Jill Biden Has A Surprising Plan If She Becomes First Lady
To many people she might be Jill Biden, former Second Lady and wife of Democratic Party presidential hopeful Joe Biden. But to those lucky enough to be her students at the Northern Virginia Community College, she's Dr. B — and wants to be able to keep it that way even if her husband becomes president. "If we get to the White House, I'm gonna continue to teach. It's important, and I want people to value teachers and know their contributions, and lift up the profession," Biden tells CBS. "I teach a lot of immigrants, and refugees. I love their stories, I love who they are as people, and I love the fact that I can help them on their path to success."
Biden kept her day job when Joe Biden was vice president for eight years, and became the first second lady to do so. She told NPR back in 2013 that being second lady didn't come up as a subject when she was in the classroom. "I never mention second lady. I do get asked once in a while, you know, 'Hey. Are you Joe Biden's wife?' And I'll say 'he's one of my relatives,'" she said. "Or if I get pushed I say... 'I'm your English teacher.' And they'll look at me and they say, 'OK.' We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about second lady. I never mention it" (via CNN).
Eleanor Roosevelt defined the role of the modern first lady
Martha Washington may be the nation's first "first lady," but Dr. Katherine Jellison, chair of Ohio University's history department told Refinery29 that it is Eleanor Roosevelt who made the role what it is today. "She is the first first lady to have press conferences, she is the first first lady to have a significant number of staff working for her. She is the one who made the role of first lady as high profile as it is today," Jellison said. Before she became a first lady, Roosevelt taught American history at a private New York City girl's school, but after her husband won the presidency, she became an early civil rights campaigner, encouraged her husband to hire more women, and wrote a newspaper column from 1935 — two years after she became first lady, until just before she passed in 1962 (via History).
Other first modern ladies who have made history include Lady Bird Johnson, who lobbied for environmental protection; Betty Ford, who founded an alcohol and drug treatment center in California; Rosalynn Carter, who was the first first lady to keep an office and staff in the East Wing; Hillary Clinton, who was the first first lady who would go on to run for president (via the National First Ladies' Library).