01/31/2023

Stacy A. Cordery, Ph.D.

FLARE Member-at-large,

Dr. Stacy A. Cordery is a historian at Iowa State University, an award-winning teacher, and a popular lecturer.

Cordery earned her degrees at the University of Texas at Austin where she worked with Dr. Lewis L. Gould, the founder of the modern study of First Ladies. As an undergraduate, she took the first university-level course on First Ladies, taught by Gould. Her dissertation formed the basis for her Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker (Viking, 2007), a New York Times Notable Book.

She is also the author of Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts (Viking, 2012), and two books about Theodore Roosevelt. She has spoken at the White House Historical Association’s Presidential Sites Summit, the Wilson Center, the Jefferson Educational Forum, the National Constitution Center, the Miller Center, Printers Row Lit Fest, and the Savannah Book Festival, among other venues. Her media appearances include C-SPAN, CNN, the Diane Rehm Show, and National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition. She was featured on the History Channel’s two-part miniseries on Theodore Roosevelt and on the Smithsonian Channel’s television series “First Ladies Revealed.” Her newest book, Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire, will be published by Viking/Penguin in September 2024. Arden’s list of clients included Mamie Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Lady Bird Johnson.

Before moving to Iowa State University in 2016 she served as professor and chair of the History Department at Monmouth College in Illinois and as the Dennis and Vaune Johnson Endowed Chair in Theodore Roosevelt Studies and the director of the TR Honors Leadership Program at Dickinson State University in Dickinson, North Dakota. For eighteen years, Dr. Cordery served as the web bibliographer for the National First Ladies Library. Her first lady expertise is on First Ladies of the Progressive Era, especially Edith Kermit Roosevelt. For more information, please see www.stacycordery.com.