Edith Galt Wilson: America’s First “Female President”
President Woodrow Wilson and his wife, Edith, were inseparable in all matters, including running the country.
Who Was Edith Bolling Galt Wilson?
The United States has yet to elect a woman as president. However, a woman essentially ran the country while caring for her husband after a debilitating stroke.
Edith Galt Wilson, the wife of Woodrow Wilson, was by all accounts a socialite with little interest in or knowledge of politics. She was also highly protective of her husband, essentially shielding the country from news of his massive stroke and aiding him in legislative and policy decisions.
A Humble Beginning
Born in 1872 in West Virginia, Edith Bolling was the daughter of Judge William Holcombe Bolling and Sallie White Bolling. Her ancestry traces back to Colonial Virginia. She is a descendant of Pocahontas on her father’s side. She was related by either blood or marriage to Thomas Jefferson, Martha Washington, and Letitia Christian Tyler, first wife of President John Tyler, according to History.com.
Despite her heritage, Edith grew up in poverty. Her grandfather, a plantation owner, had lost everything during the Civil War. The Bolling family lived in cramped quarters above a store in Wytheville, VA.
In her teens, she briefly attended Martha Washington College and Powell’s School. But Edith was never a good student and allegedly left college because her dormitory was too cold, according to the Biography.com article “Edith Wilson: The First Lady Who Became Acting President – Without Being Elected.”
A Lucrative Marriage
She moved to Washington, D.C., to be close to an older sister who had married into the prominent Galt family. There she met Norman Galt, who was a partner in a well-known jewelry store. After a four-year courtship, Edith and Norman were married, according to History.com.
The union produced a son, but the baby died within days. After 12 years of marriage, Norman Galt passed away. Edith took over the day-to-day operations of the jewelry store while hiring a manager to oversee the business finances, according to History.com.
Now a wealthy widow, Edith began taking regular trips to Europe, developing a taste for the haute couture of the Parisian designer Charles Frederick Worth and scandalously driving her very own motor car around Washington, D.C. But her wealth and good looks—described by some at the time as “kittenish”—could not win her acceptance from local society. Because her money derived from retail, she was disregarded as “trade” and shunned by local society, according to Biography.com.
A Fateful Meeting
In March of 1915, Edith was on a hike with her friend Altrude Gordon, who at the time was dating White House physician Cary Grayson. Their other hiking companion was Helen Bones, Woodrow Wilson’s cousin. Helen had moved into the White House following the death of Wilson’s wife, Ellen, as a companion to the mourning president, according to Biography.com.
Following the cold and muddy hike, Helen invited the other women to tea at the White House. There she was introduced to the widowed president.
In a matter of weeks, the two were constant companions. According to Biography.com, Wilson would arrive every evening in a limousine for dinner at Edith’s home. The next day, “presidential messengers delivered suggestive love notes that flatteringly sought her apolitical opinion on issues ranging from the trustworthiness of Cabinet members to finessing diplomats as a war in Europe began to rapidly expand.”
A Brief Courtship
The courtship would last only months. In October 1915, Wilson released a press release announcing his engagement with Edith Galt. Aides worried that this remarriage less than a year after the death of his first wife would turn voters away.
With the 1916 election looming, a plan was introduced to leak a series of fake “love letters” that would suggest Wilson was also involved with a woman named Mary Peck. Staff members believed that when Edith discovered the existence of another woman, she would break the engagement, according to History.com.
A Relationship Revealed
In reality, Wilson and Mary Hulbert Peck had a real-life relationship. Wilson had met her in the winter of 1907 during a vacation in Bermuda. They soon began exchanging letters. Wilson’s wife Ellen had entered a deep depression during this period following the death of one brother, the nervous breakdown of another, and a stroke suffered by Wilson himself in May of 1906, according to the article “Love and Guilt: Woodrow Wilson and Mary Hulbert” on the website Americanheritage.com.
The pair exchanged letters for years and saw each other whenever possible, often with Wilson’s wife joining them. Signing his letters “your devoted friend,” Wilson helped Peck through two divorces and the untimely death of another husband. The relationship was likely encouraged by Ellen Wilson, who continued to battle depression up until her death from Bright’s disease on August 6, 1914, according to Americanheritage.com.
Although there is much speculation as to the extent of the relationship between Wilson and Mary Peck, he wrote her in October of 1915, telling her of his engagement to Edith Galt. Her reply was to ask him to send “brotherly letters that will make my pathway a bit brighter,” according to Americanheritage.com.
The Wedding
When Wilson got wind of the plot to release these “love letters,” he told Edith about his relationship with Mary Peck. Although surprised and hurt by the existence of this “other woman,” Edith vowed to stand by the president.
The wedding was to go forward, and the scheming by presidential aides likely hastened the couple to the altar, according to Americanheritage.com. The couple was married on December 18, 1915. Wilson was narrowly re-elected in November of 1916.
President Wilson and First Lady Edith Wilson work together at the White House.
An Involved First Lady
Edith became a constant presence during Wilson’s second term. The pair worked side by side in an upstairs office in the White House with unlimited access to classified documents. When the U.S. entered World War I, she screened his mail and, with Wilson’s insistence, was given access to wartime codes, according to Biography.com.
Edith often sat in on meetings and would later offer the president assessments of both political figures and foreign officials. She also served as gatekeeper, denying both staff and visitors access to the president when she believed he should not be disturbed.
The League of Nations
After the allied victory in WWI, she accompanied Wilson to Europe for the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and even advised him in negotiations of the treaty, according to Biography.com. She was also instrumental in the development of his vision of a League of Nations, which Wilson believed would deter further wars like the Great War that had so decimated Europe.
Stiff opposition to the League of Nations by Senate Republicans meant Wilson had to rally support for his vision from the American people. Although exhausted by the journey to Europe, the president embarked on a train trip across the nation to sell his ideas in September 1919.
Health Issues Arise
It was during this time that Wilson began to exhibit signs of exhaustion. Debilitating headaches and severe asthma attacks forced Wilson to cut the trip short and return to Washington, according to the article “President Wilson Suffers a Stroke, 1919” on the website Eyewitnesstohisotry.com.
On the morning of October 2nd, Edith found the president unconscious on the floor of a bathroom in the private White House residence and bleeding from a head wound. Doctors confirmed Wilson had suffered a massive stroke that had impaired his vision and paralyzed him on the left side, according to Eyewitnesstohistory.com.
The Plan
Fearing the country and the presidency would be thrown into chaos, Edith cajoled Dr. Grayson into keeping the president’s condition a secret. Together they would shield Wilson from the prying eyes of even his own aides and hide the grave condition of the president from the public, according to Eyewitnesstohistory.com.
For 17 months, while Wilson lay in bed barely able to communicate or write his own name, all communication with the president went through Edith Wilson. Even cabinet members would be stopped at the door. She alone would determine which matters were important enough to require the president’s attention. She would then take the material into the bedroom, where she claimed she would read it to Wilson.
She would return with either verbal instructions or scribbled notes on a document that she claimed to be Wilson’s own handwriting. Edith staunchly refuted any suggestion by cabinet members that Wilson resign and allow Vice President Thomas R. Marshall to be sworn into office, according to Biography.com.
“Stewardship” of the Presidency
Her “stewardship” of the presidency, as she would later refer to it, was born from her desire to protect her husband. Ultimately, it led to a gross misrepresentation of Wilson’s health in an effort to fool the nation, much of the cabinet, Congress, and the press. Upon her insistence, only carefully worded medical bulletins were released claiming the president simply “needed rest.”