Not Just the Nation’s Hostess: First Ladies as Policy Actors

by Mary R. Anderson & Jonathan Lewallen

Popular culture likes to view the First Lady as a symbol of American womanhood, the nation’s hostess, fashion icon, and mom-in-chief. Yet, modern First Ladies often develop their own policy priorities and programs, and the Office of the First Lady is integral to modern presidential administrations. In this article we make the case for studying First Ladies as policy actors by examining the audiences to which First Ladies speak, the roles they adopt in doing so, including an explicit policy role, and the degree of substantive policy content in their public speeches and remarks. 

We use archived First Lady public speeches and remarks from 1993-2022 covering First Ladies Clinton, Laura Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden to illustrate that First Ladies actively adopt policy roles across their speeches and other appearances; speak to policy-focused audiences like policy summits, interest groups, and government personnel and often discuss substantive policy issues in these appearances.

First Ladies adopt roles beyond the ceremonial role established by Martha Washington. She also plays the roles of policy advocate and party supporter and leader.  We depart from other scholars in our view that these roles are not “either-or” but rather “both-and,” the First Lady can be both engaging in a ceremonial role AND a policy role. For example, when the First Lady gives a commencement speech, she is acting in a ceremonial role. She may also discuss policy in that speech, in which case she is acting in a policy role, thus she is assuming both roles simultaneously, ceremonial and policy. Our analysis of First Lady roles demonstrates that the combination of Policy + Ceremonial roles is the most common configuration in our data. While First Ladies adopt the Ceremonial role more often than the others, the Policy role is a large part of the First Lady’s activities, about 72% of the data involve a Policy role in some way. 

We argue that First Ladies are significant policy actors and that they discuss policy when they are addressing various audiences. Our data supports this characterization because we see First Ladies often addressing policy relevant audiences in their activities. Our analysis shows that First Ladies talk to three “clusters” of groups.  Excluding the broad “other” category, First Ladies have spoken most often to national interest groups (14.4%) and at policy events (14%).

Figure 1: Percentage of First Lady Speeches and Remarks Delivered to Different Audiences

Finally, we find that First Ladies address substantive policy content frequently. We find that First Ladies address substantive policy content in about 63% of their speeches; when we dive more deeply into those observations where the First Lady adopted a Policy role, they addressed substantive policy issues about 90% of the time.  The presence of substantive policy content varies across First Ladies’ audiences as shown in the figure below.  First Ladies since 1993 mentioned some substantive policy issue in about 91% of their remarks to party supporters and 90% to policy events. 

Figure 2: Speeches and Remarks with Substantive Policy Mentions by Audience

In this article, we challenge the traditional view of the First Lady as a largely ceremonial public figure and behind-the-scenes presidential advisor. Using her public speeches and remarks over a 30-year period we find that First Ladies consistently discuss policy issues across their different audiences and adopt the Policy role in more than three-quarters of their speeches in statements. Over time the role of the First Lady has evolved, their unique position permits them to play a role in policy that might not be obvious at first glance. They are particularly well-situated and well-resourced to engage in the policy process as executive branch actors and thus should be studied more often for their engagement in policymaking. 

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Anderson, Mary and Jonathan Lewallen. 2024. “ Not Just the Nation’s Hostess: First Ladies As Policy Actors.” Policy Studies Journal 00(0): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12558.

About the Authors

Mary Anderson is the brodsky chair for Constitutional Democracy and Culture and professor of Political Science at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. She studies women and politics and civic participation.

Jonathan Lewallen is an associate professor of political science at the University of Tampa. His research focuses on agenda setting and the policy process and how issues and institutions evolve together over time. Dr. Lewallen’s book Committees and the Decline of Lawmaking in Congress was published in 2020 by the University of Michigan Press.