First Lady Lucy Hayes was considered the embodiment of the “New Woman.” But was she?

Lucy Hayes: The Old Fashioned Girl

Young Lucy Webb

Lucy Ware Webb (1831-79) was Ohio born, and half-orphaned by the time she was two. Her mother, Maria Webb, was left in reasonably comfortable means; Lucy and her brothers had the necessities – plus educations. Mrs. Webb was a strong advocate of education, which included (rare for her time) higher learning for women.

Lucy was a bright, compliant child-to-woman, by and large the example of conventional womanhood. While she attended the Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College, which focused on academics, earning the distinction of being the first FLOTUS with a college education, she married at twenty, and bore eight children. Only five lived to maturity.

If you examine photographic evidence of girl-to-woman Lucy, you will see little change. Her style never wavered from parted in the center and pulled back into a low bun. With her oval face, it was very becoming. Her clothing style seldom changed. High-necked, long sleeved, decorously modest. No plunging necklines, despite its fashionability in the 1860s.

In essence, she was a prime example of the Methodist woman, a faith which she devoutly adhered to all her life. And that included lifelong abstinence of spirits.

Lucy and Rud Hayes – early on.

She married Rutherford B. Hayes, ten years her senior. His father had died a few months before Rud’s birth, and he was also raised by a single mother.

As a college student (Kenyon University and Harvard Law School), Hayes was known to bend an occasional convivial elbow with his fellows, but once he married Lucy, he took (and honored) “the pledge.”

Fast Forward 25 Years

In the quarter century following their marriage in 1852, Rutherford Hayes was a successful attorney, a Civil War General (with several promotions), Republican Congressman and three-times Governor of Ohio. A viable candidate for President in 1876!

It was a fractious election but Hayes personally rose above the fray. He won. Perhaps to ameliorate the taint, “spirits” were banned in the White House.

Mrs. Hayes, now a matron of 45, was hailed as the “new woman” by Mary Clemmer Ames, a female journalist who praised the new “educated” FLOTUS to the skies. She was also praised to the skies by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union ladies, touting the moral issue of the day. Lucy-the-abstainer was lauded in nearly every one of their articles and newsletters.

The WCTU “hijacked” Lucy!

They begged her to join their organization, but she steadfastly declined. By her own admission, Lucy was shy and shunned the public eye as much as possible.

The Lucy Portrait

But the reward for all this “new woman” and “temperance queen” bleating, was an heroic-length portrait of First Lady Lucy Hayes by Daniel Huntington, a highly regarded portrait artist of that period.

The story goes that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union wished to honor their vaunted heroine, so they specifically asked her to choose a gift she would appreciate and find suitable. Lucy was a sincere art lover, and it was she who suggested a portrait for the White House. It was duly commissioned and paid for by the WCTU, which she still declined to join, even after her term as First Lady. Lucy Hayes’ portrait was the first formal First Lady likeness to be created especially for the White House.

The Insightful Artist

Portrait artist Daniel Huntington

Daniel Huntington (1816-1906) was delighted to accept the commission. He was already renowned for his portraits, not only by the public (and his long list of satisfied patrons), but also by his own peers. He knew this portrait would be well publicized, and permanently and prominently hung in the White House.  He did not disappoint.

He produced exactly what was desired: an elegant depiction of the “old fashioned girl” as the “new woman.” It is heroic in proportion – over seven feet high. Lucy was only 5’3”.  She was fifty when the portrait was painted, and had had eight pregnancies. The intuitive Huntington managed to detract a few years and a few pounds, which no doubt pleased her. Her hair style is as it always had been: plain, and on her, attractive. Her gorgeous burgundy velvet gown is high-necked with simple lines and decorous lace trim. It is also long-sleeved, giving away nothing of the woman behind the gown. Except for the face.

The portrait has graced the cover of a White House book

Huntington captured Lucy’s inherent warmth and intelligence as well as the modest charm with which she conveniently ducked commenting on current issues. Notwithstanding, the portrait depicts an imposing figure of integrity and decorum. Lucy was a public figure and she knew it. Despite the efforts made to exalt her image, she had every intention of demonstrating any moral influence the only way she knew: by a good example. The artist got that part perfectly.

The WCTU happily paid for the portrait, presented it to incoming President James Garfield shortly after his inauguration, and it was duly hung in the White House. It has been copied many times. It also created a tradition. After the brief Garfield term, and that of the widowed President Chester Alan Arthur (whose formal presidential portrait was also painted by Huntington), all First Ladies have been painted for posterity, courtesy of the American people. The gallery of First Ladies that began with Lucy Hayes’ portrait wearing her exquisite burgundy gown has become a graceful and popular addition to the White House. But it is a copy.

The original is now housed in the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Collection at Spiegel Grove, their home in Ohio.

Sources:

Anthony, Carl Sferrazza –First Ladies 1789-1961, William Morrow,1990

Caroli, Betty Boyd – First Ladies: An Intimate Look at How 38 Women Handled what may be the most Demanding, Unpaid, Unelected Job in America – Oxford University Press, 1995

Foster, Feather Schwartz – The First Ladies from Martha Washington to Mamie Eisenhower – Sourcebooks, 2011

Foster, Feather Schwartz – Mary Lincoln’s Flannel Pajamas and Other Stories from the First Ladies’ Closet – Koehler Books, 2014

http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=20