Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson, by Rebecca Boggs Roberts

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'Untold Power' by Rebecca Boggs Roberts

During World War I, American women took jobs previously restricted to men and Edith Wilson followed suit, assuming a larger public role than any preceding first lady. And when President Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, she became his gatekeeper. Was she simply a supportive wife or had she also become, covertly, acting president?

Rebecca Boggs Roberts explores what’s plausible in Untold Power, weighing Edith’s unreliable memoir in the context of the society in which she lived. The media was not so intrusive in those years and, at first, echoed White House releases on the suddenly missing president’s “nervous exhaustion.” Questions went unasked for a long time. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment did not yet exist and precedent implied that Vice President Thomas Marshall should wait until Wilson died before filling his office. In any event, Marshall, who had served as Wilson’s court jester, didn’t want the job.

Inertia ruled. Many bills sent by Congress to the White House became law for lack of a presidential signature or veto. Eventually, rumors circulated among pundits and politicians, but Edith continued to stage an elaborate charade, including taking the barely comprehending president out for car trips around Washington and assembling staff to cheer as he passed the White House gate.

Roberts sets out to redress negative portrayals of Edith Wilson made by some previous writers. She finds instead that Edith “was fierce, clever, gracious, funny, loyal, and brave. Also petty, snobbish, jealous, and bigoted.” In other words, not perfect, but how many of us ever are?