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Lady Bird Johnson

January 07, 2023

Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson (née Taylor; December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 when her husband was vice president.

Lady Bird Johnson
Johnson in 1967
First Lady of the United States
In role
November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
PresidentLyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byJacqueline Kennedy
Succeeded byPat Nixon
Second Lady of the United States
In role
January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Vice PresidentLyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byPat Nixon
Succeeded byMuriel Humphrey (1965)
Personal details
Born
Claudia Alta Taylor

(1912-12-22)December 22, 1912
Karnack, Texas, U.S.
DiedJuly 11, 2007(2007-07-11) (aged 94)
West Lake Hills, Texas, U.S.
Resting placeJohnson Family Cemetery
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1934; died 1973)​
Children
EducationSt. Mary's Episcopal College for Women
University of Texas, Austin (BA, BJ)
Signature

Notably well educated for a woman of her era, Lady Bird proved a capable manager and a successful investor. After marrying Lyndon Johnson in 1934 when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign and then ran his office while he served in the Navy.

As First Lady, Mrs. Johnson broke new ground by interacting directly with Congress, employing her own press secretary, and making a solo electioneering tour. She was an advocate for beautifying the nation's cities and highways ("Where flowers bloom, so does hope"). The Highway Beautification Act was informally known as "Lady Bird's Bill". She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1984, the highest honors bestowed upon a U.S. civilian. Johnson has been consistently ranked in occasional Siena College Research Institute surveys of as one of the most highly regarded American first ladies per the assessments of historians.

Early life

 
A photo of Lady Bird Taylor at around age three
 
The Brick House, Lady Bird Johnson's birthplace and childhood home in Karnack, Texas

Claudia Alta Taylor was born on December 22, 1912, in Karnack, Texas, a town in Harrison County, near the eastern state line with Louisiana.[1] Her birthplace was "The Brick House", an antebellum plantation house on the outskirts of town, which her father had purchased shortly before her birth.[2] She was a descendant of English Protestant martyr Rowland Taylor through his grandson Captain Thomas J. Taylor II.

She was named for her mother's brother Claud.[3] During her infancy, her nursemaid, Alice Tittle,[4][5] said that she was as "pretty as a ladybird".[6] Opinions differ about whether the name refers to a bird or a ladybird beetle, the latter of which is commonly referred to as a "ladybug" in North America.[4] The nickname virtually replaced her first name for the rest of her life. Her father and siblings called her Lady,[7] and her husband called her Bird—the name she used on her marriage license. During her teenage years, some classmates would call her Bird to provoke her, since she reportedly was not fond of the name.[8]

Nearly all of her maternal and paternal immigrant ancestors arrived in the Virginia Colony during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, likely as indentured servants as were most early settlers in the colony. Her father, a native of Alabama, had primarily English ancestry, and some Welsh and Danish. Her mother, also a native of Alabama, was of English and Scottish descent.[citation needed]

Her father, Thomas Jefferson Jonson Taylor[9] (August 29, 1874 – October 22, 1960), was a sharecropper's son. He became a wealthy businessman, and owned 15,000 acres (6,070 ha) of cotton and two general stores. "My father was a very strong character, to put it mildly", his daughter once said. "He lived by his own rules. It was a whole feudal way of life, really."[5]

Her mother, born Minnie Lee Pattillo (1874–1918), loved opera and felt out of place in Karnack; she was often in "poor emotional and physical health".[3] When Lady Bird was five years old, Minnie fell down a flight of stairs while pregnant and died of complications of miscarriage in 1918.[3] In a profile of Lady Bird Johnson, Time magazine described Lady Bird's mother as "a tall, eccentric woman from an old and aristocratic Alabama family, [who] liked to wear long white dresses and heavy veils [... and who] scandalized people for miles around by entertaining Negroes in her home, and once even started to write a book about Negro religious practices, called Bio Baptism."[10][11] Her husband, however, tended to see black people as nothing more than "hewers of wood and drawers of water", according to his younger son Anthony.[10]

Lady Bird had two elder brothers, Thomas Jefferson Jr. (1901–1959) and Antonio, also known as Tony (1904–1986). Her widowed father married twice more. His second wife was Beulah Taylor, a bookkeeper at a general store.[12] His third wife was Ruth Scroggins, whom he married in 1937.[13]

Lady Bird was largely raised by her maternal aunt Effie Pattillo, who moved to Karnack after her sister's death. She also visited her Pattillo relatives in Autauga County, Alabama, every summer until she was a young woman. As she explained, "Until I was about 20, summertime always meant Alabama to me. With Aunt Effie we would board the train in Marshall and ride to the part of the world that meant watermelon cuttings, picnics at the creek, and a lot of company every Sunday."[14] According to Lady Bird, her Aunt Effie "opened my spirit to beauty, but she neglected to give me any insight into the practical matters a girl should know about, such as how to dress or choose one's friends or learning to dance."[8]

Lady Bird was a shy and quiet girl who spent much of her youth alone outdoors. "People always look back at it now and assume it was lonely", she once said about her childhood. "To me it definitely was not. ... I spent a lot of time just walking and fishing and swimming."[15] She developed her lifelong love of the outdoors as a child growing up in the tall pines and bayous of East Texas, where she watched the wildflowers bloom each spring.[16]

Education

 
Claudia Taylor's graduation

When it came time to enter high school,[15] Lady Bird had to move away and live with another family during weekdays in the town of Jefferson, Texas,[17] since there was no high school in the Karnack area. (Her brothers were sent to boarding schools in New York.) She graduated third in her class at the age of 15 from Marshall Senior High School in the nearby county seat. Despite her young age, her father gave her a car so that she could drive herself to school, a distance of 15 miles (24 km) each way. She said of that time, "[I]t was an awful chore for my daddy to delegate some person from his business to take me in and out."[15] During her senior year, when she realized that she had the highest grades in her class, she "purposely allowed her grades to slip" so that she would not have to give the valedictorian or salutatorian speech.[4]

After graduating from high school in May 1928, Lady Bird entered the University of Alabama for the summer session, where she took her first journalism course. But, homesick for Texas, she stayed at home and did not return for the fall term at Alabama.[18] Instead, she and a high school friend enrolled at St. Mary's Episcopal College for Women,[19] an Episcopal boarding junior college for women in Dallas. It influenced her to "convert to the Episcopal faith", although she waited five years to be confirmed.[20]

After graduating from St. Mary's in May 1930, Lady Bird toyed with the idea of going back to Alabama. Another friend from Marshall was going to the University of Texas, so she chartered a plane to Austin to join her. As the plane landed, she was awed by the sight of a field covered with bluebonnets and instantly fell in love with the city.[21] Lady Bird received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history[22] with honors in 1933[23] and a second bachelor's degree in journalism cum laude in 1934.[24] She was active on campus in different organizations, including Texas Orange Jackets, a women's honorary service organization, and believed in student leadership. Her goal was to become a reporter, but she also earned a teaching certificate.[4]

The summer after her second graduation, she and a girlfriend traveled to New York City and Washington, D.C., where they peered through the fence at the White House.[4] Dallek described Lady Bird as having undergone a boost in her self-confidence through her years at the college. Her time marked a departure from her timid behavior in her youth.[25]

Marriage and family

A friend in Austin introduced her to Lyndon Baines Johnson, a 26-year-old Congressional aide with political aspirations,[26] working for Congressman Richard Kleberg.[4] Lady Bird recalled having felt "like a moth drawn to a flame".[27] Biographer Randall B. Woods attributed Johnson's "neglect of his legal studies" to his courting of Lady Bird.[28]

On their first date, at the Driskill Hotel,[5] Lyndon proposed. Lady Bird did not want to rush into marriage, but he was persistent and did not want to wait. Ten weeks later, Lady Bird accepted his proposal.[4] The couple married on November 17, 1934, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas.

After she suffered three miscarriages,[4] the couple had two daughters together: Lynda Bird (born 1944) and Luci Baines (born 1947).[29] The couple and their two daughters all shared the initials LBJ. Their daughters lived in the White House during their teenage years, under close scrutiny of the media.

Lynda Bird married Charles S. Robb in a White House ceremony. He was later elected as governor of Virginia and U.S. Senator. Luci Baines married Pat Nugent in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and, later, Ian Turpin. Lady Bird had seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren at the time of her death.[4]

Their marriage, however, suffered due to Lyndon's numerous affairs[30] - in particular, the relationship between Lyndon and Alice Glass. This relationship was on-and-off between 1939 and the early years of his presidency, and was eventually ended due to Glass's opposition to the Vietnam war. Lady Bird Johnson's awareness of these infidelities was included in her 2007 obituary, noting that Lady Bird "was openly humiliated". LBJ would even brag that he had slept with more women[31] than John F. Kennedy.

Early politics

When Lyndon decided to run for Congress from Austin's 10th district, Lady Bird provided the money to launch his campaign. She took $10,000 of her inheritance from her mother's estate to help start his political career.[32] The couple settled in Washington, D.C., after Lyndon was elected to Congress.[33] After he enlisted in the Navy at the outset of the Second World War, Lady Bird ran his congressional office.[33]

Lady Bird sometimes served as a mediating force between her wilful husband and those he encountered. On one occasion after Lyndon had clashed with Dan Rather, then a young Houston, Texas, reporter, Lady Bird followed Rather in her car. Stopping him, she invited him to return and have some punch, explaining, "That's just the way Lyndon sometimes is."[34]

During the years of the Johnson presidency, Lyndon in one incident yelled at the White House photographer who failed to show up for a photoshoot with the First Lady. She consoled the photographer afterward, who said that, in spite of his feelings against President Johnson, he "would walk over hot coals for Lady Bird."[35]

Business career

In January–February 1943, during World War II, Lady Bird Johnson spent $17,500 of her inheritance to purchase KTBC, an Austin radio station.[2] She bought the radio station from a three-man partnership that included Robert B. Anderson, a future U.S. Secretary of the Navy and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and Texas oilman and rancher Wesley West.

She served as president of the LBJ Holding Co., and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network. Lady Bird decided to expand by buying a television station in 1952, despite Lyndon's objections. She reminded him that she could do as she wished with her inheritance.[4] The station, KTBC-TV/7 (then affiliated with CBS as well), was Austin's monopoly VHF franchise and generated revenues that made the Johnsons millionaires.[36] Over the years, journalists have revealed that Lyndon used his influence in the Senate to influence the Federal Communications Commission into granting the monopoly license, which was in Lady Bird's name.[37][38][39]

LBJ Holding also had two small banks; they failed and were closed in 1991 by the FDIC. But the core Johnson radio properties survived and prospered. Emmis Communications bought KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KGSR, and three other stations from LBJ Holding in 2003 for $105 million.[40]

Eventually, Lady Bird's initial $41,000 investment turned into more than $150 million for the LBJ Holding Company.[41] She was the first president's wife to have become a millionaire in her own right before her husband was elected to office.[2] She remained involved with the company until she was in her eighties.[4]

Second Lady of the United States

 
Johnson circa 1962

John F. Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate for the 1960 election. At Kennedy's request, Lady Bird took an expanded role during the campaign, as his wife Jacqueline was pregnant with their second child. Over 71 days, Lady Bird traveled 35,000 miles (56,000 km) through 11 states and appeared at 150 events.[4] Kennedy and Johnson won the election that November, with Lady Bird helping the Democratic ticket carry seven Southern states.[4]

Reflecting later, Lady Bird said that the years her husband served as vice president and she as Second Lady was "a very different period of our lives." Nationally, the two had a kind of celebrity, but they both found the office of Vice President to lack power.[42]

As the Vice President's wife, Lady Bird often served as a substitute for Jacqueline Kennedy at official events and functions.[43] Within her first year as Second Lady, she had substituted for Mrs. Kennedy at more than 50 events, roughly one per week.[44] This experience prepared Lady Bird for the following challenges of her unexpected years as First Lady.[42]

On November 22, 1963, the Johnsons were accompanying the Kennedys in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated; they were two cars behind the President in his motorcade. Lyndon was sworn in as president on Air Force One two hours after Kennedy died, with Lady Bird and Jacqueline Kennedy by his side.[45] Afterward, Lady Bird created a tape on which she recorded her memories of the assassination, saying it was "primarily as a form of therapy to help me over the shock and horror of the experience." She submitted a transcript of the tape to the Warren Commission as testimony. LBJ advisor Abe Fortas had made notations on her document to add detail.[46] In their plans for their trip to Texas, the Johnsons had intended to entertain the Kennedys that night at their ranch.[47]

In the days following the assassination, Lady Bird worked with Jacqueline Kennedy on the transition of her husband to the White House. While having great respect for Jacqueline and finding her strong in the aftermath of the murder, Lady Bird believed from the start of her tenure as First Lady that she would be unfavorably compared to her immediate predecessor.[45] On her last day in the White House, Jacqueline Kennedy left Lady Bird a note in which she promised she would "be happy" there.[48]

First Lady of the United States

 
Johnson working in her office

As First Lady, Lady Bird started a capital beautification project[49] (Society for a More Beautiful National Capital). It was intended to improve physical conditions in Washington, D.C. for residents and tourists by planting millions of flowers, many of them on National Park Service land along roadways around the capital.[41] She said, "Where flowers bloom, so does hope."

She worked extensively with the American Association of Nurserymen (AAN) executive Vice President Robert F. Lederer to protect wildflowers and promoted planting them along highways. Her efforts inspired similar programs throughout the country. She became the first president's wife to advocate actively for legislation[2] when she was instrumental in promoting the Highway Beautification Act, which was nicknamed "Lady Bird's Bill".[4] It was developed to beautify the nation's highway system by limiting billboards and by planting roadside areas. She was also an advocate of the Head Start program to give children from lower-income families a step up in school readiness.[2]

Lady Bird created the modern structure of the First Lady's office: she was the first in this role to have a press secretary and chief of staff of her own, and an outside liaison with Congress.[41] Her press secretary from 1963 to 1969 was Liz Carpenter, a fellow alumna of the University of Texas. As a mark of changing times, Carpenter was the first professional newswoman to become press secretary to a First Lady; she also served as Lady Bird's staff director. Lady Bird's tenure as First Lady marked the beginning of the hiring of employees in the East Wing to work specifically on the First Lady's projects.[36]

President Johnson had initially said he would turn down the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1964, having been unhappy during his service in President Kennedy's administration and believing the party did not want him. Although aides could not sway him, the First Lady convinced him otherwise, reassuring him of his worthiness and saying that if he dropped out, the Republicans would likely take the White House.[50]

 
Johnson plants a cherry tree

During the 1964 campaign, Lady Bird traveled through eight Southern states from October 6 to 9 in a chartered train, the Lady Bird Special, at one point giving 45 speeches over four days.[51][52][41][36] It was the first solo whistle-stop tour by a First Lady.[34] In the same month, Lady Bird continued her campaign tour by airplane, with stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, and Kentucky.[53]

In the November 1964 presidential election Johnson won a landslide victory over his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater. At the ceremony to swear in the new president, Lady Bird held the Bible as her husband took the oath of office on January 20, 1965, starting a tradition which continues.[54]

On September 22, 1965, Lady Bird dedicated a Peoria, Illinois, landscape plaza, with the president of the Peoria City Beautification Association, Leslie Kenyon, saying during the ceremony that Lady Bird was the first presidential spouse "who has visited our city as an official guest in our 140 years of existence."[55]

On September 22, 1966, Lady Bird dedicated the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, fulfilling a goal that both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had sought to accomplish. She said the dam belonged to all Americans amid an increasing concern for water that affected every American "no matter whether he lives in New York or Page, Arizona."[56]

In late-August 1967, Lady Bird traveled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to attend the Expo 67, a White House aide saying she had been urged by the President to travel there since his own trip three months prior.[57]

In mid-September 1967, Lady Bird began touring the Midwestern United States as part of a trip that one White House described as "mostly agriculture during the day and culture at night." President Johnson was then declining in support by farmers, months before a planned re-election bid.[58] Speaking to a crowd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on September 20, Lady Bird said problems within American cities were creating crime.[59]

 
Lady Bird Johnson at the signing of the Highway Beautification Act, also referred to as "Lady Bird's Bill"

In January 1968 at a White House luncheon,[60] Eartha Kitt, when asked by the First Lady what her views were on the Vietnam War, replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot." Kitt's anti-war remarks reportedly angered Lyndon and Mrs. Johnson, and this resulted in the derailment of Kitt's professional career.[61][62][63][64]

Toward the end of Johnson's first term, Lady Bird was anxious for her husband to leave office.[65] In September 1967, Lady Bird voiced her concerns that a second term would be detrimental to his health. Health concerns may have been one of reasons why President Johnson decided not to seek re-election.[66]

In 1970, Lady Bird published A White House Diary, her intimate, behind-the-scenes account of her husband's presidency spanning November 22, 1963, to January 20, 1969. Beginning with President Kennedy's assassination, she recorded the momentous events of her times, including the Great Society's War on Poverty; the national civil rights and social protest movements; her activism on behalf of the environment; and the Vietnam War.

Johnson was acquainted with a long span of fellow First Ladies, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Laura Bush. She was protected by the United States Secret Service for 44 years.[67]

Biographer Betty Boyd Caroli said in 2015 of Johnson that

She really invented the job of the modern first lady. She was the first one to have a big staff, the first one to have a comprehensive program in her own name, the first one to write a book about the White House years, when she leaves. She had an important role in setting up an enduring role for her husband with the LBJ Library. She's the first one to campaign extensively on her own for her husband.[68]

Writing in 1986, William H. Inman observed that Johnson was considered by some "the most effective First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt", citing her battles against highway billboard forests, auto heaps, and junk piles as well as her support for American public landscapes maintaining beauty and sanity.[69]

Later life

 
Johnson at a Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation Board Meeting

Former President Johnson died of a heart attack in 1973, four years after leaving office.[36] When he suffered the heart attack, Lady Bird was in a meeting, and the former president had died when she reached him. She arranged for the body to lie in state at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum the following day, and the body was laid to rest two days later. The couple's elder daughter, Lynda, said that God "knew what he was doing" when her father died ahead of her mother; she thought her father would not have been able to live without Lady Bird.[70] After his death, Lady Bird took time to travel and spent more time with her daughters.[71] She remained in the public eye, honoring her husband and other presidents. She entertained the wives of governors at the LBJ Presidential Library.[72]

In the 1970s, Johnson focused her attention on the Austin riverfront area through her involvement in the Town Lake Beautification Project. From 1971 to 1978, she served on the board of regents for the University of Texas System.[73] She also served on the National Park Service Advisory Board, and was the first woman to serve on National Geographic Society's Board of Trustees.[36] President Nixon mentioned her as a possible ambassador in a circulated memo, but never nominated her for office.[36]

In December 1973, after President Nixon established the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac, he notified Johnson via a telephone call.[74]

In August 1975, after First Lady Betty Ford made comments on sex, Johnson expressed sympathy: "I know the pressures of being a First Lady, and I think maybe she got asked one question too quick."[75]

During the 1976 United States presidential election, Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter apologized to Johnson over comments he made about her husband during an interview in which he stated he would not follow trends of "lying, cheating, and distorting the truth" set forth by former Presidents Nixon and Johnson.[76]

 
Johnson alongside president Jimmy Carter in September, 1977

In November 1977, Johnson spoke at the 1977 National Women's Conference among other speakers including Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Cecilia Burciaga, Gloria Steinem, Lenore Hershey and Jean O'Leary.[77]

On March 12, 1980, Johnson returned to the White House and attended a reception commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Head Start program. In his remarks, President Carter expressed gratitude for her attending as he stated "she personifies too, as you know, the essence of what this great man did with those who worked around him", referring to her late husband.[78]

In June 1981, officials of Dartmouth College stated that Johnson and former President Gerald Ford would serve as co-chairs of the fundraising committee for the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences.[79] Johnson later attended the dedication of the center in September 1983.[80]

In 1982, Johnson and actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center west of Austin, Texas, as a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving and reintroducing native plants in planned landscapes.[81] In 1994, the center opened a new facility southwest of Austin; they officially renamed it the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1995[82] in acknowledgment of her having raised $10 million for the facility.[41] In 2006, the center was incorporated into the University of Texas at Austin.[82]

 
Johnson with philanthropist Enid A. Haupt in 1988

In 1988, Johnson convened with three other former first ladies—Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, and Pat Nixon—at the "Women and the Constitution" conference at The Carter Center to assess that document's impact on women. The conference featured over 150 speakers and 1,500 attendees from all 50 states and 10 foreign countries. The conference was meant to promote awareness on sexual inequality in other countries, and fight against it in America.[83]

 
Johnson c. 1989

In September 1991, Johnson unveiled a new line of English porcelain flower sculpture that drew influence from American wildflowers in the Corrigan's Jewelry at NorthPark Center in Dallas.[84]

For 20 years, Johnson spent her summers on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, renting the home of Charles Guggenheim for many of those years. She said she had greatly appreciated the island's natural beauty and flowers.[85]

In August 1984, Johnson publicly stated her support for the vice-presidential nomination of Geraldine Ferraro in that year's presidential election while admitting the difficulty the Mondale-Ferraro ticket faced in winning Texas.[86]

Johnson returned to the White House for the twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration of her husband's inauguration on April 6, 1990. Incumbent President George H. W. Bush praised her for her support of her husband and work toward beautifying landscapes.[87]

On October 13, 2006, Johnson made a rare public appearance at the renovation announcement of the LBJ Library and Museum.

Health problems and death

 
Johnson with her daughter Lynda Johnson Robb and First Lady Laura Bush on October 19, 2005
 
Funeral service for Lady Bird Johnson; Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter, Laura Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, (second row) Caroline Kennedy, Barbara Bush, Susan Ford Bales, (third row) Maria Shriver, and Patricia "Tricia" Nixon Cox attended, representing eight other presidents.

In 1986, 13 years after her husband's death, Johnson's health began to fail. She suffered her first fainting spell that year while attending a funeral, and entered St. David's Community Hospital for observation. She also injured her left knee in a fall the day before her hospitalization.[88] In August 1993, she suffered a stroke and became legally blind due to macular degeneration. In 1999, she was hospitalized for a second fainting spell. In 2002, she suffered a second, more severe, stroke, which left her unable to speak normally or walk without assistance. In 2005, she spent a few days in an Austin hospital for treatment of bronchitis. In February 2006, Lynda Johnson Robb told a gathering at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, that her mother was totally blind and was "not in very good health".[89] In June 2007, she spent six days in Seton Hospital in Austin after suffering from a low-grade fever.[90]

Lady Bird Johnson died at home on July 11, 2007, at 4:18 p.m. (CDT) from natural causes at the age of 94, attended by family members and Catholic priest Father Robert Scott.[91][92][93]

At the funeral service, her daughter, Luci Baines Johnson gave a eulogy, saying, "A few weeks before Mother died, I was taking visiting relatives to the extraordinary Blanton Art Museum ... Mother was on IV antibiotics, a feeding tube, and oxygen, but she wasn't gonna let little things like that deter her from discovering another great art museum. What a picture we were—literally rolling through the museum like a mobile hospital."[94]

Three weeks before Johnson's death, the rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, which had been her second home for more than 50 years, had announced to his parishioners that she had given $300,000 to pay off the church's mortgage.[95]

Johnson's funeral was a public event. On July 15, 2007, a ceremonial cortège left the Texas State Capitol. The public was invited to line the route through downtown Austin on Congress Avenue and along the shores of Lady Bird Lake to pay their respects. The public part of the funeral procession ended in Johnson City. The family had a private burial at the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall, where she was buried next to her husband, who had died 34 years earlier.[96] Unlike previous funerals for first ladies, the pallbearers came from members of the armed forces.[96][97]

She was the first former first lady to die in the 21st century. She is also the fourth-longest-living first lady, after Nancy Reagan, who surpassed her by 40 days, Rosalynn Carter, who is currently 95, and Bess Truman, who lived to be 97.

Historical assessments

Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. Consistently, Johnson has ranked among the seven-most highly regarded first ladies in these surveys.[98] In terms of cumulative assessment, Johnson has been ranked:

  • 3rd-best of 42 in 1982[98]
  • 6th-best of 37 in 1993[98]
  • 7th-best of 38 in 2003[98]
  • 5th-best of 38 in 2008[98]
  • 7th-best of 39 in 2014[98]

In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey, Johnson was ranked in the top-five for six out of the ten criteria, ranking the 5th-highest in of background, 5th-highest in intelligence, 5th-highest in value to the country, 5th-highest in integrity, 4th-highest in her accomplishments, and 5th-highest in leadership.[99] In additional questions asked in the 2014 survey, among 20th and 21st century American first ladies, historians assessed Johnson as the 5th easiest to imagine serving as president herself, having had the 5th-greatest public service after leaving the White House, and having been the 5th-best in creating a lasting legacy.[98] In the 2014 survey, Johnson and her husband were also ranked the 10-highest out of 39 first couples in terms of being a "power couple".[100]

Honors

On August 27, 1969, President Richard Nixon dedicated a 300-acre grove of redwood trees as the "Lady Bird Johnson Grove", due to her efforts as First Lady toward preserving national resources for Americans. The grove is located just north of Orick, California, and is part of Redwood National Park. Lady Bird attended the dedication with former President Johnson.[101]

Lady Bird Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford on January 10, 1977. The citation for her medal read:

One of America's great First Ladies, she claimed her own place in the hearts and history of the American people. In councils of power or in homes of the poor, she made government human with her unique compassion and her grace, warmth and wisdom. Her leadership transformed the American landscape and preserved its natural beauty as a national treasure.[17]

She received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1988, becoming the first wife of a President to receive the honor.[1] In a 1982 poll taken of historians ranking the most influential and important First Ladies, Lady Bird was ranked third—behind Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt—primarily for her work as a conservation activist.[4]

In 1995, the National Wildflower Research Center—near Austin, Texas—was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She and actress Helen Hayes had founded the center in 1982.

In 1995, Lady Bird received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[102]

In November 1968, Columbia Island, in Washington, D.C., was renamed Lady Bird Johnson Park, in honor of her campaign as First Lady to beautify the capital. In 1976, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac was dedicated on Columbia Island.[4]

Lady Bird declined many overtures to name Austin's Town Lake in her honor after she had led a campaign to clean up the lake and add trails to its shoreline; following her death, Austin Mayor Will Wynn's office said it was a "foregone conclusion that Town Lake is going to be renamed" in honor of Lady Bird Johnson.[17] The lake was renamed Lady Bird Lake on July 26, 2007.[103]

In April 2008, the "Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Cherry Blossom Grove" was dedicated in Marshfield, Missouri. The dedication took place during the city's annual cherry blossom festival. Johnson had been supportive of the rural community and their initiative to plant ornamental cherry trees.[citation needed]

In 1995, she received an Honor Award from the National Building Museum for her lifetime leadership in beautification and conservation campaigns.[104] She was also named the honorary chairwoman of the Head Start program.[17]

Lady Bird held honorary degrees from many universities: Boston University; the University of Alabama; George Washington University; Johns Hopkins University; State University of New York; Southern Methodist University; Texas Woman's University; Middlebury College; Williams College, Southwestern University; Texas State University–San Marcos; Washington College; and St. Edward's University.[17]

On June 7, 2008, Texas honored Lady Bird by renaming the state convention's Blue Star Breakfast as the 'Lady Bird Breakfast'.[105] In January 2009, St. Edward's University in Austin completed a new residence hall for upperclassmen bearing the name of Lady Bird Johnson Hall, or "LBJ Hall" for short.[106]

On August 28, 2008, Lady Bird Johnson High School was opened in her name in San Antonio, Texas, a part of the North East Independent School District.

On October 22, 2012, the United States Postal Service announced the issue of a souvenir Forever stamp sheet honoring Lady Bird Johnson as a tribute to her legacy of beautifying the nation's roadsides, urban parks and trails. Five of the six stamps feature adaptations of stamps originally issued in the 1960s to promote planting in public spaces. The sixth stamp features her official White House portrait, a painting of the First Lady in a yellow gown, by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. The stamps were dedicated on November 30, 2012, at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin.[107]

In 2013, Lady Bird was posthumously awarded the prestigious Rachel Carson Award. The award, presented by Audubon's Women in Conservation, was accepted by her daughter Lynda.[108]

References

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  2. ^ a b c d e Simnacher, Joe (July 12, 2007). . The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on July 13, 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
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Further reading

  • Gillette, Michael L. Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History (Oxford University Press; 2012) 400pp
  • Gould, Lewis L. "First Lady as Catalyst: Lady Bird Johnson and Highway Beautification in the 1960s". Environmental Review 10.2 (1986): 77–92. JSTOR 3984559.
  • Gould, Lewis L. Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment (UP Kansas, 1988) online
  • Gould, Lewis L. Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady (UP of Kansas, 1999).
  • Hummer, Jill Abraham. "First Ladies and the Cultural Everywoman Ideal: Gender Performance and Representation". White House Studies 9.4 (2009) pp. 403–422. Compares Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford, and Barbara Bush.
  • Koman, Rita G. "'...to leave this splendor for our grandchildren: Lady Bird Johnson, Environmentalist Extraordinaire". OAH Magazine of History 15.3 (2001): 30–34.
  • Mezzack, Janet. "'Without Manners You Are Nothing': Lady Bird Johnson, Eartha Kitt, and The Women Doers' Luncheon of January 18, 1968". Presidential Studies Quarterly 20.4 (1990): 745–760. JSTOR 20700158.
  • Russell, Jan Jarboe. Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson (Simon and Schuster, 2014).
  • Sweig, Julia (2021). Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780812995909. OCLC 1138997551.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lady Bird Johnson.
  • Lady Bird Johnson, Former First Lady, Dies at 94
  • Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
  • FBI files on Lady Bird Johnson
  • "Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson". Presidential First Lady. Find a Grave. August 9, 2003. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
  • Norwood, Arlisha. "Claudia 'Lady Bird' Johnson". National Women's History Museum. 2017.
  • In Plain Sight: Lady Bird Johnson—A podcast
  • Appearances on C-SPAN
Honorary titles
Preceded by Second Lady of the United States
1961–1963 		Vacant
Title next held by
Muriel Humphrey
Preceded by First Lady of the United States
1963–1969 		Succeeded by

January 07, 2023
lady, bird, johnson, claudia, alta, lady, bird, johnson, née, taylor, december, 1912, july, 2007, first, lady, united, states, from, 1963, 1969, wife, president, lyndon, johnson, previously, served, second, lady, from, 1961, 1963, when, husband, vice, presiden. Claudia Alta Lady Bird Johnson nee Taylor December 22 1912 July 11 2007 was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of President Lyndon B Johnson She previously served as Second Lady from 1961 to 1963 when her husband was vice president Lady Bird JohnsonJohnson in 1967First Lady of the United StatesIn role November 22 1963 January 20 1969PresidentLyndon B JohnsonPreceded byJacqueline KennedySucceeded byPat NixonSecond Lady of the United StatesIn role January 20 1961 November 22 1963Vice PresidentLyndon B JohnsonPreceded byPat NixonSucceeded byMuriel Humphrey 1965 Personal detailsBornClaudia Alta Taylor 1912 12 22 December 22 1912Karnack Texas U S DiedJuly 11 2007 2007 07 11 aged 94 West Lake Hills Texas U S Resting placeJohnson Family CemeteryPolitical partyDemocraticSpouseLyndon B Johnson m 1934 died 1973 wbr ChildrenLyndaLuciEducationSt Mary s Episcopal College for WomenUniversity of Texas Austin BA BJ SignatureNotably well educated for a woman of her era Lady Bird proved a capable manager and a successful investor After marrying Lyndon Johnson in 1934 when he was a political hopeful in Austin Texas she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign and then ran his office while he served in the Navy As First Lady Mrs Johnson broke new ground by interacting directly with Congress employing her own press secretary and making a solo electioneering tour She was an advocate for beautifying the nation s cities and highways Where flowers bloom so does hope The Highway Beautification Act was informally known as Lady Bird s Bill She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1984 the highest honors bestowed upon a U S civilian Johnson has been consistently ranked in occasional Siena College Research Institute surveys of as one of the most highly regarded American first ladies per the assessments of historians Contents 1 Early life 2 Education 3 Marriage and family 4 Early politics 5 Business career 6 Second Lady of the United States 7 First Lady of the United States 8 Later life 8 1 Health problems and death 9 Historical assessments 10 Honors 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External linksEarly life Edit A photo of Lady Bird Taylor at around age three The Brick House Lady Bird Johnson s birthplace and childhood home in Karnack Texas Claudia Alta Taylor was born on December 22 1912 in Karnack Texas a town in Harrison County near the eastern state line with Louisiana 1 Her birthplace was The Brick House an antebellum plantation house on the outskirts of town which her father had purchased shortly before her birth 2 She was a descendant of English Protestant martyr Rowland Taylor through his grandson Captain Thomas J Taylor II She was named for her mother s brother Claud 3 During her infancy her nursemaid Alice Tittle 4 5 said that she was as pretty as a ladybird 6 Opinions differ about whether the name refers to a bird or a ladybird beetle the latter of which is commonly referred to as a ladybug in North America 4 The nickname virtually replaced her first name for the rest of her life Her father and siblings called her Lady 7 and her husband called her Bird the name she used on her marriage license During her teenage years some classmates would call her Bird to provoke her since she reportedly was not fond of the name 8 Nearly all of her maternal and paternal immigrant ancestors arrived in the Virginia Colony during the late 17th and early 18th centuries likely as indentured servants as were most early settlers in the colony Her father a native of Alabama had primarily English ancestry and some Welsh and Danish Her mother also a native of Alabama was of English and Scottish descent citation needed Her father Thomas Jefferson Jonson Taylor 9 August 29 1874 October 22 1960 was a sharecropper s son He became a wealthy businessman and owned 15 000 acres 6 070 ha of cotton and two general stores My father was a very strong character to put it mildly his daughter once said He lived by his own rules It was a whole feudal way of life really 5 Her mother born Minnie Lee Pattillo 1874 1918 loved opera and felt out of place in Karnack she was often in poor emotional and physical health 3 When Lady Bird was five years old Minnie fell down a flight of stairs while pregnant and died of complications of miscarriage in 1918 3 In a profile of Lady Bird Johnson Time magazine described Lady Bird s mother as a tall eccentric woman from an old and aristocratic Alabama family who liked to wear long white dresses and heavy veils and who scandalized people for miles around by entertaining Negroes in her home and once even started to write a book about Negro religious practices called Bio Baptism 10 11 Her husband however tended to see black people as nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of water according to his younger son Anthony 10 Lady Bird had two elder brothers Thomas Jefferson Jr 1901 1959 and Antonio also known as Tony 1904 1986 Her widowed father married twice more His second wife was Beulah Taylor a bookkeeper at a general store 12 His third wife was Ruth Scroggins whom he married in 1937 13 Lady Bird was largely raised by her maternal aunt Effie Pattillo who moved to Karnack after her sister s death She also visited her Pattillo relatives in Autauga County Alabama every summer until she was a young woman As she explained Until I was about 20 summertime always meant Alabama to me With Aunt Effie we would board the train in Marshall and ride to the part of the world that meant watermelon cuttings picnics at the creek and a lot of company every Sunday 14 According to Lady Bird her Aunt Effie opened my spirit to beauty but she neglected to give me any insight into the practical matters a girl should know about such as how to dress or choose one s friends or learning to dance 8 Lady Bird was a shy and quiet girl who spent much of her youth alone outdoors People always look back at it now and assume it was lonely she once said about her childhood To me it definitely was not I spent a lot of time just walking and fishing and swimming 15 She developed her lifelong love of the outdoors as a child growing up in the tall pines and bayous of East Texas where she watched the wildflowers bloom each spring 16 Education Edit Claudia Taylor s graduation When it came time to enter high school 15 Lady Bird had to move away and live with another family during weekdays in the town of Jefferson Texas 17 since there was no high school in the Karnack area Her brothers were sent to boarding schools in New York She graduated third in her class at the age of 15 from Marshall Senior High School in the nearby county seat Despite her young age her father gave her a car so that she could drive herself to school a distance of 15 miles 24 km each way She said of that time I t was an awful chore for my daddy to delegate some person from his business to take me in and out 15 During her senior year when she realized that she had the highest grades in her class she purposely allowed her grades to slip so that she would not have to give the valedictorian or salutatorian speech 4 After graduating from high school in May 1928 Lady Bird entered the University of Alabama for the summer session where she took her first journalism course But homesick for Texas she stayed at home and did not return for the fall term at Alabama 18 Instead she and a high school friend enrolled at St Mary s Episcopal College for Women 19 an Episcopal boarding junior college for women in Dallas It influenced her to convert to the Episcopal faith although she waited five years to be confirmed 20 After graduating from St Mary s in May 1930 Lady Bird toyed with the idea of going back to Alabama Another friend from Marshall was going to the University of Texas so she chartered a plane to Austin to join her As the plane landed she was awed by the sight of a field covered with bluebonnets and instantly fell in love with the city 21 Lady Bird received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history 22 with honors in 1933 23 and a second bachelor s degree in journalism cum laude in 1934 24 She was active on campus in different organizations including Texas Orange Jackets a women s honorary service organization and believed in student leadership Her goal was to become a reporter but she also earned a teaching certificate 4 The summer after her second graduation she and a girlfriend traveled to New York City and Washington D C where they peered through the fence at the White House 4 Dallek described Lady Bird as having undergone a boost in her self confidence through her years at the college Her time marked a departure from her timid behavior in her youth 25 Marriage and family EditA friend in Austin introduced her to Lyndon Baines Johnson a 26 year old Congressional aide with political aspirations 26 working for Congressman Richard Kleberg 4 Lady Bird recalled having felt like a moth drawn to a flame 27 Biographer Randall B Woods attributed Johnson s neglect of his legal studies to his courting of Lady Bird 28 On their first date at the Driskill Hotel 5 Lyndon proposed Lady Bird did not want to rush into marriage but he was persistent and did not want to wait Ten weeks later Lady Bird accepted his proposal 4 The couple married on November 17 1934 at St Mark s Episcopal Church in San Antonio Texas After she suffered three miscarriages 4 the couple had two daughters together Lynda Bird born 1944 and Luci Baines born 1947 29 The couple and their two daughters all shared the initials LBJ Their daughters lived in the White House during their teenage years under close scrutiny of the media Lynda Bird married Charles S Robb in a White House ceremony He was later elected as governor of Virginia and U S Senator Luci Baines married Pat Nugent in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and later Ian Turpin Lady Bird had seven grandchildren and ten great grandchildren at the time of her death 4 Their marriage however suffered due to Lyndon s numerous affairs 30 in particular the relationship between Lyndon and Alice Glass This relationship was on and off between 1939 and the early years of his presidency and was eventually ended due to Glass s opposition to the Vietnam war Lady Bird Johnson s awareness of these infidelities was included in her 2007 obituary noting that Lady Bird was openly humiliated LBJ would even brag that he had slept with more women 31 than John F Kennedy Early politics EditWhen Lyndon decided to run for Congress from Austin s 10th district Lady Bird provided the money to launch his campaign She took 10 000 of her inheritance from her mother s estate to help start his political career 32 The couple settled in Washington D C after Lyndon was elected to Congress 33 After he enlisted in the Navy at the outset of the Second World War Lady Bird ran his congressional office 33 Lady Bird sometimes served as a mediating force between her wilful husband and those he encountered On one occasion after Lyndon had clashed with Dan Rather then a young Houston Texas reporter Lady Bird followed Rather in her car Stopping him she invited him to return and have some punch explaining That s just the way Lyndon sometimes is 34 During the years of the Johnson presidency Lyndon in one incident yelled at the White House photographer who failed to show up for a photoshoot with the First Lady She consoled the photographer afterward who said that in spite of his feelings against President Johnson he would walk over hot coals for Lady Bird 35 Business career EditIn January February 1943 during World War II Lady Bird Johnson spent 17 500 of her inheritance to purchase KTBC an Austin radio station 2 She bought the radio station from a three man partnership that included Robert B Anderson a future U S Secretary of the Navy and U S Secretary of the Treasury and Texas oilman and rancher Wesley West She served as president of the LBJ Holding Co and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network Lady Bird decided to expand by buying a television station in 1952 despite Lyndon s objections She reminded him that she could do as she wished with her inheritance 4 The station KTBC TV 7 then affiliated with CBS as well was Austin s monopoly VHF franchise and generated revenues that made the Johnsons millionaires 36 Over the years journalists have revealed that Lyndon used his influence in the Senate to influence the Federal Communications Commission into granting the monopoly license which was in Lady Bird s name 37 38 39 LBJ Holding also had two small banks they failed and were closed in 1991 by the FDIC But the core Johnson radio properties survived and prospered Emmis Communications bought KLBJ AM KLBJ FM KGSR and three other stations from LBJ Holding in 2003 for 105 million 40 Eventually Lady Bird s initial 41 000 investment turned into more than 150 million for the LBJ Holding Company 41 She was the first president s wife to have become a millionaire in her own right before her husband was elected to office 2 She remained involved with the company until she was in her eighties 4 Second Lady of the United States Edit Johnson circa 1962 John F Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate for the 1960 election At Kennedy s request Lady Bird took an expanded role during the campaign as his wife Jacqueline was pregnant with their second child Over 71 days Lady Bird traveled 35 000 miles 56 000 km through 11 states and appeared at 150 events 4 Kennedy and Johnson won the election that November with Lady Bird helping the Democratic ticket carry seven Southern states 4 Reflecting later Lady Bird said that the years her husband served as vice president and she as Second Lady was a very different period of our lives Nationally the two had a kind of celebrity but they both found the office of Vice President to lack power 42 As the Vice President s wife Lady Bird often served as a substitute for Jacqueline Kennedy at official events and functions 43 Within her first year as Second Lady she had substituted for Mrs Kennedy at more than 50 events roughly one per week 44 This experience prepared Lady Bird for the following challenges of her unexpected years as First Lady 42 On November 22 1963 the Johnsons were accompanying the Kennedys in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated they were two cars behind the President in his motorcade Lyndon was sworn in as president on Air Force One two hours after Kennedy died with Lady Bird and Jacqueline Kennedy by his side 45 Afterward Lady Bird created a tape on which she recorded her memories of the assassination saying it was primarily as a form of therapy to help me over the shock and horror of the experience She submitted a transcript of the tape to the Warren Commission as testimony LBJ advisor Abe Fortas had made notations on her document to add detail 46 In their plans for their trip to Texas the Johnsons had intended to entertain the Kennedys that night at their ranch 47 In the days following the assassination Lady Bird worked with Jacqueline Kennedy on the transition of her husband to the White House While having great respect for Jacqueline and finding her strong in the aftermath of the murder Lady Bird believed from the start of her tenure as First Lady that she would be unfavorably compared to her immediate predecessor 45 On her last day in the White House Jacqueline Kennedy left Lady Bird a note in which she promised she would be happy there 48 First Lady of the United States Edit Johnson working in her office As First Lady Lady Bird started a capital beautification project 49 Society for a More Beautiful National Capital It was intended to improve physical conditions in Washington D C for residents and tourists by planting millions of flowers many of them on National Park Service land along roadways around the capital 41 She said Where flowers bloom so does hope She worked extensively with the American Association of Nurserymen AAN executive Vice President Robert F Lederer to protect wildflowers and promoted planting them along highways Her efforts inspired similar programs throughout the country She became the first president s wife to advocate actively for legislation 2 when she was instrumental in promoting the Highway Beautification Act which was nicknamed Lady Bird s Bill 4 It was developed to beautify the nation s highway system by limiting billboards and by planting roadside areas She was also an advocate of the Head Start program to give children from lower income families a step up in school readiness 2 Lady Bird created the modern structure of the First Lady s office she was the first in this role to have a press secretary and chief of staff of her own and an outside liaison with Congress 41 Her press secretary from 1963 to 1969 was Liz Carpenter a fellow alumna of the University of Texas As a mark of changing times Carpenter was the first professional newswoman to become press secretary to a First Lady she also served as Lady Bird s staff director Lady Bird s tenure as First Lady marked the beginning of the hiring of employees in the East Wing to work specifically on the First Lady s projects 36 President Johnson had initially said he would turn down the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1964 having been unhappy during his service in President Kennedy s administration and believing the party did not want him Although aides could not sway him the First Lady convinced him otherwise reassuring him of his worthiness and saying that if he dropped out the Republicans would likely take the White House 50 Johnson plants a cherry tree During the 1964 campaign Lady Bird traveled through eight Southern states from October 6 to 9 in a chartered train the Lady Bird Special at one point giving 45 speeches over four days 51 52 41 36 It was the first solo whistle stop tour by a First Lady 34 In the same month Lady Bird continued her campaign tour by airplane with stops in Texas Oklahoma Arkansas Indiana and Kentucky 53 In the November 1964 presidential election Johnson won a landslide victory over his Republican opponent Barry Goldwater At the ceremony to swear in the new president Lady Bird held the Bible as her husband took the oath of office on January 20 1965 starting a tradition which continues 54 On September 22 1965 Lady Bird dedicated a Peoria Illinois landscape plaza with the president of the Peoria City Beautification Association Leslie Kenyon saying during the ceremony that Lady Bird was the first presidential spouse who has visited our city as an official guest in our 140 years of existence 55 On September 22 1966 Lady Bird dedicated the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona fulfilling a goal that both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had sought to accomplish She said the dam belonged to all Americans amid an increasing concern for water that affected every American no matter whether he lives in New York or Page Arizona 56 In late August 1967 Lady Bird traveled to Montreal Quebec Canada to attend the Expo 67 a White House aide saying she had been urged by the President to travel there since his own trip three months prior 57 In mid September 1967 Lady Bird began touring the Midwestern United States as part of a trip that one White House described as mostly agriculture during the day and culture at night President Johnson was then declining in support by farmers months before a planned re election bid 58 Speaking to a crowd in Minneapolis Minnesota on September 20 Lady Bird said problems within American cities were creating crime 59 Lady Bird Johnson at the signing of the Highway Beautification Act also referred to as Lady Bird s Bill In January 1968 at a White House luncheon 60 Eartha Kitt when asked by the First Lady what her views were on the Vietnam War replied You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed No wonder the kids rebel and take pot Kitt s anti war remarks reportedly angered Lyndon and Mrs Johnson and this resulted in the derailment of Kitt s professional career 61 62 63 64 Toward the end of Johnson s first term Lady Bird was anxious for her husband to leave office 65 In September 1967 Lady Bird voiced her concerns that a second term would be detrimental to his health Health concerns may have been one of reasons why President Johnson decided not to seek re election 66 In 1970 Lady Bird published A White House Diary her intimate behind the scenes account of her husband s presidency spanning November 22 1963 to January 20 1969 Beginning with President Kennedy s assassination she recorded the momentous events of her times including the Great Society s War on Poverty the national civil rights and social protest movements her activism on behalf of the environment and the Vietnam War Johnson was acquainted with a long span of fellow First Ladies from Eleanor Roosevelt to Laura Bush She was protected by the United States Secret Service for 44 years 67 Biographer Betty Boyd Caroli said in 2015 of Johnson that She really invented the job of the modern first lady She was the first one to have a big staff the first one to have a comprehensive program in her own name the first one to write a book about the White House years when she leaves She had an important role in setting up an enduring role for her husband with the LBJ Library She s the first one to campaign extensively on her own for her husband 68 Writing in 1986 William H Inman observed that Johnson was considered by some the most effective First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt citing her battles against highway billboard forests auto heaps and junk piles as well as her support for American public landscapes maintaining beauty and sanity 69 Later life Edit Johnson at a Lyndon B Johnson Foundation Board Meeting Former President Johnson died of a heart attack in 1973 four years after leaving office 36 When he suffered the heart attack Lady Bird was in a meeting and the former president had died when she reached him She arranged for the body to lie in state at the Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library and Museum the following day and the body was laid to rest two days later The couple s elder daughter Lynda said that God knew what he was doing when her father died ahead of her mother she thought her father would not have been able to live without Lady Bird 70 After his death Lady Bird took time to travel and spent more time with her daughters 71 She remained in the public eye honoring her husband and other presidents She entertained the wives of governors at the LBJ Presidential Library 72 In the 1970s Johnson focused her attention on the Austin riverfront area through her involvement in the Town Lake Beautification Project From 1971 to 1978 she served on the board of regents for the University of Texas System 73 She also served on the National Park Service Advisory Board and was the first woman to serve on National Geographic Society s Board of Trustees 36 President Nixon mentioned her as a possible ambassador in a circulated memo but never nominated her for office 36 In December 1973 after President Nixon established the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac he notified Johnson via a telephone call 74 In August 1975 after First Lady Betty Ford made comments on sex Johnson expressed sympathy I know the pressures of being a First Lady and I think maybe she got asked one question too quick 75 During the 1976 United States presidential election Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter apologized to Johnson over comments he made about her husband during an interview in which he stated he would not follow trends of lying cheating and distorting the truth set forth by former Presidents Nixon and Johnson 76 Johnson alongside president Jimmy Carter in September 1977 In November 1977 Johnson spoke at the 1977 National Women s Conference among other speakers including Rosalynn Carter Betty Ford Bella Abzug Barbara Jordan Cecilia Burciaga Gloria Steinem Lenore Hershey and Jean O Leary 77 On March 12 1980 Johnson returned to the White House and attended a reception commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the Head Start program In his remarks President Carter expressed gratitude for her attending as he stated she personifies too as you know the essence of what this great man did with those who worked around him referring to her late husband 78 In June 1981 officials of Dartmouth College stated that Johnson and former President Gerald Ford would serve as co chairs of the fundraising committee for the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences 79 Johnson later attended the dedication of the center in September 1983 80 In 1982 Johnson and actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center west of Austin Texas as a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving and reintroducing native plants in planned landscapes 81 In 1994 the center opened a new facility southwest of Austin they officially renamed it the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1995 82 in acknowledgment of her having raised 10 million for the facility 41 In 2006 the center was incorporated into the University of Texas at Austin 82 Johnson with philanthropist Enid A Haupt in 1988In 1988 Johnson convened with three other former first ladies Betty Ford Rosalynn Carter and Pat Nixon at the Women and the Constitution conference at The Carter Center to assess that document s impact on women The conference featured over 150 speakers and 1 500 attendees from all 50 states and 10 foreign countries The conference was meant to promote awareness on sexual inequality in other countries and fight against it in America 83 Johnson c 1989In September 1991 Johnson unveiled a new line of English porcelain flower sculpture that drew influence from American wildflowers in the Corrigan s Jewelry at NorthPark Center in Dallas 84 For 20 years Johnson spent her summers on the Massachusetts island of Martha s Vineyard renting the home of Charles Guggenheim for many of those years She said she had greatly appreciated the island s natural beauty and flowers 85 In August 1984 Johnson publicly stated her support for the vice presidential nomination of Geraldine Ferraro in that year s presidential election while admitting the difficulty the Mondale Ferraro ticket faced in winning Texas 86 Johnson returned to the White House for the twenty fifth anniversary celebration of her husband s inauguration on April 6 1990 Incumbent President George H W Bush praised her for her support of her husband and work toward beautifying landscapes 87 On October 13 2006 Johnson made a rare public appearance at the renovation announcement of the LBJ Library and Museum Health problems and death Edit Johnson with her daughter Lynda Johnson Robb and First Lady Laura Bush on October 19 2005 Funeral service for Lady Bird Johnson Nancy Reagan Rosalynn Carter Jimmy Carter Laura Bush Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton second row Caroline Kennedy Barbara Bush Susan Ford Bales third row Maria Shriver and Patricia Tricia Nixon Cox attended representing eight other presidents In 1986 13 years after her husband s death Johnson s health began to fail She suffered her first fainting spell that year while attending a funeral and entered St David s Community Hospital for observation She also injured her left knee in a fall the day before her hospitalization 88 In August 1993 she suffered a stroke and became legally blind due to macular degeneration In 1999 she was hospitalized for a second fainting spell In 2002 she suffered a second more severe stroke which left her unable to speak normally or walk without assistance In 2005 she spent a few days in an Austin hospital for treatment of bronchitis In February 2006 Lynda Johnson Robb told a gathering at the Truman Library in Independence Missouri that her mother was totally blind and was not in very good health 89 In June 2007 she spent six days in Seton Hospital in Austin after suffering from a low grade fever 90 Lady Bird Johnson died at home on July 11 2007 at 4 18 p m CDT from natural causes at the age of 94 attended by family members and Catholic priest Father Robert Scott 91 92 93 At the funeral service her daughter Luci Baines Johnson gave a eulogy saying A few weeks before Mother died I was taking visiting relatives to the extraordinary Blanton Art Museum Mother was on IV antibiotics a feeding tube and oxygen but she wasn t gonna let little things like that deter her from discovering another great art museum What a picture we were literally rolling through the museum like a mobile hospital 94 Three weeks before Johnson s death the rector of St Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg which had been her second home for more than 50 years had announced to his parishioners that she had given 300 000 to pay off the church s mortgage 95 Johnson s funeral was a public event On July 15 2007 a ceremonial cortege left the Texas State Capitol The public was invited to line the route through downtown Austin on Congress Avenue and along the shores of Lady Bird Lake to pay their respects The public part of the funeral procession ended in Johnson City The family had a private burial at the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall where she was buried next to her husband who had died 34 years earlier 96 Unlike previous funerals for first ladies the pallbearers came from members of the armed forces 96 97 She was the first former first lady to die in the 21st century She is also the fourth longest living first lady after Nancy Reagan who surpassed her by 40 days Rosalynn Carter who is currently 95 and Bess Truman who lived to be 97 Historical assessments EditSince 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background value to the country intelligence courage accomplishments integrity leadership being their own women public image and value to the president Consistently Johnson has ranked among the seven most highly regarded first ladies in these surveys 98 In terms of cumulative assessment Johnson has been ranked 3rd best of 42 in 1982 98 6th best of 37 in 1993 98 7th best of 38 in 2003 98 5th best of 38 in 2008 98 7th best of 39 in 2014 98 In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey Johnson was ranked in the top five for six out of the ten criteria ranking the 5th highest in of background 5th highest in intelligence 5th highest in value to the country 5th highest in integrity 4th highest in her accomplishments and 5th highest in leadership 99 In additional questions asked in the 2014 survey among 20th and 21st century American first ladies historians assessed Johnson as the 5th easiest to imagine serving as president herself having had the 5th greatest public service after leaving the White House and having been the 5th best in creating a lasting legacy 98 In the 2014 survey Johnson and her husband were also ranked the 10 highest out of 39 first couples in terms of being a power couple 100 Honors EditOn August 27 1969 President Richard Nixon dedicated a 300 acre grove of redwood trees as the Lady Bird Johnson Grove due to her efforts as First Lady toward preserving national resources for Americans The grove is located just north of Orick California and is part of Redwood National Park Lady Bird attended the dedication with former President Johnson 101 Lady Bird Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford on January 10 1977 The citation for her medal read One of America s great First Ladies she claimed her own place in the hearts and history of the American people In councils of power or in homes of the poor she made government human with her unique compassion and her grace warmth and wisdom Her leadership transformed the American landscape and preserved its natural beauty as a national treasure 17 She received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1988 becoming the first wife of a President to receive the honor 1 In a 1982 poll taken of historians ranking the most influential and important First Ladies Lady Bird was ranked third behind Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt primarily for her work as a conservation activist 4 In 1995 the National Wildflower Research Center near Austin Texas was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center She and actress Helen Hayes had founded the center in 1982 In 1995 Lady Bird received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement 102 In November 1968 Columbia Island in Washington D C was renamed Lady Bird Johnson Park in honor of her campaign as First Lady to beautify the capital In 1976 the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac was dedicated on Columbia Island 4 Lady Bird declined many overtures to name Austin s Town Lake in her honor after she had led a campaign to clean up the lake and add trails to its shoreline following her death Austin Mayor Will Wynn s office said it was a foregone conclusion that Town Lake is going to be renamed in honor of Lady Bird Johnson 17 The lake was renamed Lady Bird Lake on July 26 2007 103 In April 2008 the Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Cherry Blossom Grove was dedicated in Marshfield Missouri The dedication took place during the city s annual cherry blossom festival Johnson had been supportive of the rural community and their initiative to plant ornamental cherry trees citation needed In 1995 she received an Honor Award from the National Building Museum for her lifetime leadership in beautification and conservation campaigns 104 She was also named the honorary chairwoman of the Head Start program 17 Lady Bird held honorary degrees from many universities Boston University the University of Alabama George Washington University Johns Hopkins University State University of New York Southern Methodist University Texas Woman s University Middlebury College Williams College Southwestern University Texas State University San Marcos Washington College and St Edward s University 17 On June 7 2008 Texas honored Lady Bird by renaming the state convention s Blue Star Breakfast as the Lady Bird Breakfast 105 In January 2009 St Edward s University in Austin completed a new residence hall for upperclassmen bearing the name of Lady Bird Johnson Hall or LBJ Hall for short 106 On August 28 2008 Lady Bird Johnson High School was opened in her name in San Antonio Texas a part of the North East Independent School District On October 22 2012 the United States Postal Service announced the issue of a souvenir Forever stamp sheet honoring Lady Bird Johnson as a tribute to her legacy of beautifying the nation s roadsides urban parks and trails Five of the six stamps feature adaptations of stamps originally issued in the 1960s to promote planting in public spaces The sixth stamp features her official White House portrait a painting of the First Lady in a yellow gown by Elizabeth Shoumatoff The stamps were dedicated on November 30 2012 at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin 107 In 2013 Lady Bird was posthumously awarded the prestigious Rachel Carson Award The award presented by Audubon s Women in Conservation was accepted by her daughter Lynda 108 References Edit a b Hylton Hilary July 12 2007 Lady Bird Johnson dies in Texas at age 94 Reuters Archived from the original on November 21 2007 Retrieved December 26 2015 a b c d e Simnacher Joe July 12 2007 Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94 The Dallas Morning News Archived from the original on July 13 2007 Retrieved December 26 2015 a b c Vibrant spirit takes Lady Bird from a small town to UT The Palm Beach Post a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Holley Joe July 12 2007 Champion of Conservation Loyal Force Behind LBJ The Washington Post p A1 Retrieved July 21 2007 a b c Lady Bird Johnson The Early Years PBS Obituary Lady Bird Johnson BBC Online July 12 2007 Retrieved December 26 2015 The White House The First Lady Bird Time August 28 1964 Archived from the original on January 24 2016 Retrieved December 26 2015 a b The White House The First Lady Bird Time August 28 1964 Archived from the original on January 25 2016 Retrieved December 26 2015 TSHA Taylor Thomas Jefferson II a b The White House The First Lady Bird Time August 28 1964 Archived from the original on January 24 2016 Retrieved December 26 2015 The Time magazine article mistakenly uses Bio instead of Bayou in this title 1930 United States Federal Census Mark Odintz Taylor Thomas Jefferson II from the Handbook of Texas Online Retrieved December 24 2008 So Glad So Glad Time April 3 1964 a b c B Henry September 10 1967 A Talk With the First Lady The New York Times Wilson Janet East Texas wildflower Austin American Statesman July 13 2007 p 2 Lady Bird Johnson Commemorative Section a b c d e Wilson Janet July 12 2007 Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94 Austin American Statesman Archived from the original on February 19 2012 Retrieved July 22 2007 Russell Jan Jarboe Lady Bird A Biography of Mrs Johnson 1999 New York Scribner pp 69 70 DUBOSE MURPHY June 15 2010 ST MARY S COLLEGE www tshaonline org Russell 1999 pp 70 71 Russell 1999 pp 71 72 University of Texas Austin Yearbook 1933 Russell 1999 p 83 Russell 1999 p 88 Dallek Robert 2005 Lyndon B Johnson Portrait of a President Oxford University Press p 24 ISBN 978 0195159219 Duke Armando July 12 2007 Lady Bird Johnson the First Lady a Nation Mourns Axcess News Retrieved December 26 2015 Brennan Patricia December 11 2001 Lady Bird Johnson Was LBJ s Anchor In Troubled Times Sun Sentinel Retrieved September 11 2013 Woods Randall Bennett 2007 LBJ Architect of American Ambition Harvard University Press p 91 ISBN 978 0674026995 New York Times Lady Bird Johnson 94 Dies Eased a Path to Power July 12 2007 Little Becky Historic Presidential Affairs That Never Made it To the Tabloids HISTORY Retrieved November 22 2022 Dallek Robert April 1 1998 Three New Revelations About LBJ The Atlantic Retrieved November 22 2022 Wilson Janet Wife mother partner The Austin American Statesman July 13 2007 p 3 Lady Bird Johnson Commemorative Section a b Feldman Claudia July 11 2007 Green first lady planted a movement Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94 Houston Chronicle Retrieved March 16 2014 a b NPR Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson Dead at 94 July 12 2007 Mawajdeh Hady Karl November 30 2015 How Lady Bird Shaped LBJ s Presidency KERA News a b c d e f Lady Bird Johnson The Daily Telegraph London July 13 2007 Archived from the original on October 25 2007 Retrieved May 7 2010 Frum David 2000 How We Got Here The 70s New York New York Basic Books p 27 ISBN 0 465 04195 7 Caro Robert A December 18 1989 The Johnson Years Buying and Selling The New Yorker O Donnell Lawrence 2017 Playing with Fire The 1968 Elections and the Transformation of American Politics 1st ed Penguin Press p 33 ISBN 978 0 3995 6314 0 Hawkins Lori July 16 2007 Lady Bird Johnson Shrewd Work Made Her a Multimillionaire Austin American Statesman Retrieved April 24 2011 permanent dead link a b c d e Gerhart Ann July 12 2007 Lady Bird Johnson Gave America A Big Bouquet The Washington Post a b Gillette Michael L December 6 2012 Lady Bird Johnson An Oral History Oxford University Press p 334 ISBN 978 0199908080 to leave this splendor for our grandchildren Lady Bird Johnson Environmentalist Extraordinaire Organization of American Historians Archived from the original on November 27 2010 Hendricks Nancy 2015 America s First Ladies A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White House ABC CLIO pp 305 306 a b Lady Bird Johnson The Assassination of President Kennedy PBS Onion Rebecca November 18 2013 It All Began So Beautifully Lady Bird s Emotional Memories of November 22 1963 Slate com Dallek Robert 1999 Flawed Giant Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961 1973 Oxford University Press pp 46 47 ISBN 978 0195132380 Woods Randall Bennett 2007 LBJ Architect of American Ambition Harvard University Press p 442 ISBN 978 0674026995 Showcase for the Nation The Story of Mrs Lyndon B Johnson s Beautification Program Texas Archive of the Moving Image Retrieved December 3 2019 Caroli Betty Boyd October 9 2015 We should pay more attention to the candidates spouses They have more power than we realize The Washington Post Hindley Meredith May June 2013 Lady Bird Special Humanities 34 3 Retrieved April 10 2021 50th Anniversary of Lady Bird Johnson s 1964 Whistle Stop Tour of the South Oct 01 2014 LBJ LIbrary Retrieved April 10 2021 Whistlestop Campaign Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Austin Texas Archived from the original on November 27 2011 Retrieved July 23 2013 Young Robert January 21 1965 Wife Holds Bible as President Takes Oath Chicago Tribune Lady Bird Dedicates Peoria s Courthouse Chicago Tribune September 23 1965 Hutchinson Louise September 23 1966 Lady Bird Attends Dam Rights Chicago Tribune Expo 67 Great Mrs Johnson Chicago Tribune August 21 1967 Hutchinson Louise September 18 1967 Lady Bird Set for Midwest Tour Chicago Tribune Hutchinson Louise September 20 1967 Mrs Johnson Tours Urges Life on Farm Chicago Tribune Buck Stephanie March 13 2017 The black actress who made Lady Bird Johnson cry The truth hurts timeline com Retrieved January 26 2019 Amorosi A D February 27 1997 Eartha Kitt Philadelphia City Paper Archived from the original on January 6 2009 James Frank December 26 2008 Eartha Kitt versus the LBJs The Swamp Archived from the original on January 14 2009 Hoerburger Rob December 25 2008 Eartha Kitt a Seducer of Audiences Dies at 81 The New York Times Inman William H Claudia Taylor Lady Bird Johnson A front row seat to history UPI Archives No August 17 1986 United Press International Retrieved November 13 2019 Dallek Robert 1999 Flawed Giant Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961 1973 Oxford University Press p 523 ISBN 978 0195132380 Dallek Robert 2005 Lyndon B Johnson Portrait of a President Oxford University Press p 329 ISBN 978 0195159219 Feldman Claudia July 13 2007 Dozens of agents to join in mourning Lady Bird Houston Chronicle Moffitt Kelly November 9 2015 She really invented the job Lady Bird Johnson and the rise of the modern first lady St Louis Public Radio Retrieved December 26 2015 Inman William H August 17 1986 Claudia Taylor Lady Bird Johnson A front row seat to history UPI Lady Bird Johnson Winding Down pbs org Smith Wendy December 23 2015 Claire Underwood Could Learn a Lot From Lady Bird Johnson The Daily Beast Godbold E Stanly Jr 2010 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter The Georgia Years 1924 1974 Oxford University Press p 237 DeBard Amanda Philip Jankowski July 12 2007 A former first lady leaves us her legacy The Daily Texan Archived from the original on June 5 2008 373 Statement on Signing a Bill Establishing the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac December 28 1973 Ford Regrets Misunderstanding About His Wife s Comments The New York Times August 26 1975 Lady Bird Johnson Gets Carter Apology For Comment On Husband Toledo Blade September 23 1976 1977 National Women s Conference A Question of Choices November 21 1977 The Walter J Brown Media Archives amp Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia American Archive of Public Broadcasting 15th Anniversary of Project Head Start Remarks at a White House Reception March 12 1980 Dartmouth College officials say former President Gerald Ford and UPI June 25 1981 Dartmouth Remembers Nelson Rockefeller 30 The New York Times September 25 1983 About Us Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Retrieved December 26 2015 a b The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at a Glance PDF Archived from the original PDF on October 14 2012 Retrieved January 16 2014 Carter Jimmy 2008 Beyond the White House Waging Peace Fighting Disease Building Hope Simon amp Schuster p 233 ISBN 978 1416558811 Lady Bird Johnson accepts gift for Wildflower Center UPI September 29 1991 Former First Lady Visited Vineyard Vineyard Gazette July 13 2007 Archived from the original on July 29 2012 Lady Bird Johnson Proud The New York Times August 3 1984 Remarks at the 25th Anniversary Celebration of President Lyndon B Johnson s Inauguration George H W Bush Presidential Library and Museum April 6 1990 And I think those who know Lyndon better than I would say that she was his anchor and his strength And she never failed him And she was always there And as she has once again today Lady Bird brought to the White House dignity and warmth and grace And she was never on stage never acting out some part always the same genuine lady no matter what the setting Her gift of language is a combination of both elegance and simplicity a vivid imagery that charms our country to this very day Mrs Johnson you too have left this nation a very important legacy Barbara reminds me of that every single day And those who travel by car along the banks of the Potomac or who walk or bicycle along its paths are each day struck by the wonder of your gift Lady Bird Johnson Suffering From Fatigue Is in Hospital The New York Times February 8 1986 Recalling life in the mansion Lady Bird Johnson released from hospital June 28 2007 Reuters MSNBC com Lady Bird Johnson Former First Lady Dies at 94 The New York Times Associated Press July 11 2007 4 18 CDT Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson Dies at 94 Archived July 13 2007 at the Wayback Machine Fox News Obituary The Daily Telegraph July 13 2007 p 29 Baines Johnson Luci Lady Bird Johnson Funeral Luci Baines Johnson Eulogy PT 2 YouTube Archived from the original on November 7 2021 Retrieved September 2 2015 Episcopal Life Online Diocesan Digest Archived June 12 2011 at the Wayback Machine a b Shannon Kelley July 15 2009 Lady Bird Johnson laid to rest in Texas The Denver Post Associated Press Retrieved July 28 2010 Waychoff Staff Sgt Madelyn July 19 2007 Ceremonial Guardsmen lay Lady Bird Johnson to rest The Bolling Aviator U S Air Force Honor Guard Public Affairs Archived from the original on January 21 2013 This is the second funeral this year in which the Honor Guard has buried a member of a Presidential family a b c d e f g Eleanor Roosevelt Retains Top Spot as America s Best First Lady Michelle Obama Enters Study as 5th Hillary Clinton Drops to 6th Clinton Seen First Lady Most as Presidential Material Laura Bush Pat Nixon Mamie Eisenhower Bess Truman Could Have Done More in Office Eleanor amp FDR Top Power Couple Mary Drags Lincolns Down in the Ratings PDF scri siena edu Siena Research Institute February 15 2014 Retrieved May 16 2022 Ranking America s First Ladies Eleanor Roosevelt Still 1 Abigail Adams Regains 2nd Place Hillary moves from 5 th to 4 th Jackie Kennedy from 4th to 3rd Mary Todd Lincoln Remains in 36th PDF Siena Research Institute December 18 2008 Retrieved May 16 2022 2014 Power Couple Score PDF scri siena edu Siena Research Institute C SPAN Study of the First Ladies of the United States Retrieved October 9 2022 Young Robert August 28 2017 Nixon Names Grove in Lady Bird s Honor Chicago Tribune Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement www achievement org American Academy of Achievement Raskin Amy July 27 2007 Austin renaming Town Lake for Lady Bird Houston Chronicle Retrieved August 16 2013 Brozan Nadine June 10 1995 Chronicle The New York Times Moritz John Root Jay June 6 2008 Texas Dems ready to put differences aside Star Telegram dead link Residence Hall Construction Moves Ahead St Edward s University May 21 2008 Archived from the original on May 31 2008 Retrieved December 26 2015 Bolen Robert October 22 2012 Environmentalist Lady Bird Johnson to be Featured on Forever Stamp USPS com Weinreich Regina August 1 2013 Lady Bird Johnson Rachel Carson and Women Conservationists Honored at the National Audubon Society Luncheon HuffPost Retrieved January 26 2019 Further reading EditGillette Michael L Lady Bird Johnson An Oral History Oxford University Press 2012 400pp Gould Lewis L First Lady as Catalyst Lady Bird Johnson and Highway Beautification in the 1960s Environmental Review 10 2 1986 77 92 JSTOR 3984559 Gould Lewis L Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment UP Kansas 1988 online Gould Lewis L Lady Bird Johnson Our Environmental First Lady UP of Kansas 1999 Hummer Jill Abraham First Ladies and the Cultural Everywoman Ideal Gender Performance and Representation White House Studies 9 4 2009 pp 403 422 Compares Lady Bird Johnson Betty Ford and Barbara Bush Koman Rita G to leave this splendor for our grandchildren Lady Bird Johnson Environmentalist Extraordinaire OAH Magazine of History 15 3 2001 30 34 Mezzack Janet Without Manners You Are Nothing Lady Bird Johnson Eartha Kitt and The Women Doers Luncheon of January 18 1968 Presidential Studies Quarterly 20 4 1990 745 760 JSTOR 20700158 Russell Jan Jarboe Lady Bird A Biography of Mrs Johnson Simon and Schuster 2014 Sweig Julia 2021 Lady Bird Johnson Hiding in Plain Sight New York Random House ISBN 9780812995909 OCLC 1138997551 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lady Bird Johnson Lady Bird Johnson Former First Lady Dies at 94 Lyndon B Johnson Presidential Library Tribute Site Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center FBI files on Lady Bird Johnson Redwood National Park Lady Bird Johnson Grove Oral History Interviews with Lady Bird Johnson from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Claudia Alta Lady Bird Taylor Johnson Presidential First Lady Find a Grave August 9 2003 Retrieved August 18 2011 Norwood Arlisha Claudia Lady Bird Johnson National Women s History Museum 2017 In Plain Sight Lady Bird Johnson A podcast Appearances on C SPAN Lady Bird Johnson at C SPAN s First Ladies Influence amp ImageHonorary titlesPreceded byPat Nixon Second Lady of the United States1961 1963 VacantTitle next held byMuriel HumphreyPreceded byJacqueline Kennedy First Lady of the United States1963 1969 Succeeded byPat Nixon Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Lady Bird Johnson amp oldid 1131176483, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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