The

The America has had 46 presidents, but none of them have been women.

As we covered in one of our earliest episodes, the women who would be president,

several women have tried,

and Hillary Clinton came the closest in 2016. Our current vice president, Kamala Harris, is the first woman to attain that office, and briefly served as acting president when

President Biden underwent a medical procedure. Many Americans have dreamed

of the moment when a woman will finally serve as president. Some consider this the ultimate

glass ceiling in American politics and insist that the election of a woman as president

will be an important milestone and a major symbol of progress towards greater equality.

Of course, there are those, including many American women, who don't necessarily place the same

level of significance on the idea of a female president. Regardless of what one thinks about all

of that, when we look at the history of women in American politics, the story of First Lady Edith Wilson inevitably stands out.

She was the wife of one of our most consequential presidents, and historical circumstances placed her in a unique position, one in which she was called to play an unprecedented

role in the life of the nation. Some accurately or inaccurately have even referred to her as

America's first female president. Is this a fair characterization? Well, Rebecca Boggs Roberts has written a biography on her, the most comprehensive work on her life ever published, examining that very question.

It's titled Untold Power, The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson.

Mrs. Roberts is an award-winning educator, author,

and speaker, and is a leading historian of American women's suffrage and has been involved

with the National Archives and the White House Historical Association and currently works as

deputy director of events at the Library of Congress. And we're pleased to have

her on our podcast. So what led you to write this book? It's interesting. I had been, I wrote two books

about suffrage and I was talking a lot about that movement, especially around the centennial

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