That's easy. History is written by the victors. And the victors were men. They wrote the history in 1921 the year the Edith Wilson Presidency ended. And for the next fifty years they held the Woodrow Wilson legacy together. Edith Wilson wrote a memoir in 1939 that claimed she was only a "steward" but never President. She too was committed to Woodrow Wilson's legacy to the point her relatives were never allowed to ask her about the President. That door was shut.
And so our First Woman President skirted the pages of history. It was always that lurking factoid. Something about a President who had a massive stroke and his wife stepped then stepped in. But it never got traction and the books that came out danced around the issue. A later history of Edith and Woodrow went so far as to claim Edith Wilson was power mad and grabbed power but never recognized her for running the White House from 1919 to 1921.
The government finally recognized what she did on a website that summarizes the first ladies. On .gov there is a reference to Edith that simply says she ran the Executive Branch for two years. It isn't much, but it is a beginning.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
And so our First Woman President skirted the pages of history. It was always that lurking factoid. Something about a President who had a massive stroke and his wife stepped then stepped in. But it never got traction and the books that came out danced around the issue. A later history of Edith and Woodrow went so far as to claim Edith Wilson was power mad and grabbed power but never recognized her for running the White House from 1919 to 1921.
The government finally recognized what she did on a website that summarizes the first ladies. On .gov there is a reference to Edith that simply says she ran the Executive Branch for two years. It isn't much, but it is a beginning.
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson
