The Historical Significance of the Womens March

Alice Paul endured an  insane asylum and being force fed after being imprisoned. She headed up the National Organization of Women and believed the only way women would get the vote was through direct confrontation with the  men who held power. The President Woodrow Wilson and his young new wife Edith motored through the White House gates while suffragettes chained themselves to the gates and laid down in front of the presidential limousine. Wilson believed in state control of the vote and didn't think the Federal government should get involved.

Alice Paul would not be ignored. She managed to get arrested along with other women and ended up in prison. The President offered a pardon and they refused. A hunger strike began with Alice leading the way. Wilson began to lose the public relations battle when Paul became very ill and wealthy women began to join the picket line. Force feeding commenced but still Paul would not give up. The commitment to an insane asylum only hurt the presidents case.

Paul was released and Wilson eventually ended up asking congress to pass legislation giving the vote to women. It failed but the ball had started rolling and in 1921 women got the vote. And now women are marching to protest another president. This one wants to set women's rights back fifty years. The use of protest and creating dis-ease was Alice Pauls favorite tactic. She could relate to the women gearing up for the 21st.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson Chosen as Literary Guild Selection

 FOR RELEASE: CONTACT: Loren Long

Nov 4, 2016 Loren.Long@Regnery.com

202.677.4420

Madam President is a Literary Guild Selection

Revealing the Hidden History of Edith Wilson in the Oval Office

Washington, D.C.—Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson has been chosen as a Literary Guild Selection. Released on Oct 17^th by Regnery, the highly researched narrative is already a History Book Club Selection with a Five Star Foreword review and an endorsement by the Washington Post. The story of the First Woman President is gaining steam. After a CSPAN filming at the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington DC, Author William Hazelgrove is making ripples with his story of Americas First Woman President.

 According to acclaimed author, Hazelgrove, if  Hillary Clinton is elected, she won’t be our first female president. Edith Wilson took the mantle of First Woman President almost a hundred years ago. Months before women won the right to vote, a woman was secretly running the Executive Office. Few know the hidden history of Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency – until now. Author William Hazelgrove provides an engaging portrait of the woman who became the acting president of the United States in his new book Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson (October 17; Regnery Publishing; 978-1-62157-475-0; $29.99).

Assuming the authority of the Oval Office after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, Edith’s presence was quietly acknowledged in D.C. circles at the time, but since then her legacy has largely been forgotten.

A senator during her time called her “the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.” Now, the full history of America’s first female president is finally revealed.

In Madam President you’ll discover:

 Who America’s real first female president was

 How Edith Bolling Wilson undertook the office of the president

 Why Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency was kept secret

 Why the history of America’s first female president is so significant in 2016

 What Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency did to lay the groundwork for women in government

###

To schedule an interview with William Hazelgrove please contact Loren Long at

Loren.Long@Regnery.com or 202.677.4420

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

What You Don't Know About The First Madam President

She was from the South. Her name was Edith Bolling Wilson and married President Woodrow Wilson after his wife Ellen Wilson died. They were only married four years and then Woodrow had a massive stroke and Edith took over the White House. This was in 1919 and from here on Edith Wilson ran the government until 1921. She had only two years of school and had run a successful jewelry company after her first husband died. She owned one of the first electric cars in Washington and was given the first drivers license in the District of Columbia. She was fifteen years younger than Woodrow Wilson and considered very attractive. 

They necked in the presidential limousine when they were courting. Edith deciphered top secret codes for the President. When he had a stroke she controlled who saw him and who didn't.  She oversaw legislation and secured appointments for his cabinet. All this while her husband was on deaths door and many thought he would die. She saw the Vice President only once and told him his services weren't needed. She oversaw the end of World War I and was in the middle of the fight to get the United States into the League of Nations. 

She would show her husband movies and wheel him outside to the South Portico for air. She had him put in the presidential limousine and propped up so people would know he was still alive. She outlived him by forty years and was at John Kennedy's inauguration. She wrote a memoir in 1939 and denied running the White House. In the National Archives are correspondence that was never opened during her Presidency and discovered in the 1950s. She just couldn't get to it. 

She was our first woman President and has never been recognized for her service to the country.


Order from Barnes and Noble Madam President

What You Don't Know About The First Madam President

She was from the South. Her name was Edith Bolling Wilson and married President Woodrow Wilson after his wife Ellen Wilson died. They were only married four years and then Woodrow had a massive stroke and Edith took over the White House. This was in 1919 and from here on Edith Wilson ran the government until 1921. She had only two years of school and had run a successful jewelry company after her first husband died. She owned one of the first electric cars in Washington and was given the first drivers license in the District of Columbia. She was fifteen years younger than Woodrow Wilson and considered very attractive. 

They necked in the presidential limousine when they were courting. Edith deciphered top secret codes for the President. When he had a stroke she controlled who saw him and who didn't.  She oversaw legislation and secured appointments for his cabinet. All this while her husband was on deaths door and many thought he would die. She saw the Vice President only once and told him his services weren't needed. She oversaw the end of World War I and was in the middle of the fight to get the United States into the League of Nations. 

She would show her husband movies and wheel him outside to the South Portico for air. She had him put in the presidential limousine and propped up so people would know he was still alive. She outlived him by forty years and was at John Kennedy's inauguration. She wrote a memoir in 1939 and denied running the White House. In the National Archives are correspondence that was never opened during her Presidency and discovered in the 1950s. She just couldn't get to it. 

She was our first woman President and has never been recognized for her service to the country.

Order Your Copy from Barnes and Noble

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

How Tough Was the First Madam President?

Tough. Woodrow Wilson had a massive stroke and left Edith Wilson  to run the White House. She had two years of schooling and no experience in government. But she had the best on the job training with Wilson who treated her as a Co President. Still, the fact remained Wilson was fighting for his life while Edith had to close out World War I and deal with America transitioning back to a peace time economy after World War I. And she was a woman at a time when the vote was still two years off.

Her life had not been easy. Her parents could only afford to send her brother to college and Edith was left to be home schooled by her grandmother. Her first marriage ended when her husband died suddenly and left her with a badly in debt jewelry company. Her first son had died after three days. Edith could have sold off the jewelry company but she dug in and took almost no salary and in a few years turned a profit. She then bought an electric car and met a lonely widower named Woodrow  Wilson.

But when the world turned upside down Edith Wilson had to make it up as she went along. Her husband was barely hanging on while she fought for passage of The League of Nations, handled the cover up of her husbands illness, made appointments, ushered bills through passage, and kept the Wilson White House together through 1921. Suffragettes demonstrating outside the gates of the White House had no idea a woman was now President.

Edith Wilson had to fill the role President except she was a woman who had the backing of no one. As Ann Richards said of Ginger Rodgers, "she did everything Fred Astaire did but she it in heels and she did it backwards." An apt metaphor for the unknown First Woman President.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson