Potus Geeks Summer Reruns: The Great Courses Series on Great Presidents
For 
potus_geeks like us, there's this great series of lectures from the Great Courses (formerly known as the Teaching Company) called "Great Presidents" in which Professor Allan J. Lichtman profiles 12 presidents: (1) George Washington, (2) Thomas Jefferson, (3) Andrew Jackson, (4) James K. Polk, (5) Abraham Lincoln, (6) Theodore Roosevelt, (7) Woodrow Wilson, (8) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (9) Harry Truman, (10) John F. Kennedy, (11) Lyndon Johnson and (12) Ronald Reagan. (Here is the link to the series if anyone is interested.) The course is quite expensive at present, but the Great Courses put all of their courses on sale at some point during the year, so wait for then if you're thinking of getting it.
The lecturer for this series, Allan J. Lichtman, is Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Professor Lichtman is the recipient of the Scholar-Teacher Award from American University. He was a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and is the author or coauthor of six books, including The Thirteen Keys to the Presidency and The Keys to the White House. His "Keys" system has predicted well the outcome of every presidential election from 1984 to the last election. He is also the editor of the book series Studies in Modern American History.
In a humorous anecdote from the lectures about President Woodrow Wilson, the author tells this story: It seems that shortly after Wilson's first wife died, he began dating socialite Edith Galt. The Washington press thought that this was pretty insensitive of him to see another woman so soon after his first wife's death, but that didn't deter Woody. While he was courting her, according to Professor Lichtman, the Washington Post committed one of the most famous presidential typos in history. The paper wrote a story in which the writer intended to say "the president spent much of the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt." Instead, the typo read "the president spent much of the evening entering Mrs. Galt." When they realized their mistake, the Post tried to recall the newspapers, but it was too late to recapture all of them.
There was another joke making the rounds among DC journalists at the time. As one Washington reporter was quoted as saying, "when Edith Galt heard the President propose marriage, she nearly fell out of bed."
Edith Wilson would later become notorious for helping in the cover-up of a stroke that her husband suffered. Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson returned to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations. His health failed in October, when a stroke left him partly paralyzed. Edith Wilson took over many routine duties and details of the Executive branch on behalf of her husband. She decided which matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. She later wrote:
"I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators, 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 called her "the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of the suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man." In her memoir, published in 1939, she described her role as a "stewardship" and insisted that her actions had been taken only because the president's doctors told her to do so for the benefit of her husband's health. Most historians disagree with her description of events.
potus_geeks like us, there's this great series of lectures from the Great Courses (formerly known as the Teaching Company) called "Great Presidents" in which Professor Allan J. Lichtman profiles 12 presidents: (1) George Washington, (2) Thomas Jefferson, (3) Andrew Jackson, (4) James K. Polk, (5) Abraham Lincoln, (6) Theodore Roosevelt, (7) Woodrow Wilson, (8) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (9) Harry Truman, (10) John F. Kennedy, (11) Lyndon Johnson and (12) Ronald Reagan. (Here is the link to the series if anyone is interested.) The course is quite expensive at present, but the Great Courses put all of their courses on sale at some point during the year, so wait for then if you're thinking of getting it. The lecturer for this series, Allan J. Lichtman, is Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Professor Lichtman is the recipient of the Scholar-Teacher Award from American University. He was a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and is the author or coauthor of six books, including The Thirteen Keys to the Presidency and The Keys to the White House. His "Keys" system has predicted well the outcome of every presidential election from 1984 to the last election. He is also the editor of the book series Studies in Modern American History.
In a humorous anecdote from the lectures about President Woodrow Wilson, the author tells this story: It seems that shortly after Wilson's first wife died, he began dating socialite Edith Galt. The Washington press thought that this was pretty insensitive of him to see another woman so soon after his first wife's death, but that didn't deter Woody. While he was courting her, according to Professor Lichtman, the Washington Post committed one of the most famous presidential typos in history. The paper wrote a story in which the writer intended to say "the president spent much of the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt." Instead, the typo read "the president spent much of the evening entering Mrs. Galt." When they realized their mistake, the Post tried to recall the newspapers, but it was too late to recapture all of them.
There was another joke making the rounds among DC journalists at the time. As one Washington reporter was quoted as saying, "when Edith Galt heard the President propose marriage, she nearly fell out of bed."
Edith Wilson would later become notorious for helping in the cover-up of a stroke that her husband suffered. Following his attendance at the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson returned to campaign for Senate approval of the peace treaty and the League of Nations. His health failed in October, when a stroke left him partly paralyzed. Edith Wilson took over many routine duties and details of the Executive branch on behalf of her husband. She decided which matters of state were important enough to bring to the bedridden president. She later wrote:
"I studied every paper sent from the different Secretaries or Senators, 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 called her "the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of the suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man." In her memoir, published in 1939, she described her role as a "stewardship" and insisted that her actions had been taken only because the president's doctors told her to do so for the benefit of her husband's health. Most historians disagree with her description of events.