In this fascinating study, Lewis L. Gould has brought a shadowy
first lady into the light and restored her to a rightful place as a
patron of music. Helen Herron Taft came to the White House intent
on establishing Washington, D.C., as the nation's cultural capital.
A stroke in May 1909 made her a semi-invalid, impaired her speech,
and disrupted her agenda. Historians have written her off as a
shrewish figure who pushed her portly husband into the presidency.
Gould challenges this outdated narrative with new information on
Helen Taft's campaign to bring the best of classical music to the
White House during her four years. He draws on prodigious research
about the musicians who performed there-including violinist Fritz
Kreisler, pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, and contralto
Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and reveals for the first time how Nellie
Taft enlisted a diverse array of top-notch artists for her
musicales, recitals, and social events. The result is a major
contribution to a better understanding of the White House as a
cultural center at the turn of the last century.
Beyond her musical agenda, Helen Taft enhanced the appearance of
Washington with the planting of the cherry trees from Japan that
now bloom each spring. Gould also delves with insight into Mrs.
Taft's role in the politics of her husband's administration. He
provides the most complete recounting into her part in the
dismissal of Henry White as ambassador to France, a key moment in
the emergence of her husband's split with Theodore Roosevelt. He
discusses the nature of her stroke, based on letters from her
husband and her doctors, and reveals how Mrs. Taft, her daughter
Helen, and the journalist Eleanor Egan crafted the first ever
memoir of any first lady. Drawing on memoirs and manuscripts not
used before, Gould re-creates memorable occasions at the Taft White
House, when dramatist Ruth Draper delivered her monologues, Charles
Coburn staged Shakespeare on the White House lawn, and Lady Augusta
Gregory of the Irish Players dropped by.
Gould's path-breaking study of Helen Taft is a significant
addition to the literature on first ladies and a tribute to a
complex and brave woman who overcame illness and adversity to leave
her own special imprint on the history of the White House.
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