Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight with Julia Sweig

Here's Where It Gets Interesting

Sharon McMahon

Government, History, Storytelling, Education

4.9 • 15.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. Today, 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. Discover her real first name, the complexities of her marriage to LBJ, her relationship with the Kennedys, environmentalism, and her propensity to document the details of her life. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:34.5	Hello, friends. Welcome. Delighted you're with me today. And just a reminder that our series 9066 is going to come back. Just to be a little bit patient. Today I want to share a fantastic episode with you about Lady Bird Johnson. We are rounding out Women's History Month with Lady Bird.
0:54.4	And when I was growing up, I was always like, is Lady Bird her first name?
0:59.0	Well, you're going to have to listen to this episode to find out.
1:02.5	So let's dive in.
1:04.3	I'm Sharon McMahon.
1:05.9	And here's where it gets interesting.
1:09.6	I'm chatting today with Julia Swig, who has written a fascinating portrait of a first lady that I feel like many Americans know very little about.
1:22.0	We know a lot more about people like Abigail Adams and Jackie Kennedy and, of course, course when the more recent first ladies.
1:28.2	But you've written a fascinating portrait of Lady Bird Johnson.
1:34.0	Lady Bird is not the first person I personally would have chosen to write about.
1:40.8	In fact, when I was hunting around for my next book topic, and I wrote about foreign policy and diplomatic history and never about first ladies, she wouldn't have been my first choice.
1:52.7	She was in the White House in the 1960s and married, of course, to Lyndon Johnson, who we associate with two big parts of recent American history, civil rights
2:03.4	and the Vietnam War, an American protest at home. So three components of the Johnson era.
2:09.8	And Lady Bird was his spouse and his political partner for the 30 years before he landed in the
2:16.4	White House, which happened when he was vice president
2:19.3	to Jack Kennedy when JFK was assassinated in Dallas, November of 63.
	...

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