Edith Roosevelt

Edith Carow grew up alongside the Roosevelt family and married Theodore in 1886, settling at Sagamore Hill and raising five children as his political career climbed from New York to Washington. When McKinley's assassination made Theodore president in September 1901, she became first lady and immediately took command: she orchestrated the 1902 White House renovations, hired the first-ever social secretary for a first lady, and tightly managed both the press and the capital's social circuit, deciding who entered formal events and brokering how her family appeared in print. The exact sway she held over Theodore's decisions remains unclear, but they spoke often about politics and he frequently took her counsel. After leaving the White House she traveled widely through Europe and Latin America, then watched her world narrow: her son Quentin died in 1918, Theodore in 1919, two more sons in the 1940s. She spent her last year bedridden and died on September 30, 1948, eighty-seven years old.