This portrait of the first acting woman president tracks the ascent of Edith Boling Galt Wilson, one of American history's most influential and complicated women.
Fast-moving, sure-footed ... Untold Power is a delightful read. Ms. Roberts, a historian of American women’s suffrage, has clearly enjoyed getting to know her subject, in part through unpublished chapters of Edith’s memoirs. Yet she doesn’t valorize Edith unduly. She treats with tactful historical perspective certain retrograde attitudes of both the president and Mrs. Wilson, but she doesn’t skip over them, either.
Rebecca Boggs Roberts gives Edith her due, demonstrating that, as the first unelected woman to govern the country, Edith has no match ... Untold Power brims with details, from the colors of the signature orchids Edith wore to the troubled corners of Woodrow’s mind after his stroke.
