Edith Wilson - "The Presidentress" her title changed from 'First Lady' to 'Acting First Man'

[Donkees]

Unofficial acting presidency

"Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson returned to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. However, his health failed in October, when a stroke left him partly paralyzed. The United States never did ratify the Treaty of Versailles nor join the League of Nations, which had initially been Wilson's concept. At the time, isolationist sentiment was strong.

Edith Wilson took over many routine duties and details of the Executive branch of the government. She decided which matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. "I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators," she wrote later of her role, "and tried to digest and present in tabloid form the things that, despite my vigilance, had to go to the President. I, myself, never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs. The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband." One Republican senator labeled her "the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of the suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man."[17] In My Memoir, published in 1939, she called her role a "stewardship"[18] and insisted that her actions had been taken only because the president's doctors told her to do so for her husband's mental health.[19] Some historians take issue with her version of events, such as journalist Phyllis Lee Levin. She wrote that Edith Wilson was "a woman of narrow views and formidable determination".[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wilson