The Six Best Books About First Ladies

See Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis as you’ve never seen her before. In this provocative biography, author Barbara Lemming makes the compelling case that the First Lady struggled with PTSD at a time before it was diagnosed. Examining Jackie’s life from her youth to her transformation into a deft political wife later traumatized by her husband’s murder, this biography is “startling and fascinating” and “at once harrowing and humane” according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

This biography that inspired the Hulu documentary The Lady Bird Diaries, is “a revelation,” says the New York Times. Sweig’s portrait of Lady Bird Johnson reveals an indispensable, but underestimated, First Lady during Lyndon Johnson’s term—which Lady Bird referred to as “our” presidency. Sweig draws on Lady Bird’s White House diaries to reveal a woman ahead of her time who lead national environmental initiatives, desegregation of national parks, and more.

Becoming is an unforgettable window into the life of First Lady Michelle Obama. Isabel Wilkerson calls it "a serious work of candid reflection” that is “refined and forthright, gracefully written.” Chronicling the experience that have shaped her, from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to her time at the White House, Michelle Obama tells her fully story as she has lived it.

Based on the hit C-SPAN series, First Ladies paints intimate portraits of forty-five first ladies, as detailed by fifty historians and experts. Discover Martha Washington set the standards for first lady-ship, how Edith Wilson was implicated in a cover-up during her husband’s term, how Mamie Eisenhower took advantage of the then-new world of television to build public image, and more. Rich with details and illustrations, this book is sure to inspire, surprise, and educate.

This 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner is a standout of American biography and history. Author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s examination of the Roosevelts is “engrossing” and “ambitiously conceived and imaginatively executed,” according to the New York Times Book Review. Written with colorful anecdotes and intimate detail, Goodwin paints an intricate portrait of a marriage, a presidency, and a country marked by division and isolationism in the 1940s.

A New York Times bestseller, The First Ladies is an extraordinary novel about the true partnership between civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, and soon-to-be First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. When Mary’s reputation as an activist mounts to that of celebrity, the two women become fast friends. Their relationship informs the Roosevelt’s legacy as Mary and Eleanor fight for what becomes the foundation for modern civil rights in the United States.