126. The Many Roles of Lady Bird Johnson with Julia Sweig

Here's Where It Gets Interesting

Sharon McMahon

Government, History, Storytelling, Education

4.9 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, Sharon talks with author Julia Sweig about her newest book, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight. The research and writing took Julia over six years, as she meticulously poured over the details of not only Lady Bird’s life, but also the 1960s era and the state of the nation at the time. Lady Bird, a whip-smart Southern woman, met Lindon Johnson in Austin, Texas where he proposed to her at the end of their first date (she said no!). Eventually, the pair married and moved to Washington DC. As LBJ’s political career progressed, Lady Bird’s influence spread; she was a woman who showed up. Listen to learn more about Lady Bird: her real first name, the complexities of her marriage to LBJ, her relationship with the Kennedys, her environmentalism, and her propensity to document her life, from the major moments down to the mundane details.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello friends, welcome. Always related to have you along and today I'm chatting with
0:04.6	author Julius Waiig. She has written a singular portrait of a first lady that I
0:10.5	feel like many of us don't know that much about Lady Bird Johnson. Her book, in
0:15.6	fact, is called Lady Bird Johnson Hiding in Plain Sight and when you find out more
0:22.3	about her, you're probably gonna have some low brain tinkle moments. So let's
0:27.7	say then, I'm Sharon Nickman and welcome to the Sharon Sesso podcast. I'm
0:35.5	chatting today with Julius Waiig who has written a fascinating portrait of a
0:42.4	first lady that I feel like many Americans know very little about. We know a lot
0:48.0	more about people like Abigail Adams and Jackie Kennedy and of course
0:51.4	from the word recent recent first ladies, but you've written a fascinating
0:57.2	portrait of Lady Bird Johnson. Lady Bird is not the first person I personally
1:04.9	would have chosen to write about. In fact, when I was hunting around for my next
1:10.5	book topic and I wrote about foreign policy and diplomatic history and never
1:15.9	about first ladies, she wouldn't have been my first choice. She was in the
1:20.5	White House in the 1960s and married of course to Lyndon Johnson who we
1:25.6	associate with two big parts of recent American history civil rights and the
1:32.2	Vietnam War and American protest at home. So three components of the Johnson
1:37.6	era and Lady Bird was his spouse and his political partner for the 30 years
1:43.3	before he landed in the White House, which happened when he was vice
1:46.8	president to Jack Kennedy when JFK was assassinated in Dallas in November of
1:52.4	1963. She was a total political animal as it turns out. I live outside of
1:57.8	Washington DC and Washingtonians associate her with defidels and tulips and
	...

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