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Heath Hardage Lee Launches New Pat Nixon Biography: The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady
August 6 at 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Heath Hardage Lee Launches New Pat Nixon Biography: The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady
August 6, 2024, 7:00 PM
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
Free Event Admission
A new, revolutionary look into the brilliant life of Pat Nixon
Although First Lady Pat Nixon was voted “Most Admired Woman in the World” in 1972 and made Gallup Poll’s top ten list of most admired women fourteen times, in America’s collective consciousness, she has long been perceived as enigmatic. The media often portrayed Mrs. Nixon as elusive and mysterious. The real Pat Nixon, however, bore little resemblance to the woman so often described in the press. Pat married California lawyer and future President Richard Nixon in June of 1940, becoming a wife, mother, and her husband’s trusted political partner in short order. As the couple rose to prominence, Pat became Second Lady from 1953-1961 and then First Lady from 1969-1974, forging her own graceful path between the protocols of the strait-laced mid-century and the bra-burning Sixties and Seventies.
Mrs. Nixon was progressive on women’s issues, favoring the Equal Rights Amendment and backing a targeted effort led by Staff Assistant to the President, Barbara Hackman Franklin to get more women into mid to high level government jobs. Pat also strongly supported nominating a woman for the Supreme Court. The widely traveled Mrs. Nixon was globally influential, often acting as a solo diplomat on the Nixon administration’s behalf. There was nothing Pat Nixon enjoyed more than working one-on-one directly with ordinary human beings, especially with women, children, and those in need.
Lee will discuss the life and times of this remarkable First Lady: an empathetic, adventurous, self-made woman who wanted no power or influence, but who connected warmly with both ordinary Americans and people from different cultures she encountered world-wide.
Moderated by Robert Bostock, Curator, Pat Nixon Centennial Exhibit.