... I want to state my belief that the most beautiful First Lady was Frances Cleveland (and what a strange romance!).
Noticed while watching this survey of First Ladies:
@lisandravcomedy But what if the First Ladies were on Bumble BFF? #politicalcomedy #politicstiktok #bumblebff #firstlady #firstladies ♬ original sound - Nintendo
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That certainly is a pretty lady.
Dolley Madison #1, Melania Trump #2, Frances Folsom Cleveland #3 (at best)
Louisa Adams was pretty cute when she was 19.
She got a little rough-looking later, though that may have been those atrocious L'Empire styles she wore. The 1794 outfit was very Gainsborough and nice.
Wasn't Sarah Polk a 19th Century Jill Biden/Hillary wannabe?
Melania beautiful? Yeah, sure. If she were, the fashion magazines would be tripping all over themselves to put her on their covers. Case closed. Now Michelle, on the other hand...
The first ladies of the last half century are so glammed up with makeup and hair not to mention plastic surgerythat it’s hard to see what they really look like. I don’t personally find it attractive. What I like about Frances Cleveland is it’s a completely natural look and it’s great.
Angelica Singleton Van Buren looks like Cher before she had work done.
Frances Frances Frances, look dear of course he's fat, has been a confirmed bachelor for almost his entire adult life, and he's more than double your age, but he's a president Frances, a President! What're you gonna do, wait until you're 25 to wed some crumby doctor!?!"
Failed to discern even a smidgen of ‘romance’ in Cleveland’s’ engagement and marriage. Everything seems common-sense and business-like, as it always should be.
"It is commonly a weak man who marries for love." Samuel Johnson
I can't really pick "the" most beautiful bc many of our First Ladies™ are depicted only by paintings or prose descriptions. Mrs. Cleveland looks good though.
Nope. Cleveland was a player! His opponents made a huge stink about him supposedly having an out of wedlock child when he was running for President. I doubt they would've tried that (or it would be remembered today) if there wasn't some truth to matter.
It helps that Frances was only 22 in that portrait. I hadn't been aware of the story of her marriage to 57-year-old Grover. What's attractive is not so much beauty but that at that age she's more natural-looking than the others.
Hard to tell from the portrait paintings what the early women really looked like. How much glam was painted in? Some women did seem reasonably attractive to me, others were not well presented, and I assume that the painter was paid to put them in their best lights. yikes.
I will say that I HAD to turn the audio off. My goodness was this woman off-putting in the worst way.
I agree as to her looks. Very natural beauty.
She also was prescient and witty, as is evidenced by her last address to the White House staff in 1889:
" I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, and not let any of them get lost or broken, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again four years from today."
Think how little some future person will be able to glean about our personae based upon looking at our pictures.
Higgledy Piggledy
Benjamin Harrison
Twenty-third president was, and as such
Served between Clevelands.
Apart from that trivial idiosyncrasy
Didn't do much.
Grace Coolidge deserves consideration.
I assumed she was a self-parody, and took her on that level.
I second that. But I'm a Silent Cal man, so I'm biased.
You prefer the young but actual painted face to the painted faces of the older but more recent variety?
While I am sure many First Ladies were attractive since they were connected with very successful men, it seems doubtful that any of them were more beautiful than Melania Trump (including Jackie Kenneddy). And I did not even vote for Trump!
Frances was an alum of Wells College. It closed in 2024. The campus is for sale.
Ida McKinley shows well in some of her portraits.
I'm partial to Grace Coolidge myself: https://firstladies.si.edu/portrait/grace-coolidge
"His opponents made a huge stink about him supposedly having an out of wedlock child"
As well they should. Can you imagine how different things would be today if common sense like that still prevailed?
Very good looking, but as stated she had around 20-35 years on other first ladies. And then, if you go by portraits, you have the artist. I think Helen Taft's portrait is great. I dunno who the painter was, but he did a great job.
Its amusing how much to pose and camera angle effects the facial beauty. Lots of 1st Ladies had strong chins, but if you shoot them nose on, you don't notice. And then there's hairdos. Pat Nixon's looks awful. But then she was 57 in 1968.
I have been struck how good looking many first ladies were when they were young. Pat Nixon is just one example. With such wide variations of age in office.... Biden's first wife was a beauty struck down too young. I rate Trump's second wife much higher than his third in the looks department.
A propos Cleveland’s alleged out of wedlock child, the opponent’s chant was , “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”
1st college graduate 1st lady.
Grace Coolidge was considered a hottie by her contemporaries. Barbara Bush was an attractive woman in her youth, but she and George aged on different planets. Melania Trump is beautiful but she's beautiful in a professional way. She stands out like a professional ballplayer at the company softball game. Jacqueline Kennedy is probably the best looking amateur, but my favorite is Laura Bush. You could cast her as the wife in a sitcom with Dick Van Dyke......Mrs. Cleveland was the youngest First Lady ever. She was pretty and very popular during her time as First Lady. Still, she was opposed to Woman's Suffrage and supportive of the Temperance Movement. Don't expect a sympathetic biography from any feminist.
I don’t know the history of Slovenia but Melania in tights with a sword would slay in the role of Conan the Barbarians wife, on film.
Ginger Rogers was a babe when she portrayed Dolley Madison in Magnificent Doll in 1946 at age 35.
IIRC the taunts directed toward Cleveland went like this:
"Ma, Ma! Where's my Pa?
"Gone to the White House, Haw Haw Haw!"
Kinda lame
that should end with .../s--- right, baghdadbob?
You beat me to it, but late-comers to this thread will see my comment first!
Life is unfair.
If you're speaking of physical beauty, I find her face too unsymmetrical for my taste. However, if you mean inner beauty, she seems like an amazing lady.
Grace Coolidge’s official portraits, oil and photos, are among the best of the First Ladies. Kennedy, Trump (did she actually have an official portrait?), and Cleveland are up there, too.
Coolidge and Kennedy both had children die while they were First Ladies…Kennedy’s infant child Patrick and Coolidge’s teenaged son Calvin Jr. (16, of sepsis).
It would have been funny if she'd said the same thing again in 1897.
Melania is the prettiest, and it's not even close.
Marla Maples in her prime is very attractive in a very All American way so for once I agree with Readering.
I dunno the story with "Barb", but there's a woman who embraced the Grandma. And yes, Laura was attractive. Nancy Reagan was an actress, so even into her old age she kept up appearances. IRC, she and "Barb" were more or less the same age, although you'd never know it.
There is something very creepy about Grover. Not only is there the story of his illegitimate child, but Frances was the daughter of one of his friends and after Oscar Folsom died, Grover became something of a surrogate father to young Frank (Frances's birth name, according to Wikipedia). Grooming? Or was that typical of the time?
Grace Coolidge has the most beautiful portrait of all the First Ladies, but if she were as romantic and willowy as her portrait, what was she doing with dour Calvin, who - as we're told - looked like he'd been weaned on a pickle?
Angelica Van Buren was a beautiful hostess for the Presidential Mansion, but since she was only a president's daughter-in-law, rather than a wife, was she really a First Lady?
Everyone seems to have overlooked John Tyler's second wife, Julia Gardiner, a 24-year-old New York society babe. She was the second youngest First Lady, and one of their grandsons is alive today.
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