SLU Expert on First Ladies Pens Essay for National Civic Education Project

06/11/2026

Diana Carlin, Ph.D. Explores How Grief Can Alter a Life, Deepen Moral Resolve for In Pursuit

ST. LOUIS - Diana B. Carlin, Ph.D., professor emerita of communication at Saint Louis University and an expert on First Ladies, penned an essay on Jane Pierce for In Pursuit, a national civic education project that creates lessons from the past for future generations. 

In Pursuit is a project from More Perfect, a bipartisan initiative to engage institutions and Americans in protecting and renewing American democracy. The project includes commissioned essays on presidents and first ladies written and read by public officials, journalists and historians. 

Contributors to In Pursuit include former U.S. Presidents and First Ladies Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, Ken Burns, David Brooks, Jon Meacham, USA Today’s Susan Page and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Carlin has taught courses on and written about first ladies for 30 years. She said her lifelong interest in First Ladies began in childhood.

“I remember looking at the shelves of books in my small Catholic elementary school and noticing that the only biographies of women were Martha Washington and Abigail Adams,” she said.

“You cannot fully understand the arc of presidential history if you don’t study the lives of the women by their side.” 

Diana Carlin, Ph.D.

Carlin began including a unit on First Ladies in her women in politics class, eventually expanding it into a special-topic class.

Carlin, co-author of the book Remember the First Ladies, said In Pursuit afforded her a chance to dig deeper into the life of Jane Pierce, wife of the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce.

The couple had three sons, all of whom died in childhood. Carlin notes in her essay that Jane Pierce entered the White House in mourning. The Pierces’ third son, Benjamin, was killed in a train accident just six weeks before her husband took the oath of office in 1853.

Pierce’s grief shaped her time in the White House. She stayed in mourning for two years before emerging to voice her opinions.

Read Carlin's essay on Jane Pierce 

“She attended Senate debates on the issue of slavery, discussed national and world politics and dinners and receptions, and spent time with Franklin’s friend, author Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Carlin wrote in her essay. “Jane’s mourning did not erase her convictions; instead, it reshaped how and where she chose to act.”

Jane Pierce was a staunch abolitionist who unsuccessfully tried to persuade her husband to veto the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and heightened tensions between the states.  

“She supported a school for formerly enslaved women, despite members of her husband’s Cabinet not being happy about it,” Carlin said. “She had such an impact on the history of Missouri and Kansas, where I’ve spent so much of my life.”

Carlin said she hopes that readers of the In Pursuit lessons appreciate the value women have brought to the role of First Lady over the past 250 years.

“You cannot fully understand the arc of presidential history if you don’t study the lives of the women by their side,” Carlin said. “These women brought their own experiences and passions to the role.” 

She notes that Martha Washington served as her husband’s partner during the American Revolution and that he fully expected her to be his partner in the new American government.

“She conducted diplomacy as a hostess,” Carlin said. “First Ladies have done so much – Betty Ford made a huge impact on breast cancer and how we handle addiction; Barbara Bush focused on literacy; Michelle Obama focused on nutrition and girls’ education. Pat Nixon is vastly underappreciated by history, likely because of how her husband left office, but she did so much. She visited 70 countries, often alone, and was the only First Lady to address foreign parliaments on behalf of her husband.”

Carlin is a founding member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education. She has taught courses on and written about first ladies for 30 years. Her recent publications include U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies with Anita B. McBride and Nancy Kegan Smith and Remember the First Ladies. 

Her research and writing also covers women in politics, presidential communication, and political debates.

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic research institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 13,300 students a rigorous, transformative education that challenges and prepares them to make the world a better place. As a nationally recognized leader in research and innovation, SLU is an R1 research university, advancing groundbreaking, life-changing discoveries that promote the greater good.