Has the United States ever had a female president? An easy question to answer. Has it ever had an ‘acting’ female President? Harder to answer. Check out Rebecca Boggs Roberts' very readable biography of Edith Wilson, Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, and make up your own mind. The book is Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson. Following her husband’s stroke in 1919, Edith Wilson decided, for reasons she thought critical to her husband’s well-being, to hide the extent of his incapacities from the public, from the press, from Congress, from his cabinet, even from Wilson himself. She assumed some of the powers of the office herself. Could a First Lady get away with such audacity today in the age of social media and intense news media scrutiny? Not a chance. Was her self-justification reasonable? All those questions are what makes Edith Wilson such a complex and controversial character and a worthy subject for Rebecca Boggs Roberts.

Books mentioned in this podcast:

• Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise of and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson by Rebecca Boggs Roberts
• The Suffragist's Parade: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote by Rebecca Boggs Roberts
• My Memoir by Edith Bolling Wilson
• Wilson by A. Scott Berg
• Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
• The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
• River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard
• Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

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