Ellen and Edith

Kristie Miller examines how the two wives of Woodrow Wilson shaped his years in the White House, tracing the ties between their private hardships and his public decisions. Ellen Axson Wilson, a painter with limited gifts, put her energy into advancing her husband's career instead of her own. She widened his taste in art and literature, produced translations and condensed versions of sources for his early writing, proposed changes to his books and speeches, and helped him choose his advisers. Her deep affection for him coexisted with bouts of depression, and she accepted, even encouraged, his close and perhaps sexual bond with another woman. She was also the first presidential wife to campaign for urban renewal, a cause close to her heart.

Ellen died of kidney failure about a year and a half after Wilson's first inauguration. Some fifteen months later he wed Edith Bolling Galt, a widow described as lively, self-assured and stylish. Edith later became notorious for taking over executive authority when Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke during his second term. Miller presents these possibly history-altering events with a measured, objective tone.

The book is the latest volume in the University Press of Kansas's Modern First Ladies series and includes 22 photographs. It offers readers a new perspective on the 28th president and on the women who stood beside him.