Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface 1
Part 1 Founding Fathers, Mothers, and Son
Martha Dandridge Custis and George Washington: "Illiterate, Unlearned and Unread" 7
Abigail Smith, John Adams, and the Remarkable Smith Sisters: "We Should Have More Learned Women" 12
Thomas Jefferson:"The Destinies of My Life" 17
Dolley Payne Todd and James Madison: "Three Hours Out of Twenty-Four for Sleep?" 22
Elizabeth Kortright and James Monroe: "My Plan of Life Is Now Fixed" 25
Louisa Johnson and John Quincy Adams: "I Hope I Grow a Better Boy" 29
Part 2 The Golden Age of Education - For Some
Rachel Donelson Robards and Andrew Jackson: "He Never Stayed Throwed" 37
Hannah Hoes and Martin Van Buren: "The Village Academy" 42
Anna Symmes and William Henry Harrison: "He Can Neither Breed, Plead, nor Preach" 45
Letitia Christian, Julia Gardiner, and John Tyler: "The Rebellious Former Student, Lived and Died a Rebel" 49
Sarah Childress and James K. Polk: "Her Occupation as a School Teacher Barred Her from Social Equality" 53
Margaret Smith and Zachary Taylor: "Of Very Ordinary Capacity" 55
Abigail Powers and Millard Fillmore: "A Very Rough and Uncultivated Place" 58
Jane Appleton and Franklin Pierce: "There Are Scores of Men in the Country That Seem Brighter than He Is" 61
James Buchanan: "Misconduct, Arrogant Attitude, and Disrespect for Teachers" 65
Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln: "The Most Important Subject" 68
Eliza McCardle and Andrew Johnson: "If He Can Only Educate Himself, He Has a Destiny" 72
Julia Dent and Ulysses S. Gant: "I Did Not Take Hold of My Studies with Avidity" 74
Lucy Webb and Rutherford B. Hayes: "Elections without Education ... Must Always and Everywhere Be a Farce" 79
Lucretia Rudolph and James Garfield: "Outrages of the Schoolhouse" 83
Chester A. Arthur: "Pupils Are Altogether Separated from the Surroundings of Savage Life" 88
Frances Folsom and Grover Cleveland: "As a Student, Grover Did Not Shine" 92
Caroline Scott and Benjamin Harrison: "Abstain from Eating Cucumbers" 95
Ida Saxton and William McKinley: "No Startling Tales Are Told of His Precocity" 99
Part 3 The Twentieth Century
Edith Carow and Teddy Roosevelt: "We Call the Man Fanatic" 105
Helen Herron and William Howard Taft: "To Live and Die a Professor" 109
Ellen Axson, Edith Boiling Gait, and Woodrow Wilson: "To Transform Thoughtless Boys into Thinking Men" 114
Florence Kling and Warren G. Harding: "Naturally Smart" 119
Grace Goodhue and Calvin Coolidge: "A Professionally Trained Teacher" 123
Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover: "A Whole New World of Ideas" 128
Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt: "I Never Forgot a Damn Thing She Ever Taught Me" 131
Bess Wallace and Harry S Truman: "Nobody Thought That He'd Go Far" 137
Mamie Doud and Dwight Eisenhower: "A Lackluster Student" 140
Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy: "If You Study Too Much, You're Liable to Go Crazy" 145
Claudia Taylor and Lyndon Johnson: "Scars on the Hopeful Face of a Young Child" 150
Pat Ryan and Richard Nixon: "I Had a Saint of a Teacher" 155
Betty Bloomer and Jerry Ford: "We Do Not Need That Kind of Character in Our Girls" 158
Rosalynn Smith and Jimmy Carter: "Stretching Our Minds and Stretching Our Hearts" 162
Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan: "The Last Kid Chosen" 166
Barbara Pierce and George H. W Bush: "Faking His Way through Reading" 171
Part Four. The Twenty-First Century
Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton: "I Want to Be a Teacher or a Nuclear Physicist" 179
Laura Welch and George W. Bush: "The Absolute Profession" 183
Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama: "The Chance to Succeed" 189
Bibliography 197
Index 211
