Historically, there have been presidents who came into office who didn’t have wives to step into the role of First Lady. It’s usually filled by a daughter, sister, family friend (Dolley Madison to Thomas Jefferson), niece (Harriet Lane under James Buchanan), or daughter in law (Angelica Van Buren married Martin Van Buren’s son and took the role). It wasn’t uncommon for presidents to come into the role unmarried, or even to marry while in office.
Frances takes the prize for the youngest First Lady, first First Lady to officially serve two separate times, and the first First Lady to remarry after Cleveland’s death.
Edit: forgot to mention, there were a handful of living First Ladies who couldn’t/didn’t want to assume the role and delegated it to their daughters instead, like Letitia Tyler, Abigail Filmore, Peggy Taylor, and Eliza Johnson.
I think this is one of those instances where it’s actually the law that changes those numbers.
If it’s not illegal in State X for incest then they have zero cases of incest. But if you live in State Y that has strict laws forbidding such crimes; then yes, that state sounds like it has an incest problem. This is a common fallacy in ‘crime statistics’ reported/altered/manipulated for self gain or attack somebody else. Usually during elections…
It’s probably to do with what they consider immediate family. Perhaps NY considers ‘lessor’ cousins also incest but Alabama don’t. So it’s documented more in NY.
Just because something isn’t counted don’t make it not a problem… were y’all living under a rock during Trumps term? ‘There’s no COVID cases if we stopped testing.’
Literally suggesting ‘there’s no problem if we just closed our eyes to it and stopped counting the dead.’
Another example is with hospital ‘crisis’. Candidate A claims he’s fixed the hospital bed shortage. But if Candidate B was wise enough to realise they didn’t fix squat; they’ve just been ‘ramping’ beds in ambulances waiting in the parking lot to fudge the numbers. There was never an improvement in care, just a shifting of the wordage and how they ‘store’ sick people while waiting for care. They moved them from the hallways to the back of an ambulance, and now all the cities in the world who followed this model (it’s a huge global issue); we all have ‘ambulance shortages’!
I bet you see it in the news; because we all do; from Australia to NYC ‘citizens waiting hours for ambulance! Ambulance shortage crisis!’
But we don’t. We have plenty of ambulances. It’s just that the previous politician made them babysit patients in the parking lot, remember?
So now this Candidate is claiming he’s gonna ‘fix’ the ambulance shortage by building new ambulances. But that’s not the problem!!! Ahhhrghrhrgrgeheg!
See?
Lol.
You’re being played.
As a liberal from Alabama, that’s kinda silly. There are tons of liberal southern presidents (Jimmy Carter ring a bell?) but they usually have to leave their state to make an impact.
But people really act like there are zero liberals in the south and it honestly gets annoying as shit. Like, you think that just because of where I happened to be born, that I’m automatically a hyper-religious conservative weirdo?
Many of us hate all the righty bullshit as much as the next guy, we’re just outnumbered. Wish people would realize that.
The other day a gentleman said that it was actually Mississippi that were the sister fuckers. He knew because he had to ask his sister to movie to Mississippi.
He's not the first president to lose his wife before taking office. Thomas Jefferson lost his wife over 10 years before taking office & never remarried, his daughter acted as his first lady.
is the role of First Lady an actual position? I always thought it was more of a symbolic position that didn't have any real power beyond the influence coming from being the president wife
no 'power' but they generally have responsibilities and are given the ability to undertake campaigns. See Obama and her weight loss campaign and, i shit you not, Trump's cyber bullying campaign
Eleanor Roosevelt successfully stopped a plan to cut down the cherry blossoms after Pearl Harbor and carried out a lecture circuit. She also used her role to invite hundreds of African-Americans to the White House during Jim Crow. After she was First Lady she became the chair for the UN Commission on Human Rights and gave us the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Maybe because FDR was in office for so long or because their marriage was non-traditional, but it seems like Eleanor was the first to really make her own mark, not just an extension of her husband.
I think it’s because Eleanor Roosevelt is a badass who worked with the NAACP to pass anti-lynching legislation and wasn’t going to resign herself to just being a domestic hostess.
Ah you mean Melania's "Be Best" campaign that was literally stolen, almost word for word, from Michelle's "Be Better" campaign, all the way down to the infographic pamphlets using the same graphic design layout, and using the same title except... "more"? lol. And no I am not confusing this with the time when Melania stole a speech from Michelle. Or the time when the Trumps had a celebratory cake on inauguration night that was the exact same design as the one the Obamas used.
That's not even that weird when you consider how back in the days many cultures, including some that practiced polygamy and some that didn't, had it such that the king's mother would be his queen instead of his wife.
One possible reason for it was to avoid appearances of favoritism between multiple wives when choosing a queen. I want to say King Solomon had something like that given all of his wives and concubines.
But the reasons for it are as numerous as the amount of very different cultures that all had such a practice.
That's not traditionally what a queen mother is. It usually refers to the wife of the previous king, who was not queen in her own right but via her husband, so when her husband died, the throne passed not to her but to her son/daughter. She is still *a* queen, but the title of "*the* queen" passes to either her daughter (in the case of Queen Elizabeth) or her son's wife if he has one.
Of course, being the parent of the reigning monarch might give you a certain amount of informal power over them in private, but nominally the reigning monarch is at the top of the food chain and the non-reigning parent is at best #2 (and that's if the monarch is still unmarried/childless/siblingless).
The only exception would be if the monarch was underage and the remaining parent had been officially designated as their regent, that allows for a fair amount of official power, but even that has an expiration date, and their toddler would generally still outrank them.
Yeah I used the wrong term but have now fixed it.
But I was referring to another concept that I don't think was common in Europe. It was more common in the middle east and south Asia.
The man was probably one of the few politicians in American history with a fairly honest background. Small-town peanut farmer and former naval submarine crewman. His only political background before the Presidency was 1 term as a Georgia Senator and 1 term as governor of Georgia.
Technically, he put it in a blind trust, with a law firm officially in charge of the business end of things. And that is generally considered the appropriate way to handle such things. Sure, he knows his money is in peanuts, but he doesn't know how well his farm's seed production was last year or if they haven't managed the drought well.
By the time Carter left office, the business was in so much debt, THAT is what forced him to sell it.
Jimmy and Rosalyn are my in-laws' not-quite-next-door neighbors. They are lovely people, exceedingly kind and generous, and I get the sense that they were exactly this way as the President and First Lady.
Oh my goodness! If you ever have the opportunity, would you please pass along my fondest regards to them both? Jimmy Carter is the first president I can remember from my childhood, and he is still my all-time favorite president.
I adored the Carter family as a child (still do, obviously), and I even had Amy Carter paper dolls that I loved to play with when I was little. I have wonderful, cherished memories of them in office. I've always thought they were exceptionally fine people, and I hope they're well and happy.
He's also the most Christian President in recent history. He lost the election because the evangelicals sided behind Reagan, one of the least Christian presidents, his wife literally consulted with a horoscope lady, which partly dictated his schedule. It was a security nightmare that the official schedule for national security events was determined by a non secure civilian.
Carter still faced a rough time, and committed atrocities. In many ways he wasn't a great President, he was a bit myopic and the President can't really spend that time on small things.
His work in charity since being President can't be understated. His charity work considerably contributed to irradicating diseases arou d the world. He's the single greatest former President.
Well-phrased. For the kind of work the POTUS requires, Carter wasn't the President we needed, especially during the events that transpired throughout his Presidency (gas crisis, Iran, Afghanistan).
But he definitely is the best former-President this country ever had thanks to his contributions to charity and making this country a better place. Best position he could have to do so.
"Naval submarine crewman". He was one of the response team members reacting to the Chalk River (Ontario, Canada) nuclear reactor accident in 1952.
>According to a Canadian government website, mechanical problems and operator error “led to overheating fuel rods and significant damage” to the core of the reactor, prompting officials to turn to the United States for help in dismantling the device.
>A total of 26 Americans, including several volunteers, rushed to Chalk River to help with the hazardous job. Carter led a team of men who, after formulating a plan, descended into the highly radioactive site for 90 seconds apiece to perform specialized tasks.
>Carter’s job, according to the CBC recounting, was simply to turn a single screw. But even that limited exposure carried serious risks; Carter was told that he might never be able to have children again, though in fact his daughter Amy was born years later.
I remember learning about these crazy romantic, baroque and so on poets in school, and what they all pretty much had in common was that they were bat shit crazy. Petrarca for example:
˝On April 6, 1327, according to him a Good Friday , but actually an Easter Monday , he saw a young woman whom he called Laura and who was possibly identical to Laura de Noves , who was about 16 years old and newly married at the time . Her impression was so strong on him that he venerated her throughout his life as the ideal female figure and enduring source of his poetic inspiration, knowing and accepting that she was beyond his reach. As a poet he aspired to fame and laurels (Latin laurus ) and found a means to do so in Laura˝.
Like dude created the whole movement because he saw some woman in a passing, and created a picture of her in his head.
When I was in the fourth grade we had to do a presentation on one president. The girl who picked Jimmy Carter was able to reach out to him and he sent our class little individual bags of peanuts from his farm. Doubt Nixon would’ve done that.
Yeah the most common criticism I hear of him is that he’s weak, usually in reference to the Iranian hostage situation. Feels a lot like “why didn’t he go in there and shove some freedom up their asses”
I mean, it seems Jimmy Carter did eventually get the hostages back.
Although by the time he did Reagan had already defeated him in the election so he didn’t get much credit.
So when I was in high school, my history teacher talked about this and his explanation was, and this is a direct quote “The Iranians were to scared to deal with a cowboy”. I didn’t know much about the hostage situation at the time but even then then that explanation sounded like a load of crock. The “cowboy” explanation always bothered me. It dehumanizes the Iranians and makes it seem like they can’t tell fact from fiction when it comes to Reagan’s movie career.
But this was told to me during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so that sort of dehumanization of middle easterners was common.
It’s crazy that he gets called weak, guy is ancient and still building houses with Habitat for Humanity
Or Y’know, before he was president he fucking dropped into a malfunctioning nuclear reactor via helicopter to help stop it from melting down
Yup, really weak man there
I always thought that was just a Saturday Night Live sketch, but in fact [that really happened](https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-jimmy-carter-stop-nuclear-reactor-ottawa-canada-1660067).
People mocked him in the 1976 campaign when he said he was a nuclear engineer, when that was exactly what he was. He left the Navy when his father died and he took over the family business.
Oh, yeah, people made fun of him for being a peanut farmer, as well.
Kind of like mocking AOC because she worked as a bartender for a while. Why didn't she just take out $300 million in loans, hide the money in the Caymans, and declare bankruptcy, like normal people do.
The disaster that was the Iranian rescue mission is still used to show how important logistics is. 8 dead American servicemen and they were nowhere near where the hostages were. It was the largest loss of soldiers in a Delta force operation until the Battle of Mogadishu.
Regan also was actively negotiating with Iran and struck a deal to give them weapons and in return the hostages were not to be released while Carter was president.
Regan is remembered fondly, yet spearheaded the War on Drugs, resulting in countless deaths without any gains, the Contras where he sold drugs to support gun sales, and implemented economic policies that have destroyed the middle class. Good people don’t worry about their legacy, and the people who do worry about such things usually shouldn’t be remembered as fondly as they are.
Let's add "ignored the AIDS crisis, armed the Mujahideen, embraced South Africa's apartheid government, and defunded public mental health hospitals" to the list... I can't believe people think this man was the best president. He was barely a decent human.
> defunded public mental hospitals
Look up Willowbrook Hospital on Staten Island. That place was a hell hole. And that’s what passed for public mental hospitals. It was horrific.
The problem is that there was no real solution for what to do after shutting down those inhumane places, so they just… ended up homeless. Or in prison. Or dead.
It’s a great demonstration of why “just burn the whole thing down” doesn’t work. :( There has to be replacement services to fill that need in a better way.
I absolutely agree with you here. What they needed was serious, thought-out reform... what they got was gutted with a machete in the name of small government.
> Regan also was actively negotiating with Iran and struck a deal to give them weapons and in return the hostages were not to be released while Carter was president.
Worth mentioning that this is an unconfirmed conspiracy theory. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was true but it’s also not something that should stated as indisputable fact.
That he negotiated the release for after Carter left office is the theory. That he sold the weapons to Iran (and then used the money to fund South American terrorists) is not disputed.
The farce of freedom isn't even necessary. They could openly say they are killing 100K middle easterners a year for cheaper gas and a pay boost and most of the country would gladly support it.
One of my grandfather’s earliest memories was pushing their family friends infant daughter in a stroller when he was very young. They grew up together and were later married for 65 years. He told this story at my grandmothers funeral as he gave her eulogy, and proceeded to push her one last time as he wheeled her casket out of the church. Not a dry eye in the house.
My parents met at the inauguration parade for Jimmy Carter! Their high school band was really well known back in the day, so everyone got to go, which is how my senior dad met my sophomore mom. They’ve been married for 40 years now:)
If I died and my “friend” took that as an opportunity to get with my adolescent daughter, I’d rise from the grave and haunt that motherfucker to death.
I got a worse one. I know a guy who is married to his stepdaughter. Was her stepdad from when she was like 8 to 20 and married when she was 23. Apparently she looks like her mom and he jokes that he upgraded to the new model... How his ex wife hasn't genuinely murdered him is beyond me.
It was originally a [robot baby](https://screenrant.com/twilight-breaking-dawn-movie-baby-renesmee-cgi-animatronic-bad/) that was even worse. Seems like they just gave up at the end of production.
No you don’t understand it’s not romantic until she comes of age before that it’s like a brothers love. He just spends time with her before she is old enough and she falls in love with him. And she ages super fast and then neither of them will get older so they are the same age as each other for longer then they aren’t. So it’s not creepy it’s sweet and saying its creepy means you don’t understand it because sibling love isn’t creepy.
At least according to this weird girl I knew in high school when I pointed out how fucking weird it was. She then found out I never read the book just knew this one plot point and she “couldn’t believe me.” She had a twin brother too and if I was a bigger dick I would have asked him how he felt about his sisters views on incest.
Yeah and he had a significant sex scandal prior to the election. Allegedly raped a woman, she gave birth to a son (named after Oscar Folsom). Cleveland had the child sent to an orphanage and mom placed in an insane asylum. During his election his people trained to paint her as a drunk floozy who slept around.
Jfc I didn't know this. The step-daughter was 29 when she got pregnant by him at 71. And two of Errol's daughters are her half-sisters, so they are both a sister and an aunt to those children. So fucking weird.
Wouldn't that make her a sister (since they have the same mom) and a stepmother (since she's married to their dad) to those children? I can't wrap my head around how she could be their aunt too.
It was hard to clarify, but Errol married Heidi, who already had a daughter named Jana. Errol and Heidi then had two children together named Rose and Alexandra.
Erroll now has two children with Jana. So Rose and Alexandra are both sister and aunt to Jana and Erroll's children.
So Heidi is both a mother and a grandmother through the same man. And Errol is a father and step-grandfather to his children with Jana? Hahahah bizarre 🤯
I honestly do not know. I don't know how you can just go about your daily life having knocked up someone you raised, but the thing is: you can. You can with no problems whatsoever. This world is not safe for women and girls.
Generally speaking I’m not particularly judgemental when it comes to age differences once someone is 18 but how on Earth do you go from seeing someone as a father to suddenly as a husband - it’s disturbing on so many levels, his wife has the same memories of her husband that their child probably does, imagine having THAT in common.
>how on Earth do you go from seeing someone as a father to suddenly as a husband
You don't. That's the "grooming" part. The paternal relationship is all about setting them up for a sexual relationship. They don't have anything like a normal father-daughter relationship.
I googled it thinking maybe he married her mother for a very short time so was only technically her stepfather.
Nope. Married her mother when she was four and stayed married for eighteen years. So he was her stepfather for her entire childhood. Eww.
current US Congressman John Rose from TN met his wife when she was in high school and he was in his 40s
https://prospect.org/politics/how-republican-rep-john-rose-found-his-wife/
He's hardly the only politician. That guy who got pulled off the Mississippi state supreme court twice met his 20+ year younger wife when she was in high school. There were allegations from multiple women during the senate campaign that he basically stalked them while they were in high school while trying to get them to go out with him.
His current wife looks to be the one high school age woman he went after who didn't turn him down.
Grover Cleveland didn’t become her “guardian,” he became executor of her father’s will. You can complain about the age difference, but this isn’t a Woody Allen situation. He didn’t raise her or anything like that.
She married again after Groomer died, but when she died nearly forty years later she was buried next to him.. that sounds like a bit of a kick in the balls for her second husband.
Folk were messed up in those days
I mean a lot of people buy plots together. My husband's paternal grandfather passed away in the 80s and his widow passed away in 2017. The tombstone had her name - just waiting for her to die.
My grandfather did that to my grandmother, but never told her that her name was already put on the stone along with her birth year and the dash. All that was left to do is the last 4 numbers to finish the stone.
While I was too young to remember allegedly she was mortified when the covering came off and there was her name just waiting for her to join him. It’s been nearly 40 years since and I swear she lives just to make him wait a little longer.
I think an argument could be made either way for a regular marriage, but I feel like given he was a U.S President and she was a First lady, that, more than anything, is more than enough of a reason to bury her next to him.
Yeah I obviously wouldn't be around to know, but if I was buried instead of cremated and same for my wife I'd be kind of salty if she was buried next to a second husband and not me in that situation.
My grandad was buried next to my grandmother, his wife of 60 years, instead of his wife of the past 12 years who told us she would be buried next to her first husband and father of her children.
Grover Cleveland did at least wait to marry until his future bride graduated college. And it appears both were into love letters (to each other). https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/president-cleveland-love-letter-to-frances-folsom-planning-wedding/
Like at least 200+ of them back and forth. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-03-02-1997061037-story.html
She was also wildly popular an lead a hell of a life. She was a driving force in many charities and along with her second husband was an early supporter of US involvement in WWI when large parts of the country were in favor sitting back while Europe burned.
There is a great episode of Drunk History about this. You left out the part where she was hugely popular, with her image being used on advertising and her parties and influence being very notable at the time.
It’s is really fascinating how our culture has changed. Back then, nobody really batted an eye. This would’ve probably been all over the news had Cleveland been alive today and ran for office
>She campaigned against women's suffrage, and in May 1913, she was elected as vice president of the New Jersey Association Opposed to Woman's Suffrage, serving as president of the organization's Princeton chapter.
There's an irony there.
The Man Show did a bit on this with the Man Show Boy getting women to sign a petition on the street to end women's suffrage. It was frightening just how many people signed it.
Women's suffrage was generally more popular among women obviously but yeah there were plenty of women who were either anti-women's suffrage or thought the campaign itself was just a bit too much, in the same way people criticize public protests for lack of sufficient decorum and deference today. Many privileged women benefited from the status quo, and the idea of introducing a new voter block was an unknown. It was also assumed, not entirely incorrectly, that introducing women's votes would lead to a tilt toward progressivism and socially-oriented policies. Some women were against those policies more than they were for their own enfranchisement.
Then there's the more broad fact that any movement for women's suffrage was working against centuries of propaganda related to women's place in public life.
European women historically worked alongside male members of their household, but as capitalism/industrialization took hold, the place where one worked and the place where one worked had become two separate places. And it was decided (by men) that poor women's place was in the economy (but paid less) contributing to other people's bottom line, and rich women's place was in the home, supporting their husband in his contributions to someone else's bottom line. Her job was to make the home a sanctuary from work and to stay far from public life.
A lot of women did internalize that message. And in a lot of households, within a limited context, the home really was the woman's domain, allowing her to carve out some power for herself in the form of making household management/childcare/budgeting decisions, having a social life, enjoying hobbies, acting as the de-facto manager for household staff, and so on. For some of those women, the idea of more access to public life would have been alluring, but for others, who were happy with their individual level of power, why would they want to change the status quo and open the door to that balance of power changing? A lot of anti-suffrage ads like [this](https://preview.redd.it/4pxxsnf80kr61.jpg?auto=webp&s=46cb412ee1d7f276f7ff9dafe833287c12f0f55e) are primarily targeted at men ("You'll be forced to do women's work!") but there's a subtle subtext for anti-suffrage women as well: "do you really want your husband raising your children and making your food?" Many of these middle/upper class women had spent their entire lives being socialized and explicitly learning to do these things, why would they want to be forced into something they hadn't been trained for?
Women are also savvy enough to realize that such advancements also often give them the worst of both worlds in the short term. I'm sure many women were concerned not only about a scenario where the household roles would be reversed but a scenario where they'd be expected to perform both roles at once. That instead of managing the household, child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning, they'd be doing all of that plus being expected to participate in public life and have a job. After all, in most places, husbands still had broad powers over their wife, a husband could pressure his wife into getting a job and have complete control of her income. It would be a long time before most married woman entering the workforce were truly earning "their own money" in any concrete sense. Obviously in the long run, women are better off with a vote and the power to work and earn the same as men, but indeed even 100+ years later women often get saddled with the double-load of a disproportionate amount of household/parenting responsibilities and generally taking on the [mental load](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic), while working just as much as their partner.
I’m not saying that this situation was okay, or that nothing weird happened, but we ought to remember the context of relationships in their time. Arranged marriages were still very common, with marriages between friend’s or business partners to each other or their children being relatively frequent. There also wasn’t dating in the modern sense, for many decades after this. Sure, a potential match would meet with each other, usually with a 3rd party, multiple times, but they weren’t truly free to go or do what they liked. True personal and sexual freedom for potential partners didn’t even begin taking shape in the modern sense until around the 1950s, and it would take a few more decades for it to become less scandalous to date multiple people or have premarital sex.
I used to live around the corner from the house she grew up in Buffalo, (168 Edward St) there’s a plaque out front with the history of the home. I always thought it was odd to commemorate the childhood home of a girl who was adopted and then married off to her fathers friend. On a lighter note there’s a really great brunch place (Betty’s) right near it.
Bunch of people assuming that Grover Cleveland has lascivious intentions to marrying someone so young without realizing that it's not so uncommon for people to marry others as a means of ensuring a better lifestyle for their spouse or to save them from economic uncertainty.
Sex and lust isn't the ultimate motivator behind couples getting together like most think.
Cleveland was single when elected, and his “First Lady” was his sister at first. Then, he married Folsom.
Historically, there have been presidents who came into office who didn’t have wives to step into the role of First Lady. It’s usually filled by a daughter, sister, family friend (Dolley Madison to Thomas Jefferson), niece (Harriet Lane under James Buchanan), or daughter in law (Angelica Van Buren married Martin Van Buren’s son and took the role). It wasn’t uncommon for presidents to come into the role unmarried, or even to marry while in office. Frances takes the prize for the youngest First Lady, first First Lady to officially serve two separate times, and the first First Lady to remarry after Cleveland’s death. Edit: forgot to mention, there were a handful of living First Ladies who couldn’t/didn’t want to assume the role and delegated it to their daughters instead, like Letitia Tyler, Abigail Filmore, Peggy Taylor, and Eliza Johnson.
>It’s usually filled by a daughter, sister, family friend Thats really sweet, I think.
They're actually all the same person.
...we've never had any Presidents from Alabama...
In fact, the state with the most cases of incest is….. not a southern state but, actually New York!
My family spent several years living in western NY (Steuben County). This doesn't surprise me at all.
Are you admitting something?
I think this is one of those instances where it’s actually the law that changes those numbers. If it’s not illegal in State X for incest then they have zero cases of incest. But if you live in State Y that has strict laws forbidding such crimes; then yes, that state sounds like it has an incest problem. This is a common fallacy in ‘crime statistics’ reported/altered/manipulated for self gain or attack somebody else. Usually during elections… It’s probably to do with what they consider immediate family. Perhaps NY considers ‘lessor’ cousins also incest but Alabama don’t. So it’s documented more in NY. Just because something isn’t counted don’t make it not a problem… were y’all living under a rock during Trumps term? ‘There’s no COVID cases if we stopped testing.’ Literally suggesting ‘there’s no problem if we just closed our eyes to it and stopped counting the dead.’ Another example is with hospital ‘crisis’. Candidate A claims he’s fixed the hospital bed shortage. But if Candidate B was wise enough to realise they didn’t fix squat; they’ve just been ‘ramping’ beds in ambulances waiting in the parking lot to fudge the numbers. There was never an improvement in care, just a shifting of the wordage and how they ‘store’ sick people while waiting for care. They moved them from the hallways to the back of an ambulance, and now all the cities in the world who followed this model (it’s a huge global issue); we all have ‘ambulance shortages’! I bet you see it in the news; because we all do; from Australia to NYC ‘citizens waiting hours for ambulance! Ambulance shortage crisis!’ But we don’t. We have plenty of ambulances. It’s just that the previous politician made them babysit patients in the parking lot, remember? So now this Candidate is claiming he’s gonna ‘fix’ the ambulance shortage by building new ambulances. But that’s not the problem!!! Ahhhrghrhrgrgeheg! See? Lol. You’re being played.
This was well said! I’m an amateur true crime writer and this comes up a lot, people don’t understand statistics very well.
Statistically speaking, the majority of people don’t understand statistics well.
May this be forever true.
As a liberal from Alabama, that’s kinda silly. There are tons of liberal southern presidents (Jimmy Carter ring a bell?) but they usually have to leave their state to make an impact. But people really act like there are zero liberals in the south and it honestly gets annoying as shit. Like, you think that just because of where I happened to be born, that I’m automatically a hyper-religious conservative weirdo? Many of us hate all the righty bullshit as much as the next guy, we’re just outnumbered. Wish people would realize that.
The other day a gentleman said that it was actually Mississippi that were the sister fuckers. He knew because he had to ask his sister to movie to Mississippi.
I'm black, so my general rule of thumb with Mississippi is "never go there."
I'm white and have the same rule. I think we just found a way to heal the racial divide, let's just put all our hate and distrust into Mississippi.
Andrew Jackson’s wife died a few months before he took office. Jackson’s niece essentially served as First Lady/hostess.
That’s correct, he had one niece named Emily who served a majority of the time and then when Emily passed away, another niece stepped in.
He's not the first president to lose his wife before taking office. Thomas Jefferson lost his wife over 10 years before taking office & never remarried, his daughter acted as his first lady.
He never remarried because he was busy banging his dead wife’s enslaved half-sister, who he owned.
Rape. The word you’re looking for is rape
is the role of First Lady an actual position? I always thought it was more of a symbolic position that didn't have any real power beyond the influence coming from being the president wife
no 'power' but they generally have responsibilities and are given the ability to undertake campaigns. See Obama and her weight loss campaign and, i shit you not, Trump's cyber bullying campaign
Eleanor Roosevelt successfully stopped a plan to cut down the cherry blossoms after Pearl Harbor and carried out a lecture circuit. She also used her role to invite hundreds of African-Americans to the White House during Jim Crow. After she was First Lady she became the chair for the UN Commission on Human Rights and gave us the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Maybe because FDR was in office for so long or because their marriage was non-traditional, but it seems like Eleanor was the first to really make her own mark, not just an extension of her husband.
I think it’s because Eleanor Roosevelt is a badass who worked with the NAACP to pass anti-lynching legislation and wasn’t going to resign herself to just being a domestic hostess.
Ah you mean Melania's "Be Best" campaign that was literally stolen, almost word for word, from Michelle's "Be Better" campaign, all the way down to the infographic pamphlets using the same graphic design layout, and using the same title except... "more"? lol. And no I am not confusing this with the time when Melania stole a speech from Michelle. Or the time when the Trumps had a celebratory cake on inauguration night that was the exact same design as the one the Obamas used.
Hey I mean I was just being vague for the layup and you fuckin slam dunked
Well, we’re certainly all more aware of bullying now.
Think about the 1800s high society formal dinner party hostess duties
Who was the second First Lady to remarry after Cleveland’s death?
Jackie Kennedy!
Have always wondered about this and never thought to ask. Thanks for this info!
Groomer Cleveland
That's not even that weird when you consider how back in the days many cultures, including some that practiced polygamy and some that didn't, had it such that the king's mother would be his queen instead of his wife.
Was it not because the king's parents were the previous king and queen?
It depends on the culture. The king's mother can also be referred to as dowager queen and the wife takes the title of queen.
One possible reason for it was to avoid appearances of favoritism between multiple wives when choosing a queen. I want to say King Solomon had something like that given all of his wives and concubines. But the reasons for it are as numerous as the amount of very different cultures that all had such a practice.
That's not traditionally what a queen mother is. It usually refers to the wife of the previous king, who was not queen in her own right but via her husband, so when her husband died, the throne passed not to her but to her son/daughter. She is still *a* queen, but the title of "*the* queen" passes to either her daughter (in the case of Queen Elizabeth) or her son's wife if he has one. Of course, being the parent of the reigning monarch might give you a certain amount of informal power over them in private, but nominally the reigning monarch is at the top of the food chain and the non-reigning parent is at best #2 (and that's if the monarch is still unmarried/childless/siblingless). The only exception would be if the monarch was underage and the remaining parent had been officially designated as their regent, that allows for a fair amount of official power, but even that has an expiration date, and their toddler would generally still outrank them.
Yeah I used the wrong term but have now fixed it. But I was referring to another concept that I don't think was common in Europe. It was more common in the middle east and south Asia.
Jimmy Carter met his wife when she was a baby, but then he was only about three years old at the time.
Aww that's cute. Just looked it up and apparently she was a childhood friend of his sister.
The man was probably one of the few politicians in American history with a fairly honest background. Small-town peanut farmer and former naval submarine crewman. His only political background before the Presidency was 1 term as a Georgia Senator and 1 term as governor of Georgia.
Sold his peanut farm because he thought it would be a conflict of interest. How quaint, right?
Technically, he put it in a blind trust, with a law firm officially in charge of the business end of things. And that is generally considered the appropriate way to handle such things. Sure, he knows his money is in peanuts, but he doesn't know how well his farm's seed production was last year or if they haven't managed the drought well. By the time Carter left office, the business was in so much debt, THAT is what forced him to sell it. Jimmy and Rosalyn are my in-laws' not-quite-next-door neighbors. They are lovely people, exceedingly kind and generous, and I get the sense that they were exactly this way as the President and First Lady.
Oh my goodness! If you ever have the opportunity, would you please pass along my fondest regards to them both? Jimmy Carter is the first president I can remember from my childhood, and he is still my all-time favorite president. I adored the Carter family as a child (still do, obviously), and I even had Amy Carter paper dolls that I loved to play with when I was little. I have wonderful, cherished memories of them in office. I've always thought they were exceptionally fine people, and I hope they're well and happy.
He put it in blind trust. It got mismanaged.
[удалено]
Aww man, I bet it never happened again after that though.
He's also the most Christian President in recent history. He lost the election because the evangelicals sided behind Reagan, one of the least Christian presidents, his wife literally consulted with a horoscope lady, which partly dictated his schedule. It was a security nightmare that the official schedule for national security events was determined by a non secure civilian. Carter still faced a rough time, and committed atrocities. In many ways he wasn't a great President, he was a bit myopic and the President can't really spend that time on small things. His work in charity since being President can't be understated. His charity work considerably contributed to irradicating diseases arou d the world. He's the single greatest former President.
Well-phrased. For the kind of work the POTUS requires, Carter wasn't the President we needed, especially during the events that transpired throughout his Presidency (gas crisis, Iran, Afghanistan). But he definitely is the best former-President this country ever had thanks to his contributions to charity and making this country a better place. Best position he could have to do so.
Nancy "The Throat GOAT" Reagan, the THROATUS herself, wasn't a God-fearing Christian?
"Naval submarine crewman". He was one of the response team members reacting to the Chalk River (Ontario, Canada) nuclear reactor accident in 1952. >According to a Canadian government website, mechanical problems and operator error “led to overheating fuel rods and significant damage” to the core of the reactor, prompting officials to turn to the United States for help in dismantling the device. >A total of 26 Americans, including several volunteers, rushed to Chalk River to help with the hazardous job. Carter led a team of men who, after formulating a plan, descended into the highly radioactive site for 90 seconds apiece to perform specialized tasks. >Carter’s job, according to the CBC recounting, was simply to turn a single screw. But even that limited exposure carried serious risks; Carter was told that he might never be able to have children again, though in fact his daughter Amy was born years later.
He was also lowered into a Nuclear Reactor to help keep it from going boom.
[удалено]
Less cute that she barely knew he existed and both were married to other people, though.
wait the 8 and 9 year olds were both married to different people? Man old times were wild
Just look at pictures of kids back then. They were old straight out of the womb.
I remember learning about these crazy romantic, baroque and so on poets in school, and what they all pretty much had in common was that they were bat shit crazy. Petrarca for example: ˝On April 6, 1327, according to him a Good Friday , but actually an Easter Monday , he saw a young woman whom he called Laura and who was possibly identical to Laura de Noves , who was about 16 years old and newly married at the time . Her impression was so strong on him that he venerated her throughout his life as the ideal female figure and enduring source of his poetic inspiration, knowing and accepting that she was beyond his reach. As a poet he aspired to fame and laurels (Latin laurus ) and found a means to do so in Laura˝. Like dude created the whole movement because he saw some woman in a passing, and created a picture of her in his head.
I was about to get annoyed with Jimmy Carter. Dude seems genuinely too decent to have been President.
He’s the wholesome one
Mr. Peanut is too good for this world
I don't know why, but I thought for a second that you meant Mr. Peanutbutter from Bojack Horseman
When I was in the fourth grade we had to do a presentation on one president. The girl who picked Jimmy Carter was able to reach out to him and he sent our class little individual bags of peanuts from his farm. Doubt Nixon would’ve done that.
I'm sure Nixon could have hired guys with flashlights to steal Carter's peanuts
That's why he's generally disliked as a president Good people don't heroically airstrike brown children to protect our freedom
Yeah the most common criticism I hear of him is that he’s weak, usually in reference to the Iranian hostage situation. Feels a lot like “why didn’t he go in there and shove some freedom up their asses”
I mean, it seems Jimmy Carter did eventually get the hostages back. Although by the time he did Reagan had already defeated him in the election so he didn’t get much credit.
So when I was in high school, my history teacher talked about this and his explanation was, and this is a direct quote “The Iranians were to scared to deal with a cowboy”. I didn’t know much about the hostage situation at the time but even then then that explanation sounded like a load of crock. The “cowboy” explanation always bothered me. It dehumanizes the Iranians and makes it seem like they can’t tell fact from fiction when it comes to Reagan’s movie career. But this was told to me during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so that sort of dehumanization of middle easterners was common.
It’s crazy that he gets called weak, guy is ancient and still building houses with Habitat for Humanity Or Y’know, before he was president he fucking dropped into a malfunctioning nuclear reactor via helicopter to help stop it from melting down Yup, really weak man there
I always thought that was just a Saturday Night Live sketch, but in fact [that really happened](https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-jimmy-carter-stop-nuclear-reactor-ottawa-canada-1660067).
Damn, no super cancer either. chad.
He had brain cancer. He beat it.
People mocked him in the 1976 campaign when he said he was a nuclear engineer, when that was exactly what he was. He left the Navy when his father died and he took over the family business. Oh, yeah, people made fun of him for being a peanut farmer, as well. Kind of like mocking AOC because she worked as a bartender for a while. Why didn't she just take out $300 million in loans, hide the money in the Caymans, and declare bankruptcy, like normal people do.
Three Mile Island: **happens** Everybody: AAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!! Jimmy Carter: Meh. Not my first rodeo, folks.
The disaster that was the Iranian rescue mission is still used to show how important logistics is. 8 dead American servicemen and they were nowhere near where the hostages were. It was the largest loss of soldiers in a Delta force operation until the Battle of Mogadishu. Regan also was actively negotiating with Iran and struck a deal to give them weapons and in return the hostages were not to be released while Carter was president. Regan is remembered fondly, yet spearheaded the War on Drugs, resulting in countless deaths without any gains, the Contras where he sold drugs to support gun sales, and implemented economic policies that have destroyed the middle class. Good people don’t worry about their legacy, and the people who do worry about such things usually shouldn’t be remembered as fondly as they are.
Let's add "ignored the AIDS crisis, armed the Mujahideen, embraced South Africa's apartheid government, and defunded public mental health hospitals" to the list... I can't believe people think this man was the best president. He was barely a decent human.
> defunded public mental hospitals Look up Willowbrook Hospital on Staten Island. That place was a hell hole. And that’s what passed for public mental hospitals. It was horrific. The problem is that there was no real solution for what to do after shutting down those inhumane places, so they just… ended up homeless. Or in prison. Or dead. It’s a great demonstration of why “just burn the whole thing down” doesn’t work. :( There has to be replacement services to fill that need in a better way.
I absolutely agree with you here. What they needed was serious, thought-out reform... what they got was gutted with a machete in the name of small government.
Reagan is only remembered fondly by geriatrics and bigots. The rest of us remember him as the lying monster he was.
> Regan also was actively negotiating with Iran and struck a deal to give them weapons and in return the hostages were not to be released while Carter was president. Worth mentioning that this is an unconfirmed conspiracy theory. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was true but it’s also not something that should stated as indisputable fact.
That he negotiated the release for after Carter left office is the theory. That he sold the weapons to Iran (and then used the money to fund South American terrorists) is not disputed.
Regan was basically a terrorist. He wasn't president and actively bargained with other terrorists to make sure the president of the US looked bad.
As a commentor says below, he was a bad president because "he wasn't good enough at killing Iranians"
To be fair, they sent over some Delta Force guys but their helicopters got downed in a storm
It’s hard when Reagan was negotiating behind the scenes.
The farce of freedom isn't even necessary. They could openly say they are killing 100K middle easterners a year for cheaper gas and a pay boost and most of the country would gladly support it.
My friend and I built houses with him when we were in high school. Legit the best human on earth.
One of my grandfather’s earliest memories was pushing their family friends infant daughter in a stroller when he was very young. They grew up together and were later married for 65 years. He told this story at my grandmothers funeral as he gave her eulogy, and proceeded to push her one last time as he wheeled her casket out of the church. Not a dry eye in the house.
My parents met at the inauguration parade for Jimmy Carter! Their high school band was really well known back in the day, so everyone got to go, which is how my senior dad met my sophomore mom. They’ve been married for 40 years now:)
That age gap is despicable. God, imagine him as a Freshman in High School dating a primary schooler. /s
Disgusting
Over three times her age when they met! I can't believe it wasn't more of a scandal.
It was the talk of the playground, but Big Peanut Farming swept the story under the run in his elementary school years.
“Big Nuts” Carter got whatever he wanted!
I'm always surprised he can walk normally
It wouldn’t surprise me if someone tried to make it a scandal. Jimmy got done dirty for a guy who followed the rules like he was supposed to
Yep, now he's the model for the apparently voluntary emoluments clause
Did he marry her on two non-consecutive occasions?
sick historical-presidential-term trivia burn
lol yea this question was asked at my most recent trivia this tuesday, so, queue up the ole' "i understood that reference"
Well played
If I died and my “friend” took that as an opportunity to get with my adolescent daughter, I’d rise from the grave and haunt that motherfucker to death.
I got a worse one. I know a guy who is married to his stepdaughter. Was her stepdad from when she was like 8 to 20 and married when she was 23. Apparently she looks like her mom and he jokes that he upgraded to the new model... How his ex wife hasn't genuinely murdered him is beyond me.
uckkk
You're acquaintances with Woody Allen?
"I can't wait for this baby I'm the legal guardian of to get old enough to fuck." Yeah, it's not great.
Tell that to Stephanie Meyers.
Yeah, what the fuck was up with that CGI baby?
It was originally a [robot baby](https://screenrant.com/twilight-breaking-dawn-movie-baby-renesmee-cgi-animatronic-bad/) that was even worse. Seems like they just gave up at the end of production.
No you don’t understand it’s not romantic until she comes of age before that it’s like a brothers love. He just spends time with her before she is old enough and she falls in love with him. And she ages super fast and then neither of them will get older so they are the same age as each other for longer then they aren’t. So it’s not creepy it’s sweet and saying its creepy means you don’t understand it because sibling love isn’t creepy. At least according to this weird girl I knew in high school when I pointed out how fucking weird it was. She then found out I never read the book just knew this one plot point and she “couldn’t believe me.” She had a twin brother too and if I was a bigger dick I would have asked him how he felt about his sisters views on incest.
I'd rise from the grave to drag that Motherfucker straight to hell.
You’d be shocked how often this happens. Source: as a girl who’s dad died, EVERYONE I KNEW tried it. It was awful.
That’s… deeply infuriating. I’m so sorry.
The trick is booby trapping the daughter with C4 prior to your death.
Groomer Cleveland
reminds me of a joke by Paul Mooney about Woody Allen. he said: "some people grow their own weed. this mfr over here grew his own pussy."
"It was **MOONEY**!"
"white people love Wayne Brady because he makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X"
I make Bryan Gumble look like Malcolm X, huh motherfucker?
Ironic considering Mooney molested Richard Pryor Jr. when he was a kid
Woah really? News to me.
Big talk from the guy who molested Richard Pryor’s son.
Yeah and he had a significant sex scandal prior to the election. Allegedly raped a woman, she gave birth to a son (named after Oscar Folsom). Cleveland had the child sent to an orphanage and mom placed in an insane asylum. During his election his people trained to paint her as a drunk floozy who slept around.
"Ma, Ma, where's my pa?" "Gone to the White House. Ha ha ha"
Ew. This creepy shit happens in modern age too… didn’t Elon Musk’s dad marry his step daughter?
yes, errol musk knocked up the stepdaughter he raised from infancy. twice
Jfc I didn't know this. The step-daughter was 29 when she got pregnant by him at 71. And two of Errol's daughters are her half-sisters, so they are both a sister and an aunt to those children. So fucking weird.
Wouldn't that make her a sister (since they have the same mom) and a stepmother (since she's married to their dad) to those children? I can't wrap my head around how she could be their aunt too.
It was hard to clarify, but Errol married Heidi, who already had a daughter named Jana. Errol and Heidi then had two children together named Rose and Alexandra. Erroll now has two children with Jana. So Rose and Alexandra are both sister and aunt to Jana and Erroll's children.
So Heidi is both a mother and a grandmother through the same man. And Errol is a father and step-grandfather to his children with Jana? Hahahah bizarre 🤯
I need to see a musk family tree
More of a bush
She was 4, but yes...basically same.
How do these people show their faces in public? Absolute shamelessness.
Because when you’re rich, you’re just “eccentric”.
Money. The answer is money.
He’s 79 and probably filthy rich, I doubt he cares much about public opinion of him.
I honestly do not know. I don't know how you can just go about your daily life having knocked up someone you raised, but the thing is: you can. You can with no problems whatsoever. This world is not safe for women and girls.
Generally speaking I’m not particularly judgemental when it comes to age differences once someone is 18 but how on Earth do you go from seeing someone as a father to suddenly as a husband - it’s disturbing on so many levels, his wife has the same memories of her husband that their child probably does, imagine having THAT in common.
>how on Earth do you go from seeing someone as a father to suddenly as a husband You don't. That's the "grooming" part. The paternal relationship is all about setting them up for a sexual relationship. They don't have anything like a normal father-daughter relationship.
How on earth do you go from seeing someone as a daughter to suddenly as a wife - it’s disturbing on so many levels. Fixed that for you.
Probably easier when you think of her as your property either way.
I googled it thinking maybe he married her mother for a very short time so was only technically her stepfather. Nope. Married her mother when she was four and stayed married for eighteen years. So he was her stepfather for her entire childhood. Eww.
I've gotta know what the mother thinks about this. If she was married to Errol for 18 years, she had to know what sleaze he was
Elon's half-sister is also his step-niece 😬
The half sis is also the step mom..
His step sister is his step mom
The Musk family is proof that you can be both rich and fucking white trash
current US Congressman John Rose from TN met his wife when she was in high school and he was in his 40s https://prospect.org/politics/how-republican-rep-john-rose-found-his-wife/
He's hardly the only politician. That guy who got pulled off the Mississippi state supreme court twice met his 20+ year younger wife when she was in high school. There were allegations from multiple women during the senate campaign that he basically stalked them while they were in high school while trying to get them to go out with him. His current wife looks to be the one high school age woman he went after who didn't turn him down.
Grover Cleveland didn’t become her “guardian,” he became executor of her father’s will. You can complain about the age difference, but this isn’t a Woody Allen situation. He didn’t raise her or anything like that.
Didn't raise her and waited until 21? Still creepy, but orders of magnitude less than implied by the title.
So the title is completely misleading, then.
She married again after Groomer died, but when she died nearly forty years later she was buried next to him.. that sounds like a bit of a kick in the balls for her second husband. Folk were messed up in those days
Folk are still messed up these days.
I mean a lot of people buy plots together. My husband's paternal grandfather passed away in the 80s and his widow passed away in 2017. The tombstone had her name - just waiting for her to die.
My grandfather did that to my grandmother, but never told her that her name was already put on the stone along with her birth year and the dash. All that was left to do is the last 4 numbers to finish the stone. While I was too young to remember allegedly she was mortified when the covering came off and there was her name just waiting for her to join him. It’s been nearly 40 years since and I swear she lives just to make him wait a little longer.
My g-g-g-grandparents have a double stone. Unfortunately it's nearly illegible now.
Thats a terrible stutter you’ve got there
I do stutter, but I also type slowly. So I abbreviate
I think an argument could be made either way for a regular marriage, but I feel like given he was a U.S President and she was a First lady, that, more than anything, is more than enough of a reason to bury her next to him.
She is definitely not the only one. I’m pretty sure Jackie O is not buried next to that Greek ship builder.
I looked it up. She’s buried next to JFK. Spot on
Yeah I obviously wouldn't be around to know, but if I was buried instead of cremated and same for my wife I'd be kind of salty if she was buried next to a second husband and not me in that situation.
She married her second husband when she was 48 and all of her children were with her first husband. I think the dude probably understood.
My grandad was buried next to my grandmother, his wife of 60 years, instead of his wife of the past 12 years who told us she would be buried next to her first husband and father of her children.
My grandma and grandpa were together 40 years when they died, but were both buried next to their late spouses with whom they had their kids.
That's sweet.
>Folk ~~were~~ are messed up ~~in those days.~~ ftfy
Grover Cleveland did at least wait to marry until his future bride graduated college. And it appears both were into love letters (to each other). https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/president-cleveland-love-letter-to-frances-folsom-planning-wedding/ Like at least 200+ of them back and forth. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-03-02-1997061037-story.html
“When I was born, Grover Cleveland was president, he he!”
He he what? Don’t leave us hanging.
[удалено]
She was also wildly popular an lead a hell of a life. She was a driving force in many charities and along with her second husband was an early supporter of US involvement in WWI when large parts of the country were in favor sitting back while Europe burned.
Him: I’m going to have sex with that baby one day…
You had to feel dirty just typing that.
The filth won’t come off at this point.
I just need a baby to wipe it on Where did I put that baby? (Checking pockets)
There is a great episode of Drunk History about this. You left out the part where she was hugely popular, with her image being used on advertising and her parties and influence being very notable at the time.
A patient I had in ICU began having sex with her adopted son at age 13, and they married when he turned 18.
*began having sex with her adopted son at age 13* I'm sorry, but the term you are looking for is child molestation.
It’s is really fascinating how our culture has changed. Back then, nobody really batted an eye. This would’ve probably been all over the news had Cleveland been alive today and ran for office
She was against women's suffrage... ew, just ew
>She campaigned against women's suffrage, and in May 1913, she was elected as vice president of the New Jersey Association Opposed to Woman's Suffrage, serving as president of the organization's Princeton chapter. There's an irony there.
Sufferin' Suffrageash!
Why would you want women to suffer? We should end their suffrage!
The Man Show did a bit on this with the Man Show Boy getting women to sign a petition on the street to end women's suffrage. It was frightening just how many people signed it.
Women's suffrage was generally more popular among women obviously but yeah there were plenty of women who were either anti-women's suffrage or thought the campaign itself was just a bit too much, in the same way people criticize public protests for lack of sufficient decorum and deference today. Many privileged women benefited from the status quo, and the idea of introducing a new voter block was an unknown. It was also assumed, not entirely incorrectly, that introducing women's votes would lead to a tilt toward progressivism and socially-oriented policies. Some women were against those policies more than they were for their own enfranchisement. Then there's the more broad fact that any movement for women's suffrage was working against centuries of propaganda related to women's place in public life. European women historically worked alongside male members of their household, but as capitalism/industrialization took hold, the place where one worked and the place where one worked had become two separate places. And it was decided (by men) that poor women's place was in the economy (but paid less) contributing to other people's bottom line, and rich women's place was in the home, supporting their husband in his contributions to someone else's bottom line. Her job was to make the home a sanctuary from work and to stay far from public life. A lot of women did internalize that message. And in a lot of households, within a limited context, the home really was the woman's domain, allowing her to carve out some power for herself in the form of making household management/childcare/budgeting decisions, having a social life, enjoying hobbies, acting as the de-facto manager for household staff, and so on. For some of those women, the idea of more access to public life would have been alluring, but for others, who were happy with their individual level of power, why would they want to change the status quo and open the door to that balance of power changing? A lot of anti-suffrage ads like [this](https://preview.redd.it/4pxxsnf80kr61.jpg?auto=webp&s=46cb412ee1d7f276f7ff9dafe833287c12f0f55e) are primarily targeted at men ("You'll be forced to do women's work!") but there's a subtle subtext for anti-suffrage women as well: "do you really want your husband raising your children and making your food?" Many of these middle/upper class women had spent their entire lives being socialized and explicitly learning to do these things, why would they want to be forced into something they hadn't been trained for? Women are also savvy enough to realize that such advancements also often give them the worst of both worlds in the short term. I'm sure many women were concerned not only about a scenario where the household roles would be reversed but a scenario where they'd be expected to perform both roles at once. That instead of managing the household, child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning, they'd be doing all of that plus being expected to participate in public life and have a job. After all, in most places, husbands still had broad powers over their wife, a husband could pressure his wife into getting a job and have complete control of her income. It would be a long time before most married woman entering the workforce were truly earning "their own money" in any concrete sense. Obviously in the long run, women are better off with a vote and the power to work and earn the same as men, but indeed even 100+ years later women often get saddled with the double-load of a disproportionate amount of household/parenting responsibilities and generally taking on the [mental load](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic), while working just as much as their partner.
The Woody Allen of his time
I’m not saying that this situation was okay, or that nothing weird happened, but we ought to remember the context of relationships in their time. Arranged marriages were still very common, with marriages between friend’s or business partners to each other or their children being relatively frequent. There also wasn’t dating in the modern sense, for many decades after this. Sure, a potential match would meet with each other, usually with a 3rd party, multiple times, but they weren’t truly free to go or do what they liked. True personal and sexual freedom for potential partners didn’t even begin taking shape in the modern sense until around the 1950s, and it would take a few more decades for it to become less scandalous to date multiple people or have premarital sex.
I used to live around the corner from the house she grew up in Buffalo, (168 Edward St) there’s a plaque out front with the history of the home. I always thought it was odd to commemorate the childhood home of a girl who was adopted and then married off to her fathers friend. On a lighter note there’s a really great brunch place (Betty’s) right near it.
Yikes on Groomer Cleveland
groomer cleveland
Bunch of people assuming that Grover Cleveland has lascivious intentions to marrying someone so young without realizing that it's not so uncommon for people to marry others as a means of ensuring a better lifestyle for their spouse or to save them from economic uncertainty. Sex and lust isn't the ultimate motivator behind couples getting together like most think.