First Ladies Preview: Lady Bird Johnson (Kan 2024)
Lady Bird Johnson, født Claudia Alta Taylor, (født 22. december 1912, Karnack, Texas, USA - døde 11. juli 2007, Austin, Texas), amerikansk førstedame (1963-69), hustruen til Lyndon B. Johnson, 36. præsident for De Forenede Stater, og en miljøforkæmper bemærkede for sin vægt på forskønning.
Quiz
Berømte amerikanske ansigter: fakta eller fiktion?
Benjamin Franklin skrev aldrig en bog.
Datteren til Thomas Jefferson Taylor, en velstående forretningsmand, og Minnie Patillo Taylor, Claudia Alta Taylor fik tilnavnet "Lady Bird" på forslag af en familieplejepige. Efter sin mors død i 1918 blev Lady Bird opdrættet af en tante, der kom til at bo hos familien. Hendes barndom var meget ensom, og hun bemærkede senere, at det var i disse år, at hun udviklede sin kærlighed til at læse og sin respekt for naturens ro. Ualmindeligt lys, hun gik på lokale skoler og dimitterede fra gymnasiet i en alder af 15; senere gik hun på St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls i Dallas, Texas, hvor hun forfulgte sin interesse i at skrive.
På University of Texas i Austin, som hun kom ind i 1930, nød hun mange luksusforhold, som de fleste andre studerende ikke havde råd til, f.eks. Hendes egen bil- og debitorkonto, men hun havde allerede udviklet de meget omhyggelige forbrugsvaner, der ville karakterisere hende senere i livet. Efter at have afsluttet en bachelorgrad i historie i 1933, forblev hun et yderligere år til at tage en grad i journalistik. Hendes træning på dette felt hjalp hende med at udvikle færdigheder, som hun senere ville bruge i sine forhold til pressen.
Hun mødte Lyndon Baines Johnson i sommeren 1934, og han foreslog næsten med det samme. De blev gift i St. Mark's Episcopal Church i San Antonio, Texas, den 17. november 1934. Efter flere aborter fødte Lady Bird to døtre, Lynda Bird i 1944 og Luci Baines i 1947.
In 1937 Lady Bird used $10,000 of her inheritance to support Lyndon’s first congressional campaign. After his election, she assisted constituents visiting the capital by showing them the main tourist attractions of the city. In 1941–42, while Lyndon was serving in the military (Lyndon was the first congressman to volunteer for active duty in World War II), she ran his congressional office and further developed her skills at handling his constituents.
In 1943, with more of Lady Bird’s inherited money, the Johnsons purchased a radio station in Austin, and Lady Bird took over as manager. Although it was never clear how much of her ensuing success was due to her own decisions and how much to Lyndon’s political connections or to sheer luck, her interest and expertise were genuine, and she continued to be active in managerial decisions long after the station became profitable.
As her husband’s political career advanced and he became a powerful figure in Washington, D.C., Lady Bird participated in his campaigns but shied away from giving speeches, preferring to shake hands and write letters instead. After taking a course in public speaking in 1959, however, she became an excellent extemporaneous speaker. In 1960, when Lyndon was nominated for vice president on the Democratic ticket with John F. Kennedy, she actively campaigned throughout the South, and Robert Kennedy later said that she had carried Texas for the Democrats.
Lady Bird used the three years of her husband’s vice presidency to hire an expert staff, including Liz Carpenter, a seasoned reporter, who served as both staff director and press secretary. Carpenter helped to portray Lady Bird in the best possible light when, after the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963, she faced unfavourable comparisons with her stunning predecessor, Jacqueline Kennedy.
In the election of 1964, Lady Bird campaigned vigorously. Although Lyndon’s strong stand on civil rights had made him a pariah in many parts of the South, she insisted that no state be written off. From her campaign train, dubbed the “Lady Bird Special,” she rode through seven Southern states, urging voters to support her husband.
Following his election, she moved to establish her own record as first lady. She concentrated on Head Start, a program aimed at helping preschool children who were from disadvantaged backgrounds. But she became most closely identified with an environmental program, called “beautification,” that sought to encourage people to make their surroundings more attractive, whether they were wide-open spaces or crowded urban neighbourhoods. To encourage private donations, she formed the First Lady’s Committee for a More Beautiful Capital.
In an attempt to improve the appearance of the nation’s highways, she urged Congress to pass the Highway Beautification Bill, which was strenuously opposed by billboard advertisers. Her involvement in the legislation was highly unusual, and, though she received some criticism, the bill (in diluted form) passed Congress and became law in October 1965.
After Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection in 1968, Lady Bird continued a busy round of official activities but also prepared for retirement in Texas. There she continued the interests that had long sustained her, especially her family and environmental concerns, including the National Wildflower Research Center (now the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center). Although she occasionally made political appearances for her son-in-law, Virginia governor (and later senator) Charles Robb, she dedicated most of her time to the family business and her grandchildren.
Early in her White House tenure, she began to record her impressions in daily tape recordings. A fraction of the thousands of hours she taped became the basis of her book, A White House Diary (1970), which was one of the most complete and revealing accounts ever left by a president’s wife.
Following her husband’s death in 1973 she divided her time between the LBJ ranch and her home in Austin. She could take satisfaction in the fact that Americans typically ranked her in the top half dozen of all first ladies.
