Who is your favorite of our early First Ladies?

@heartny

@PlacidPenguin
Those two are pretty fascinating.

Have not actually read that much. That’s on “the list”.

@HemlockTea

This answers my question.

@HemlockTea I liked her in “The Muppets”

@HemlockTea
Thx. I remembered something, was gonna have to google to see if my memory was messing with me.

I suppose she is one of the First Feminists.

Here is another, one of my favorites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Sampson

Deborah Sampson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deborah Samson
Deborah Samson Gannett (December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827), better known as Deborah Samson or Deborah Sampson, was a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. She is one of a small number of women with a documented record of military combat experience in that war.[1] She served 17 months in the army under the name “Robert Shirtliff” (also spelled Shirtliffe or Shurtleff)[2][3] of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was wounded in 1782, and was honorably discharged at West Point, New York, in 1783.

She was discovered to be female not long after he first attempt to enlist as a male soldier, and discharged. Then:

In May 1782, Samson enlisted again in Uxbridge, Massachusetts under the name “Robert Shirtliff” (also spelled in various sources as Shirtliffe and Shurtleff), and joined the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment,[10] under the command of Captain George Webb (1740–1825). This unit, consisting of 50 to 60 men, was first quartered in Bellingham, Massachusetts, and later mustered at Worcester with the rest of the regiment commanded by Colonel William Shepard. Light Infantry Companies were elite troops, specially picked because they were taller and stronger than average[11]

Their job was to provide rapid flank coverage for advancing regiments, as well as rearguard and forward reconnaissance duties for units on the move.[12]

Because she joined an elite unit, Samson’s disguise was more likely to succeed, since no one was likely to look for a woman in a unit made up of soldiers who were specially chosen for their above average size and superior physical ability.[4]

Samson fought in several skirmishes. During her first battle, on July 3, 1782, outside Tarrytown, New York, she took two musket balls in her thigh and a cut on her forehead. She begged her fellow soldiers to let her die and not take her to the hospital, but a soldier put her on his horse and took her to a hospital. The doctors treated her head wound, but she left the hospital before they could attend to her other wounds. Fearful that her identity would be discovered, she removed one of the balls herself with a penknife and sewing needle, but the other musket ball was too deep for her to reach. Her leg never fully healed. On April 1, 1783, she was promoted and spent seven months serving as a waiter to General John Paterson.

There are other women known or rumored to have disguised their gender and fought as soldiers during the war.

Molly Pitcher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Molly Pitcher
Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to a woman said to have fought in the American Battle of Monmouth, who is generally believed to have been Mary Ludwig Hays. Since various Molly Pitcher tales grew in the telling, many historians regard Molly Pitcher as folklore rather than history, or suggest that Molly Pitcher may be a composite image inspired by the actions of a number of real women. The name itself may have originated as a nickname given to women who carried water to men on the battlefield during War.

Anna Maria Lane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anna Maria Lane Marker in Richmond, VA
Anna Maria Lane (about 1755-1810) was the first documented female soldier from Virginia to fight with the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. She dressed as a man and accompanied her husband on the battlefield, and was later awarded a pension for her courage in the Battle of Germantown.

Margaret Corbin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Molly Corbin)

was a woman who fought in the American Revolutionary War.[1] On November 16, 1776, her husband, John Corbin was one of some 600 American soldiers defending Fort Washington in northern Manhattan from 4,000 attacking Hessian troops under British command. Margaret, too nervous to let her husband go into battle alone, decided she wanted to go with him. Since she was a nurse, she was allowed to accompany her husband as a nurse for the injured soldiers.[2] John Corbin was on the crew one of two cannons the defenders deployed; when he fell in action, Margaret Corbin took his place and continued to work the cannon until she too was seriously wounded. It is said that Corbin was standing next to her husband when he fell during battle. Immediately, she took his post, and because she had watched her husband, a trained artilleryman, fire the cannon so much, she was able to fire, clean and aim the cannon with great ease and speed. This impressed the other soldiers and was the beginning of her military career.[2] She later became the first woman in U.S. history to receive a pension from Congress for military service because she could no longer work due to injury and was enlisted into the Corps of Invalids.[3]

@smyle I read that! I learned therein that the term “ass-load” is quite old, and that it refers to the amount of stuff you can pile onto the back of a donkey.

@moondrake
Edith Wilson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (October 15, 1872 – December 28, 1961), second wife of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, was First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921. She married Woodrow in December 1915, during his first term as President.
President Wilson suffered a severe stroke in October 1919. Edith Wilson began to screen all matters of state and decided which were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. In doing so, she de facto ran the executive branch of the government for the remainder of the president’s second term, until March 1921.[1][2] She was the first First Lady to assume presidential functions.

Through her father, she was a direct descendant of Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the Powhatan tribe of Native Americans and her husband John Rolfe …

@f00l So our first de facto female president was part Native American. Highly cool.