THE FIRST LADY Pat Nixon — What'shername

For decades, her remarkable achievements as United States First Lady have been overshadowed by her husband’s big mistakes. Returning guest Heath Hardage Lee is back to help change that! Olivia introduces us to the remarkable and unfairly forgotten Pat Nixon.

All photos courtesy of the US National Archives unless otherwise indicated.

Pat Ryan working in the pharmacy at Seton Hospital in New York City, ca. 1932.
Nixon Presidential Library

Pat Ryan as a High School Economics Teacher in California

Escorted by armed guards, Pat Nixon (far right) arrives via helicopter on the ground in South Vietnam, July 31, 1969. It was the first time a first lady had entered a combat zone.

Pat Nixon greets White House visitors, 1969.
photo by Jack Kightlinger

Pat Nixon with Queen Elizabeth in October 1970

Richard and Pat Nixon (in her bright red “Good Republican Cloth Coat”) in China in 1970.

Pat addresses the 1972 Republican National Convention. She was the first First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to address a party convention, and the first Republican First Lady.

First Lady Pat Nixon climbs over rubble, inspecting earthquake damage and collapsed buildings in a Huascaran mountain area village, Peru.

at Nixon’s official White House portrait, painted in 1978 by Henriette Wyeth Hurd

Heath Hardage Lee is an award-winning historian, biographer, and curator. Heath’s first book, Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause, won the Colonial Dames of America (CDA) Annual Book Award as well as a Gold Medal for Nonfiction from the
Independent Publisher Book Awards. Heath’s second book The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home from Vietnam won the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Women in American History Award. The League of Wives is now being developed into a television series. She lives in Roanoke, Virginia, with her husband Chris, her children Anne Alston and James, and her French bulldog Dolly Parton.

Music featured in this episode included:

by The Westerlies, Aaron Kenny, Josh Lippi and the Overtimers, The Mini Vandals, Cooper Cannell, Doug Maxwell, Quincas Moereira, and the US Marine Corps Band.

Music featured in this episode included:

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