The General Fund

The General Fund assists with FLARE's major projects and new initiatives as recommended by members. We also welcome the creation of endowed accounts to honor an expert on first ladies. 

For additional information about the accounts or giving to FLARE, please contact us at info@flare-net.org. 

Gould Archives Grant 

This competitive award is available to non-profit archives to make lesser-known sources related to U.S. First Ladies more widely available to researchers and the public, ideally by processing, digitizing, transcribing, exhibiting, and publicizing all or part of a collection related to the lives and legacies of First Ladies. The goal of the Gould Archives Grant is to help archives spotlight primary source materials valuable to the study of First Ladies that have been heretofore overlooked or relatively unknown, in an effort to encourage their use. Learn more about the grant.

Lewis Ludlow Gould is a pioneer in the field of first lady research and education. His understanding of and groundbreaking research on the role of the first lady influenced a generation of scholars and researchers. He mentored many scholars whose work would come to sketch in the details of the outline that Gould provided. 

Gould earned his A.B. from Brown University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Yale University. He is the Eugene Barker Centennial Emeritus Professor of History and former chair of the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Gould specialized in the history of American politics, focusing on the American presidency and on First Ladies.  

He received awards for distinguished undergraduate and graduate teaching, and he worked with scores of masters and doctoral students. In 1982, he started teaching a new class on first ladies titled “First Ladies of the Twentieth Century,” which was the first course on first ladies offered at an American college or university. In 1984, he provided the keynote address for the first-ever national first ladies conference, convened by First Lady Betty Ford. A prolific scholar, he authored more than a dozen books, including The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, The Modern American Presidency , and notably Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment, and American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacies. His book analyzing Lady Bird Johnson's environmental impact was the first book to focus on a first lady’s substantive contribution to society rather than a biography. In 1998, Gould became the series editor for the Modern First Ladies series published by the University Press of Kansas.  

Lewis L. Gould’s dedication to the developing discipline of American First Lady studies, his perspectives, and assessments have had a profound effect on the analysis and evaluation of the presidential spouse. His work ethic, kindness, and generosity of spirit have distinguished his career and we acknowledge his critically important role to our field. 

Research and Education Grants

FLARE plans to present research grants for the purposes of preparing an article or book for publication, conducting thesis or dissertation research, or for developing an educational program or course. We will also recognize outstanding scholarship in the form of an article or book. Details will be provided on the website and via email to members when award applications are open. Only members are eligible for grants and awards. Selections will be made by a committee composed of members.