After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralyzing stroke in the fall
of 1919, his wife, First Lady Edith Wilson, began to handle the
day-to-day responsibilities of the Executive Office. Mrs. Wilson had had
little formal education and had only been married to President Wilson
for four years; yet, in the tenuous peace following the end of World War
I, Mrs. Wilson dedicated herself to managing the office of the
President, reading all correspondence intended for her bedridden
husband. Though her Oval Office authority was acknowledged in
Washington, D.C. circles at the time--one senator called her "the
Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing
her title from First Lady to Acting First Man"--her legacy as "First
Woman President" is now largely forgotten.
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