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The Front Row of History
Edith Bolling Wilson served as First Lady of the United States for over five years. After President Wilson's last term, she continued to live in Washington DC for over forty years. During this time she was an observer of and participant in world and American history. She sat in the House gallery of the Capitol on April 2, 1917, when President Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war. She was to sit in the gallery again on December 8, 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war. President Wilson was the first US President to go to Europe of President.
Similarly, Edith Wilson was the first First Lady to go to Europe as First Lady. There she met the royal families of Great Britain, Belgium and Italy and first established the role and style of American First Ladies abroad. When the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted and women in the United States received the right ot vote, Edith Wilson was the first First Lady to vote in a presidential election in 1920.
Edith Wilson accompanied President Wilson on his cross-country train trip to promote the League of Nations in 1919. She is sometimes called America's "first woman President" because of the role she played following President Wilson's 1919 stroke. In her 1939 memoir, she described her role then as merely a "stewardship of the Presidency." No doubt she had earned President Wilson's respect and trust as well as his affection and devotion.
In the last year of her life, Edith Wilson attended President John Kennedy's inauguration in 1961 and hosted Jacqueline Kennedy for a luncheon between First Ladies. Edith Wilson died on December 28, 1961. She generously left this home and its contents to the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a monument to President Wilson. The President Woodrow Wilson House has been open to the public since 1963 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. |