First Ladies For Dummies. Marcus A. Stadelmann, PhD

nude photoshoot of 2000 was revealed during the 2016 campaign.

Ranking U.S. First Ladies

      One of the best academic evaluations of U.S. First Ladies was released in 2014, in a joint effort by both the Siena College Research Institute and C-SPAN (National Cable Satellite Corporation), a network created to show public affairs programming. The survey was conducted in 2013, and its results were released in 2014. A total of 242 experts on First Ladies in the United States were asked to rank the First Ladies based on ten criteria (see the section “Discussing ten evaluation criteria”). Rankings of all the First Ladies are rare, they are-time consuming, expensive, and there isn’t much demand for them.

      Note: Because the study was done in 2013–2014, it obviously doesn’t include either Melania Trump or Dr. Jill Biden, who became First Lady in 2017 and 2021, respectively. It further excludes Harriet Lane, who was President Buchanan’s niece and became his First Lady because he was a lifelong bachelor. I and many other academics do count her as a First Lady, and in Chapter 21, she is among my choices for the ten most influential First Ladies. Finally, the study excludes the four First Ladies who died before their husbands became president and Anna Harrison who never had a chance to became First Lady after her husband died a month into office.

      The Siena Research Institute Survey

The Siena Research Institute Survey was the first survey on First Ladies in the United States. It’s conducted about every ten years, and it asks history and political science professors at American universities, as well as other experts on First Ladies, to rank the U.S. First Ladies on a scale of one to five based on ten separate categories (see the section “Discussing ten evaluation criteria”). Unlike surveys on American presidents, there were no other surveys to compare results to and thus the Siena College Research Institutes findings are the only comprehensive survey on U.S. First Ladies, establishing a benchmark for First Lady studies. Table 2-1 presents its rankings in order.

TABLE 2-1 First Lady Rankings

Ranking	C-SPAN Academic Survey
1	Eleanor Roosevelt
2	Abigail Adams
3	Jaqueline Kennedy
4	Dolley Madison
5	Michelle Obama
6	Hillary Clinton
7	Lady Bird Johnson
8	Betty Ford
9	Martha Washington
10	Rosalynn Carter
11	Barbara Bush
12	Laura Bush
13	Edith Roosevelt
14	Edith Wilson
15	Nancy Reagan
16	Bess Truman
17	Lou Hoover
18	Louisa Adams
19	Ellen Wilson
20	Lucy Hayes
21	Grace Coolidge
22	Julia Grant
23	Sarah Polk
24	Mamie Eisenhower
25	Helen Taft
26	Francis Cleveland
27	Julia Tyler
28	Lucretia Garfield
29	Caroline Harrison
30	Elizabeth Monroe
31	Mary Lincoln
32	Abigail Fillmore
33	Pat Nixon
34	Ida McKinley
35	Margaret Taylor
36	Florence Harding
37	Letitia Tyler
38	Eliza Johnson
39	Jane Pierce

      Source: Siena College Research Institute/C-Span study of the first ladies of the United States, 2014. Retrieved at: https://scri.siena.edu/first-ladies-study/

If you compare the results from the first survey taken in 1982 to the last one, conducted in 2014, the top ten and bottom ten First Ladies have been fairly consistent. At the bottom are Jane Pierce, Eliza Johnson, Letitia Tyler, and Florence Harding. Even Mary Lincoln falls into the bottom ten category. Mary Lincoln and Jane Pierce are considered neurotic women whose behavior and attitude made their husband’s life more difficult. Instead of being helpful during their husbands’ presidencies, they did the exact opposite and undermined their husband’s reputation and proved to be a handicap for effective policy making. Florence Harding is often blamed for being too ambitious and pushing her unqualified husband to become president. He turned out to be one of the worst presidents in American history. Letitia Tyler and Eliza Johnson, on the other hand, had no interest in being First Lady. Both claimed to be ill and made their daughters surrogate First Ladies for their husbands.

      At the same time,