a day-long virtual program
First Ladies
The Symposium
thursday, may 6, 2021 hosted by
The White House Historical Association in partnership with
American University's First Ladies Initiative
First Ladies Nancy Reagan, Lady Bird Johnson, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, and Barbara Bush sit together at the National Garden Gala 'A Tribute to First Ladies.' Barbara Kinney. Photograph. The William J. Clinton Presidential Library
cover images:
Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams). Gilbert Stuart. Oil on Canvas. Gift of Mrs. Robert Homans. Courtesy of National Gallery of Art. Accession # 1954.7.2 Dolley Payne Madison. Gilbert Stuart. Oil on Canvas. Gift of the Walter H. & Phyllis J. Shorenstein Foundation in memory of Phyllis J. Shorentein. White House Collection. Acquisition # 1994.1737.1 Eleanor Roosevelt in St. Louis. Photograph. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum/NARA. Jacqueline Kennedy with Silver Pitcher Presented to the White House. Photograph. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum/NARA. Nancy Reagan. Aaron Shikler. Oil on Canvas. Gift of the White House Historical Association and the Petrie Foundation. White House Collection. Acquisition # 1989.1664.1 Michelle Obama. Joyce N. Boghosian. Photograph. Official White House Photo.
A Summary of Topics The First Ladies Symposium is a day-long virtual event, hosted by the White House Historical Association in partnership with American University's First Ladies Initiative. It will feature opening statements from First Lady Jill Biden, Director of the Legacies of America's First Ladies Initiative at the American University and Association Board Member Anita McBride, Association Chairman Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., and Sylvia Burwell, President of American University. These remarks will be followed by morning and afternoon sessions with different thematic approaches to understanding the first ladies. Association Senior Vice President Colleen Shogan will moderate a discussion on first ladies and gender with Sara Georgini, Cassandra Good, Marie Jenkins Schwartz, and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw. McBride will discuss reconsidered first ladies with Amy Greenberg, Lois Romano, and Julia Sweig. Following a break for lunch, Susan Swain will discuss the evolution of communications and first ladies with Diana Carlin, Stacy Cordery, and Christopher Brick. Katherine Malone-France will moderate a conversation with Barbara Perry, Nancy Kegan Smith, and Mary C. Brennan on first ladies and historic preservation at America's most famous home. This final panel will be followed by a conversation between author Karen Tumulty and White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin, who will discuss Tumulty's new book, The Triumph of Nancy Reagan. The day will conclude with closing remarks by McLaurin.
Board of Directors CHAIRMAN
Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. VICE CHAIRMAN AND TREASURER
John F. W. Rogers SECRETARY
James I. McDaniel PRESIDENT
Stewart D. McLaurin John T. Behrendt Michael Beschloss Teresa Carlson Jean Case Janet A. Howard Knight Kiplinger Martha Joynt Kumar Anita B. McBride Robert M. McGee Ann Stock Ben C. Sutton Jr. Tina Tchen Gregory W. Wendt LIAISON
Shawn Benge EX OFFICIO
Lonnie G. Bunch III Kaywin Feldman David S. Ferriero Carla D. Hayden Katherine Malone-France DIRECTORS EMERITI
John H. Dalton Nancy M. Folger Elise K. Kirk Harry G. Robinson III Gail Berry West
The White House Historical Association was founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to act as the independent, non-profit, and nonpartisan partner to the White House. The Association provides non-taxpayer funds to acquire historic furnishings and artwork for the permanent White House collection, maintain the museum standard of the State Floor, and educate the public on the history of the White House going back to 1792 when George Washington selected the plot of land where It stands today. The Association has continued the same relationship with the White House as that established by Mrs. Kennedy through its work with each successive president and first lady, regardless of politics. As a nonprofit, the White House Historical Association is funded entirely by the support of our generous donors and our robust retail and publications programs. Our books and White House History Quarterly help expand public knowledge of the Executive Mansion, its history, and rich traditions. In 1962, Mrs. Kennedy oversaw the publication of the first White House guidebook, which has remained the Association's flagship production to this day. The Association's retail program is likewise an avenue of education. Since 1981, the Association has produced the annual White House Christmas Ornament, which honors each president sequentially and is used as an educational tool to teach and tell the history of each president. The White House Historical Association is honored to be the living legacy of Mrs. Kennedy's dedication to historical preservation of White House History.
American University's Legacies of America's First Ladies Initiative (FLI) examines the role of first ladies and the influence they have had throughout our nation’s history on our politics, domestic policy, and global diplomacy. Launched in 2011 at American University’s School of Public Affairs under the leadership of executive-in-residence Anita McBride, the First Ladies Initiative serves as a resource for students, researchers and interested parties who wish to explore the impact and accomplishments of America’s first ladies. This unique position is a fascinating topic in American culture with popular expectations of the role continuing to evolve. Through scholarly collaboration; academic lectures; public programming; media opportunities; and a robust list of resources, publications and archived videos, the First Ladies Initiative highlights and promotes the remarkable women who have served the nation in this capacity. The First Ladies Initiative also includes a national conference series that features distinguished guests -- first ladies, former presidents, and first families, White House staff, scholars and authors, and members of the media -- who discuss the significant contributions these women have made, as well as the challenges they faced, as they use their platform to advocate for issues, promote change, and improve our society. Conference partners include major historical and cultural institutions such as the National Archives, Presidential Libraries, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the White House Historical Association, and other academic and historical institutions. American University is a student-centered research institution located in Washington, D.C., with highly-ranked schools and colleges, internationallyrenowned faculty, and a reputation for creating meaningful change in the world. Its students distinguish themselves for their service, leadership, and ability to rethink global and domestic challenges and opportunities. In its 128-year history, American University has established a reputation for producing change makers focused on the challenges of a changing world. AU has garnered recognition for global education, public service, experiential learning and politically active and diverse students, as well as academic and research expertise in a wide range of areas including the arts, sciences, humanities, business and communication, political science and policy, governance, law and diplomacy.
The Day's Events 9:00-9:15am Welcome and Overview Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States Anita McBride, Director of American University’s First Ladies Initiative and White House Historical Association Board Member Frederick J. Ryan Jr., Chairman, White House Historical Association Board of Directors Sylvia Burwell, President, American University
9:15-10:35am First Ladies and Gender Introduced and moderated by Colleen Shogan, Senior Vice President and Director of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History, White House Historical Association Sara Georgini, Series Editor for The Papers of John Adams, Massachusetts Historical Society Cassandra Good, Assistant Professor, Marymount University Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Professor Emerita, University of Rhode Island Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania and Curator for the National Portrait Gallery's "Every Eye is Upon Me: First Ladies of the United States"
10:45am-12:00pm First Ladies Reconsidered Introduced and moderated by Anita McBride, Director of American University’s First Ladies Initiative and White House Historical Association Board Member Amy Greenberg, George Winfree Professor of American History, Pennsylvania State University Lois Romano, Independent Scholar and columnist, The Washington Post Julia Sweig, Independent Scholar and author
Break for Lunch 12:00pm-1:00pm
1:00-2:15pm First Ladies and Communications Introduced and moderated by Susan Swain, co-Chief Executive Officer and President, C-SPAN Diana Carlin, Professor Emerita of Communication, Saint Louis University Stacy Cordery, Professor of History, Iowa State University Christopher Brick, Director and Editor of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, George Washington University
2:25-3:40pm First Ladies and Historic Preservation Introduced and moderated by Katherine Malone-France, Chief Preservation Officer, National Trust for Historic Preservation Barbara Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies, Miller Center at the University of Virginia Nancy Kegan Smith, Former Director of the Presidential Materials Staff, National Archives and Records Administration Mary C. Brennan, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Texas State University
3:45-4:45pm Keynote: The Triumph of Nancy Reagan Introduced and interviewed by Stewart McLaurin, President, White House Historical Association Karen Tumulty, Author and columnist, The Washington Post
Closing Remarks Stewart McLaurin, President, White House Historical Association
First Lady Jill Biden Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey. Growing up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, she graduated from Upper Moreland High School in 1969. She attended the University of Delaware, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English in 1975. That same year, she met Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware. On June 17, 1977, they were married in New York City at the United Nations Chapel. She became the mother to his two sons, Joseph “Beau” III and Hunter, and in 1981 their daughter, Ashley, was born. In 1976, Jill Biden began teaching at St. Mark’s High School in Wilmington, and later Claymont High School. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she pursued a Master of Education from West Chester University. She later taught at Rockford Center, a psychiatric hospital in Delaware, while working toward a Master of Arts in English from Villanova University. In 1993, she took a position at Delaware Technical Community College. She earned a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in educational leadership from the University of Delaware in 2007. During her husband’s vice-presidency, Dr. Biden taught at Northern Virginia Community College. As Second Lady of the United States, she advocated for military families, community colleges, and educational opportunities for women and girls. In 2015, Dr. Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden lost their son Beau to brain cancer. Together, they pushed for a pledge to cure cancer through the White House Cancer Moonshot. After leaving office in 2017, the Bidens established the Biden Foundation and launched the Biden Cancer Initiative. In 2019, Dr. Biden’s memoir, Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, became a New York Times bestselling book. The following year, she published JOEY: The Story of Joe Biden, her second children’s book. As First Lady of the United States, Dr. Biden continues to advocate for military families, cancer research, and education for young women. She is a professor of writing at Northern Virginia Community College.
Symposium Contributors Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mary C. Brennan earned a Ph.D. from Miami University of Ohio in 1988. Her dissertation on the development of conservatism in modern America was a natural outgrowth of her interest in how politics affects "normal" people. Over the years, she continued to investigate conservative politics in its various manifestations. Turning Right in the Sixties (UNC Press, 1995) evolved from her dissertation and examined the conservative "capture" of the GOP through the Goldwater campaign. Since then, she has focused on. women's roles within conservatism in general and Mary C. Brennan the anticommunist movement in particular. Her book, Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace, (Colorado 2008) evolved from her curiosity about Joe McCarthy’s wife. Her most recent monograph, Pat Nixon: Embattled First Lady, (2011) appeared as part of the Modern First Ladies Series published by the University Press of Kansas. She has appeared on CNN’s “The Sixties” and C-SPAN’s “First Ladies: Influence and Image.” In 1990, Brennan joined the History faculty at what was then Southwest Texas State University and is now Texas State University. In 2011, she became chair of the department of history. Since Fall 2017, she has served as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Christopher Brick is Director, Editor, and Principal Investigator of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, a research center that collects, annotates, and publishes selected volumes of Eleanor Roosevelt’s political correspondence from 1945-1962. His publications include Volumes 1 and 2 of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: The Human Rights Years, both of which he coedited. As chair of Marketing and Communications for the Organization of American Historians (OAH), Brick conceived, founded, and hosts the OAH podcast Intervals, season 1 Christopher Brick of which launched in March 2021. Brick also directs federal policy oversight for the Association for Documentary Editing, serves as a board member of the National Coalition for History, and is the recipient of multiple major research awards from the National Archives, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Sylvia M. Burwell is American University's 15th president and the first woman to serve as president. A visionary leader with experience in the public and private sectors, President Burwell brings to American University a commitment to education and research, the ability to manage large and complex organizations, and experience helping to advance solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Burwell joined AU on June 1, 2017, succeeding Neil Kerwin. Burwell has held two cabinet positions in the United States government. She served as Sylvia M. Burwell the 22nd secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017. During her tenure, she managed a trillion-dollar department that includes the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and the Medicaid and Medicare programs; oversaw the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act; and led the department’s responses to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks. Before that, she served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, working with Congress to negotiate a two-year budget deal following the 2013 government shutdown. In both roles she was known as a leader who worked
successfully across the aisle and focused on delivering results for the American people. Her additional government experience is extensive and includes roles as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, deputy chief of staff to the president, chief of staff to the secretary of the Treasury, and special assistant to the director of the National Economic Council. Burwell has held leadership positions at two of the largest foundations in the world. She served 11 years at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, including roles as the chief operating officer and president of the Global Development Program. She then served as president of the Walmart Foundation and ran its global Women’s Economic Empowerment efforts. Her private sector experience includes service on the Board of Directors of MetLife. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard University and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. A second-generation Greek American, Burwell is a native of Hinton, West Virginia. She and her husband Stephen Burwell are the parents of two young children. Diana B. Carlin is professor emerita of communication at Saint Louis University where she also served as associate provost for graduate and global education. Prior to her tenure at Saint Louis, she was a professor of communication studies and dean of the graduate school and international programs at the University of Kansas. She has taught courses on first ladies for over thirty years and has written book chapters on Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama. Her most recent publication is on Martha Washington in Kate Sibley's Southern First Ladies. She lectures to a wide variety of groups Diana B. Carlin on the legacy of first ladies and regularly teaches Osher Lifelong Learning courses on first ladies, including a recent one on The Generals' Wives: Martha Washington, Julia Grant, and Mamie Eisenhower. She co-authored with Nancy Kegan Smith and Anita McBride an opinion piece published by CNN on first ladies and civil rights. They also presented a program for the National Archives on March 31 on the subject. Her interest in first ladies grew out of her work on women in politics when she realized that the country’s first women “politicians” were the first ladies. Historian Stacy A. Cordery is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestselling biography Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. The recipient of several teaching awards, she is a professor in the History Department at Iowa State University in Ames, where she teaches courses on First Ladies, the Gilded Age, and modern America. She was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Theodore Roosevelt Center and is a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s Advisory Board. Her public appearances include NPR’s Weekend Edition, the History Stacy A. Cordery Channel, CNN, Smithsonian TV, the Diane Rehm Show, and C-SPAN. In addition to her biography of Longworth, Cordery has written the authoritative biography of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low and two books about Theodore Roosevelt. Her biography of cosmetics entrepreneur and CEO Elizabeth Arden will be published by Viking/Penguin in 2022. For more information, please see www.stacycordery.com.
Sara Georgini
Dr. Sara Georgini earned her doctorate in history from Boston University in 2016. For over a decade, she has worked for the Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where she is series editor for The Papers of John Adams. Committed to the preservation of and access to rare primary sources, Sara has worked on the selection, annotation, indexing, and team production of a more than a dozen scholarly editions drawn from the Adams Papers (Harvard Univ. Press, 2009– ), covering the history of American political life in the era from the Declaration to disunion. As a historical editor, she publishes authoritative editions of the founders' words; leads student and teacher workshops; curates
curates manuscripts and artifacts in thematic exhibits; and brings Adams expertise (spanning three centuries) to the broad audiences of groups like National History Day. Thanks to the Historical Society's trove of Adams and Jefferson manuscripts, she teaches frequently on constitutionalism, founding-era thought, women's history, and the course of Anglo-American empire. Sara is the author of Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family (Oxford Univ. Press, 2019), and she writes about early American history for Smithsonian.
Cassandra Good
Cassandra Good serves as an Assistant Professor of History at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. She was formerly the Associate Editor of the Papers of James Monroe at the University of Mary Washington. She received her PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in American Studies from The George Washington University. Her area of expertise is late eighteenth through nineteenth century America with particular focus on politics, gender and cultural history. She also has experience in museums, new media, and public history through her work at the Smithsonian Institution
Her first book, Founding Friendships, is available from Oxford University Press. It received the Organization of American Historians’ Mary Jurich Nickliss Prize in U.S. women’s and/or gender history in 2016. Good is currently working on a book titled First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America, forthcoming from Harper Collins in 2023. She writes for both scholarly and popular audiences, and has published work in the journals Gender History and Early American Studies, as well as online publications including Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, and Slate.
Amy S. Greenberg
Amy S. Greenberg is the George Winfree Professor of American History and Women's Studies at Penn State University, where she has taught since receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1995. She is the author of five books, most recently the awardwinning Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk (Random House/Vintage, 2019). A leading scholar of the history of nineteenth-century America, she has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Philosophical Society, among others, and is currently the president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
Since 2019, Katherine Malone-France has served as the Chief Preservation Officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In this capacity, she leads the organization’s programmatic work in preservation services, government relations, state and local policy, research, outreach, trainings, grantmaking, and the stewardship and interpretation of the National Trust’s portfolio of 28 historic sites. Throughout her almost 20 years in the for-profit and non-profit sectors of historic preservation, Katherine has made a concerted effort to work across the field, bringing the Katherine Malone-France ability to understand preservation issues from a variety of perspectives and to move initiatives forward in ways that are both creative and strategic. Prior to this role, Katherine served as the Senior Vice President for Historic Sites, where she collaborated with a variety of staff and stakeholders to make National Trust Historic Sites more culturally and financially sustainable.This work has ranged from telling the full histories of these properties through creative and inclusive programming to implementing a new “shared use” operating model that combines commerce and interpretation to activate historic sites in new ways and attract broad audiences to them. Katherine is a graduate of Wofford College with a B.A. degree in History and has a Masters in Historic Preservation from the College of Environment & Design at the University of Georgia.
Anita B. McBride
Stewart D. McLaurin
Barbara A. Perry
Anita McBride directs the Legacies of America's First Ladies Initiative at the American University where she serves as Executive in Residence in the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in the School of Public Affairs. Her White House service and experience spans three decades and four Administrations including as Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush. She is a frequent speaker and media commentator on White House history, its occupants, and presidential transitions. She serves on the Board of the White House Historical Association and chairs its Education committee. Stewart D. McLaurin, as president of the White House Historical Association since 2014, leads the Association’s non-profit and non-partisan mission to support conservation and preservation at the White House with non-government funding. Under his leadership, the Association has expanded greatly in mission reach and impact; fundraising results; educational public programming and award-winning publications that teach the story of White House history; and related retail offerings inspired by history. For more than 35 years, McLaurin has held leadership roles with national non-profit and higher education organizations such as the American Red Cross, Georgetown University, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Barbara A. Perry is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, where she co-directs the Presidential Oral History Program. She has authored or edited 16 books, including 43: Inside the Presidency of George W. Bush; 42: Inside the Presidency of Bill Clinton; 41: Inside the Presidency of George H.W. Bush; Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch; Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier; and JFK and ER: How John Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt Found Common Ground and Launched a Women's Rights Movement (forthcoming). Lois has had a distinguished career as a political journalist at The Washington Post, Newsweek and POLITICO. Most recently, she helped build both POLITICO and The Washington Post's conference businesses. Her contacts in politics, journalism and business are extensive. She is currently authoring An Inconvenient Widow, a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln, for Simon & Schuster. She is currently the Co-Chair of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and a former fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.
Lois Romano Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. is the Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of The Washington Post. Previously he was co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Politico. From 1989 until 1995, he served as Chief of Staff to former President Ronald Reagan. He was responsible for overseeing all of President Reagan’s activities including domestic and international issues, government relations, political affairs and public relations. He served as President Reagan’s personal representative in numerous meetings with Heads of State Frederick J. around the world, as well as leaders of the international business community. Ryan, Jr. Mr. Ryan serves as Chairman of the White House Historical Association and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation. He serves on the Boards of several other nonprofit organizations including the University of Southern California, Ford’s Theatre, The National Geographic Society, National Geographic Partners, and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He is author of Wine and the White House: A History, published by the White House Historical Association in 2020.
Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Historian Marie Jenkins Schwartz researches and writes about United States history, especially stories of women. She is the author of numerous essays and three books, including Ties That Bound: Founding First Ladies and Slaves. Awards for her work include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Schwartz holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently professor emeritus of history at the University of Rhode Island, where in addition to teaching she served terms as chair of the University’s history department and as executive director of its Center for the Humanities.
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw is the Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art at Penn and affiliated faculty in Latin American and Latino Studies, Cinema Studies, and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. She received her PhD in art history from Stanford University and then held an appointment as an assistant professor of History of Art and African and African American Studies at Harvard University for five years before coming to the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. She has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the National Portrait Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw Gallery; has received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Ford Foundation; and spent a quarter as a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Washington. At Penn, she has served as a faculty fellow and as a faculty director in the College House system; and directed the undergraduate majors in History of Art and in Visual Studies. She has been honored with the School of Arts and Sciences Award for Innovation in Teaching and the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching. Colleen Shogan joined the Association in the winter of 2020 after almost fifteen years of federal government service. She previously worked in the United States Senate and as a senior executive at the Library of Congress. Colleen is the Vice Chair of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission and teaches at Georgetown University in the Government Department. She is the previous President of the National Capital Area Political Science Association and served on the American Political Science Association (APSA) Council, the Colleen J. Shogan governing body of the organization. Her research focuses on the American presidency, presidential rhetoric, women in politics, and Congress. A native of Pittsburgh, she holds a BA in Political Science from Boston College and a Ph.D. in American Politics from Yale University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Cross and Crown.
Nancy Kegan Smith
Nancy Kegan Smith was an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration from 1973 until 2012. She started her career at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, retiring as Director of the Presidential Materials Division in Washington, D.C. In this capacity she advised the White House, including the First Lady’s staff, on records and artifact issues. She is a co-editor of the book Modern First Ladies – Their Documentary Legacy, and has written scholarly articles and book chapters on First Ladies, Lady Bird Johnson, Michelle Obama and Presidential records. She currently lectures and writes on First Ladies and the important and lasting impacts they have made on our society.
Susan Swain is co-Chief Executive Officer and President of C-SPAN, the nation’s eighth largest cable television network. Since March 2012, she and Rob Kennedy have shared responsibility for day-to-day operations, board relationships, and longterm strategy for the nonprofit public affairs network, seen in about 80 million cable and satellite homes. At C-SPAN, Susan oversees programming for C-SPAN’s three television channels, CSPAN.org and C-SPAN Radio. She helped launch BookTV and American History TV–48 hour weekend blocks featuring non-fiction books and history, as well as the network’s Susan Swain traveling “Local Content Vehicles.” She has been involved in the creation of numerous C-SPAN history series, such as American Presidents, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, American Writers, The Contenders, and First Ladies. On the marketing side, Susan oversees press and social media efforts for C-SPAN, the traveling C-SPAN Bus, and led the publication of C-SPAN’s ten books, including First Ladies (2015) and The Presidents (2019). Julia Sweig is an award-winning author, scholar and entrepreneur. Julia’s ability to synthesize and communicate complex foreign policy and historical issues, achieving accessibility without sacrificing substance, has made her a popular primetime guest on CBS, CBSN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, BBC, NPR, and even Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. Julia’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, the Nation, the National Interest and in Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo. She is a senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of TexasJulia Sweig Austin and the creator, host and executive producer of the podcast series currently under development, In Plain Sight. Her fourth book, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight came out on March 16, 2021 from Random House. Karen Tumulty is a columnist for The Washington Post. In her previous role as a national political correspondent for the newspaper, she received the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine, where she had held the same title. During her more than 15 years at Time, Tumulty wrote or co-wrote more than three dozen cover stories. She also held positions with Time as congressional correspondent and White House correspondent.Before joining Time in 1994, Tumulty spent 14 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered a wide variety of beats. During her Karen Tumulty time there, she reported on Congress, business, energy and economics from Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C. Tumulty is a native of San Antonio, where she began her career at the now-defunct San Antonio Light. Tumulty holds a bachelor of journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School.