, using the White House kitchen and overseen by the class instructor. Among her favorite band leaders of the era was Xavier Cugat, a native of Cuba who helped popularize the mambo and was chosen to perform for guests at one of the Truman Inaugural Balls.

Whenever they were apart, Harry Truman wrote detailed and affectionate letters to his wife, giving her inside observations and political assessments of figures such as England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. She evidently destroyed any of her written responses. When they were both in residence in Washington, Bess Truman spent about two hours every evening with the president, reviewing his speeches, schedule and policy decisions.

Precisely what advice she gave him or suggestions she made are speculative and uncertain, accountable only by the informed opinion of those close to them at the time, since there was no documentation generated when the couple was meeting together. It is known that she dismissed widespread speculation that he would name a prominent editor as his press secretary, and successfully recommended that he instead name their former schoolmate Charlie Ross, St.

Louis Post-Dispatch Washington editor. There is circumstantial evidence that she also sought to use her influence with the President to intervene on behalf of individuals who appealed to her for help in dire situations, as illustrated in one letter to a Charlie Tucker seeking to have a friend and his wife safely returned from a threatening but unspecified international situation; her letter also suggests Tucker helped facilitate installment of a controversial freezer she was given see Diffused Scandals below.

As disclosed by Sara L. Truman never sought to contradict a decision if the President made it resolutely, but when he wavered between options, she made the case for what she believed to be the most sensible choice.

Import-Export Bank loan to develop a railroad. Bess Truman provided reliable, informed and professional advice that gave the President confidence in his decisions to initiate monumental postwar foreign policy. Circumstances placed Harry Truman in the role of making some of the most momentous global decisions of the twentieth century.

Truman declared to reporter Marianne Means in , that he never made an important decision without first seeking the advice and reaction of his wife. Although their daughter would later claim otherwise, Truman affirmed to Means that he had consulted her on the dropping of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, which led to the Japanese surrender and end of World War II.

Bess Truman later defended his decisions, affirming that it ultimately saved the lives of countless other Japanese and Americans from an otherwise expected land war. Bess Truman added the important point that if the U. Guided by her sense of morality and compassionate, she also urged immediate action by the U.

The President followed her suggestion and the first installment of what came to be known as The Marshall Plan was approved in April of Following the end of World War II in August of , Bess Truman signed a "housewife's pledge" of voluntary food rationing in the White House, setting an example for other Americans to limit their consumption so as to permit food donations to be sent to the many devastated populations of postwar Europe, in short supply of basic food staples.

Despite the postwar increase of White House social events, Bess Truman was able to manage her social schedule and the details of entertaining with the help only of Edith Helm, who continued in the role of Social Secretary from the Roosevelt years. Edith Helm also served as the conduit between the First Lady and the Washington women reporters who covered the White House and First Ladies, functioning as a rudimentary Press Secretary. From April of until January of , Mrs. Truman relied on the secretarial services of Reathel Odum, who had first been employed in the office of Senator Truman and was thus a working colleague of Bess Truman when she was employed there.

According to their daughter, when Harry Truman ran for re-election in , Bess Truman viewed his chances with pessimism. One former aide believed that it was Mrs. Truman who coaxed her husband into undertaking a month-long cross-country whistle-stop railroad campaign tour.

When the prepared speeches were given to the President, the First Lady would review these, outlining them into simpler notes he could use while speaking to crowds. She gave especial attention to ensuring that the language was simple for average Americans to grasp, though she was also known to reprimand him when he extemporaneously used what she considered strong language. Too, she watched crowds to determine what phrases and fact they best responded to.

Despite her dislike of public appearances, the First Lady also became part of the whistle-stop campaign routine, introduced by the President at the conclusion of his remarks as "the boss" on the back platform. Truman was sensitive to criticism of her husband and was known to keep at least one governor from joining the train because of his earlier belittling of the President. She was also sensitive to the way she was perceived, particularly when Republican Clare Booth Luce derided her as an "ersatz first lady.

The Presidential Inauguration was the most elaborate and well-executed one held to that time and became the prototype for all future ones, with various receptions honoring different constituencies and multiple inaugural balls. Senator Strom Thurmond, who had bolted the Democratic Party to run against Truman as the racial segregationist candidate, Bess Truman cheered on her gesture.

Unlike Eleanor Roosevelt who made three international trips as First Lady without the President, Bess Truman made only one independent day trip to a foreign country, a pleasure cruise with her daughter to the island of Cuba, sailing there in the presidential yacht from the presidential retreat in Key West, Florida. Here is silent footage of her trip:. She also joined the President and their daughter on a one-week trip to Brazil in the first week of September of On the voyage home, Mrs.

Truman joined in the traditional merrymaking when passengers crossed the international dateline. In contrast to their recent predecessors, Harry and Bess Truman strove to maintain an extremely close relationship with their adult child. In some respects, Margaret Truman became a third member of their relationship, and, at times, the President confided in her as much as he did to his wife.

Each one was kept informed about and involved in the daily lives of the other two, and their letters reflect this unusual degree of emotional intimacy. Unaccustomed to such closeness, members of the White House household staff nicknamed the First Family "the Three Musketeers," and one of the most popular anecdotes about them was how a waiter entering the dining room to serve them a meal found the President, First Lady and First Daughter all throwing little balls of bread at one another around the table.

In the case of Margaret Truman, however, she became a constant companion to her mother during the initial period of the administration, often doing the speaking for cameras and visibly enjoying the attention she received, in contrast to her mother. By , Mrs. Truman had developed enough confidence in making public appearances on her own, permitting Margaret Truman to pursue her long-held intention of a professional singing career in New York City. At the same time, the First Lady determined to move her invalid mother from their Missouri home to come live in the White House, where regular nursing care managed her deteriorating condition.

Wallace became the first presidential mother-in-law to take up full-time residency in the White House, making it her home throughout the final four years of the Truman Administration. Truman Library. You can learn more about Mrs.

Truman at the Harry S. We'll be in touch with the latest information on how President Biden and his administration are working for the American people, as well as ways you can get involved and help our country build back better. You have JavaScript disabled. Please enable JavaScript to use this feature.