#316 The Women Who Shaped the White House in the 20th Century w/ Melissa Estes Blair
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
Most accounts of women in mid-20th century American politics highlight trailblazers such as Frances Perkins or the handful of women elected to Congress in those years. But women's participation in politics- both as voters and as party activists- was far more significant than most Americans realize, elevating a group of white middle-class women into positions of influence over Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Dwight Eisenhower.
Melissa Blair joins Ben & Bob to talk about how and why these women became cornerstones of party politics in these years and why they've largely been forgotten in our national memory. Melissa's book, Bringing Home the White House: The Hidden History of Women Who Shaped the Presidency in the Twentieth Century, chronicles the lives of five influential women whose work was critical in helping their party's candidate win the White House in this era.
Melissa Estes Blair is a Professor of History at Auburn University whose research focuses on women and politics in the United States in the twentieth century.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:08.3 | Today on the show, our guest is Melissa Estes Blair, author of Bringing Home the White |
| 0:12.4 | House, the Hidden History of Women who shaped the Presidency in the 20th century. |
| 0:16.9 | Melissa's book looks at five women and their incredible role in shaping American politics. |
| 0:21.5 | And she uses the word hidden in the title, but if they're hidden, it's in plain sight. |
| 0:25.8 | These women played a crucial role in shaping the presidency and politics in general in the 20th century. |
| 0:31.1 | And this book is full of surprising information that honestly, as I said before, really shouldn't be. |
| 0:35.8 | If you listened to our episode with Dana Bash last week, |
| 0:38.4 | you heard us share one of the facts from this book, |
| 0:40.8 | and you also heard Dana get excited and say, |
| 0:43.2 | I've got to get this book. |
| 0:44.6 | And we think you'll feel the same way. |
| 0:46.7 | So we hope you enjoyed this conversation |
| 0:48.2 | with Auburn University, Professor of History, Melissa Estes Blair. |
| 0:55.7 | Melissa Blair, welcome to The Road to Now. |
| 0:58.2 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:59.3 | It's great to have you. |
| 1:00.7 | This is one of the great worlds that I live in as someone at a university. |
| 1:04.6 | I've mentioned before, you know, everyone knows that I, I full-time at MTSU, but I'm |
| 1:09.1 | visiting scholar Vanderbilt where I have this incredible group of colleagues who liked the show, been on the show. And Emily Grable, the chair over there, who Bob actually met at the Avert Brothers show the other night. She comes to me. I run into her and she said, I just saw this great talk by Melissa Blair, all about women in politics. And, you know, she was so excited about it. And you know how when someone's decided, for me, it's very contagious. I'm very, very prone to be excited about it. And she just told me like three things about your book and your talk. And I was like, Bob, let's get Melissa, let's get Melissa, we're excited to have you here. Just to set it up, Melissa, you are a professor at Auburn University, and this book |
| 1:46.1 | you're writing looks at women's involvement, middle-class women's involvement in partisan politics |
| 1:50.7 | and from really the 20s on into the 50s. And you've uncovered some amazing things, |
... |
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