Read the script:
[Margaret] In Downtown Canton sits a house quite unlike the rest of the city. The National First Ladies Site, a neighboring National First Ladies' Library are home to the history of our leaders' ladies. And to the old William McKinley home, houses some pretty knowledgeable ladies nowadays too.
- I'm Pat Krider and I'm the director of operations with the National First Ladies' Library and we operate and manage the First Ladies National Historic Site here in Canton, Ohio.
[Margaret] From China sets to costumes, the historic site covers decades of little known stories.
- First ladies are a very unique position because they have no official role and most people don't realize that. They aren't paid and so there's no guidebook and so every first lady has the ability and the means to create their own role.
[Margaret] But why have the museum in Ohio?
[Pat] So in Ohio, we have had seven first ladies and those first ladies spend 80 years. Our first first lady was Anna Harrison and she became first lady in 1841. And it's interesting because when Anna Harrison moved to Ohio, it wasn't even a state, it was a territory and she met her husband, he was a military man, William Henry Harrison, and when he was nominated to become president, Anna wasn't real happy about it because she thought he was too old. He was 66 years old. And so Anna was not feeling well when he was inaugurated and so she stayed behind in Ohio and when William Henry gave his inaugural speech, he gave the longest inaugural speech ever to date, it was over two hours long, it was freezing cold in Washington D.C., it was in March and he wouldn't wear a hat and he wouldn't wear an overcoat. And he ended up getting pneumonia and he died 30 days later. So Anna never made it to the White House.
[Margaret] Other first ladies had more opportunity to make a difference.
- The role fit what was suitable for a woman in her time period. So sometimes she took care of the household while her husband was off politicking and sometimes she was an advisor to her husband, much like wives are advisors to their husbands. Later on, first ladies began to get involved in causes, it might be sickness in children or education, and they found that they were able to draw attention to those causes.
[Margaret] Ohio's own Caroline Harrison leveraged her role as first lady to make a change that is still meaningful today.
- Caroline Harrison was approached by Johns Hopkins University to help them fundraise. And she agreed to help them fundraise but only on the condition that they would admit women to the medical school at the same level that they admitted men, and they agreed and so she agreed to do some fundraising for them.
[Margaret] And the history just keeps going.
- The last first lady from Ohio was Florence Harding from Marion, Ohio, Florence Harding was very involved in the Girl Scouts and every first lady from Edith Wilson onward is actually honorary chair of the Girl Scouts. We actually have Florence Harding's Girl Scout uniform that she wore as an adult and she greeted Girl Scouts at the White House and it was also a way to promote physical fitness in women. So they promoted that through the Girl Scouts.
[Margaret] Surely, there will be more first ladies coming from Ohio in the future. And maybe they'll have been inspired by the National First Ladies Site.
- We hope that people who come here take away the fact that first ladies are important. They have the ability to speak to causes that other people wouldn't have the opportunity to do. That they're not just about fashion, that they're not just about the pretty dresses and pretty clothes, but that they do have an impact on our nation's history.