Our Mission
The mission of FLARE is to create and sustain a network to promote and publicize research and education relevant to the contributions, lives, impacts, and lasting legacies of U.S. First Ladies.
Our Vision
FLARE will be the primary association to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and outreach among scholars, institutions, First Ladies’ staff, biographers, archivists, journalists, and public historians interested in research and education about the lasting legacy of U.S. First Ladies.
FLARE Focus more information
FLARE Focus on The Second Lady as Understudy:
Apprenticing the Role Before Ascending
to the First Lady Mainstage
by Jeanne Ryan Wolfson
Second Lady Pat Nixon (far right) at a Senate Ladies Luncheon,
June 9, 1959. Photo credit: Richard Nixon Foundation
Twelve of the nation’s first ladies served as second ladies of the United States before their husbands were elected President: Abigail Adams, Letitia Tyler, Abigail Fillmore, Eliza Johnson, Edith Roosevelt, Grace Coolidge, Bess Truman, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, Barbara Bush, and Dr. Jill Biden. Their time as second lady revealed some of what they would bring to the role of first lady as well as causes they would continue to champion.
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