Mamie Eisenhower

From the earliest days of her career, Elizabeth knew that the socially privileged were her target market.

By consistently developing exceptional products for that segment in particular, she created a client list that included First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Jacqueline Kennedy, as well as Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, and the almost royal Wallis Simpson, along with many of Hollywood's biggest stars and Broadway's elite.

And so diversification became the key to her company's growth and to the growth of her own personal fortune.

She expanded into fashion, later collaborating with emerging designers, including a little-known designer, Oscar de la Renta, early in his career.

got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Kind of ecclesiastical.

Kind of like Mamie Eisenhower, Mrs. T. Yeah.

Yeah, so

traditionally you're supposed to take the name of your husband.

What was her name?

Mamie? Mamie Eisenhower? Yeah, Mamie

Eisenhower or Mrs. T.

When a woman gets married, it's traditional that she takes the name of her husband, like Mamie Eisenhower, Mrs. T.

They were involved from the beginning.

They also worked across the aisle with Mamie Eisenhower.

This is from the Kennedy Center's website and mission statement.

Quote, Two months after President Kennedy's assassination by an act of Congress signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on January 23, 1964, the nation's National Cultural Center was designated as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy.

A new generation of leadership.

It was significant that whoever one would replace Eisenhower, who was at the time the oldest person ever to occupy the White House, And it was a clear signal of a turnover generationally.

Eisenhower had led the unified effort in Europe, five-star general, and both John Kennedy and Richard Nixon were basically foot soldiers.

Kennedy was a Lieutenant J.G.

I can't remember Nixon's exact rank, but they both were grunts in World War II, and now one of the two of them was going to become Commander-in-Chief.

Of course, there was Jacqueline Kennedy, who did emerge more so later as a distinguished public figure who people admired for her courage during the a funeral, her poise, her ability to get through that without breaking down, because she was such a young woman at the time, in her 30s, and had gone through such a searing experience, you know, sitting next to her husband when his brains were blown out in that horrible incident in Dallas.

You write about Mrs. Kennedy and her role as first lady, which was considered to be groundbreaking.

We had gotten accustomed to first ladies like Mamie Eisenhower, Bess Truman, or even Eleanor Roosevelt, who were not exactly paragons of glamour.

Or at least she will be until the voters of California elect Khloe Kardashian to the U.S. Senate.

I should add, in his first husband, my role model was Mamie Eisenhower.

My special project was staying on the way.

When I moved back home from Washington, D.C., I had this naive idea that I was going to spark a regional cultural revolution.

The USSR had reached space first.

So what did the Americans do to respond? Well, the White House under President Eisenhower needed something spectacular, a demonstration that America could still do things that the Soviets couldn't, and the answer came from beneath the sea.

Now, we've talked on this podcast about a lot of firsts, like the first person to go lips to tit.

I wouldn't wanna be the first captain on a nuclear-powered submarine.

So on the 3rd of August, 1958, a Sunday, the Nautilus actually reached the North Pole.

Anderson had time to write two letters before signing them at the moment of the crossing.

The first was addressed to Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady and the official sponsor of the vessel.

He wrote, "It is my hope that Nautilus will always serve as a tribute to our country and to you.

... are all lovely women, but they're not Melania

... she's no Mamie Eisenhower, and she's no Bess Truman-

Yeah

... that's for sure.

Well, I think too, she-

The first lady of the United States, she could be a model.

I just, I just love that Kevin grabbed Mamie Eisenhower as the example.

Yeah.

Just as national security activated Rosie, it now required a happy, contented, traditional, and apparently very pink housewife.

Enter First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, wife of President Ike Eisenhower, who had been the mastermind of D-Day and the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II.

Mamie was here to show us what love of country and femininity looked like now, and it looked unequivocally pink.

Mamie remade the White House residence in pink.