This is an excerpt from a student-designed multi-touch iBook. A fully functional version is available free at iTunes http://bit.ly/1vsa2uJ

1. Designed by Emily Strocher
FIRST LADIES AS A
POLITICAL TOOL
1

2. 2
“It is a pleasure to talk about the 36 women who
married the 35 men who became our Presidents. They
were a talented and varied group of wives who
enlivened our history from May of 1789, when Martha
Custis Washington rode up the Eastern Seabord amid
great fanfare to join her husband in the first capital city,
until now -- when Claudia (Lady Bird) Johnson keeps
reporters in trim by her trips about the country in behalf
of beautification and education.
Four of the 36 did not live to become First Ladies.
Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren and Arthur were
widowers when they reached the White House.
Another, Anna Symmes Harrison, was ill and did not
come to Washington while “Old Tippecanoe” was
President for a month. (She outlived him by many years
and lived to see her grandsons, including Benjamin
Harrison, our 23rd President, march off to the Civil
War.)
We have elected two bachelors, Buchanan and
Cleveland, to the Presidency but the latter chose to
remedy his solitary state by marrying Frances Folsom,
21-year-old daughter of his former law partner, in the
Blue Parlor at the White House. She was our youngest
First Lady to date and, in the campaign for his second
term, became the first one to have her photograph used
on campaign ribbons and posters.
Two Presidents, Tyler and Wilson, had two wives
while President. The second Mrs. Tyler, the former Julia
Gardiner, was only 24 and the second youngest First
Lady to date. The second Mrs. Wilson, the former Edith
Bolling Galt, lived to be the oldest ex-First Lady. She
lacked a few days of being 90 when she died. Three

3. 3
Instructions
As you proceed through this section of the
book, answer the multiple choice questions
about what category each photograph should
be placed in. Keep in mind what photographs
you have placed in each category. After
examining each of the photos, create a 1-2
page response for each category in which you
answer each of the corresponding questions,
making references to as many of the photos
as possible in your argument.
Overarching
Questions
-Why did you choose to place the images in
the categories that you did?
-What is the importance of these themes? Why
would photos that support these ideas be
important to have?
-How do you feel these photos illustrate how
the First Lady and First Family can be used to
spread an idea?
- What do you notice about where the First
Lady is standing in each of these photos? Do
you think this photograph was staged or
candid? If it was staged, why would the
individuals in it be posed as they are?

4. 4
Family
What differences do you notice over the
passage of time?
Which of these images do you find the
most relatable, and why?
How do these images perpetuate the
idea of the ideal American lifestyle and
family?
Diplomacy
How can a president make a
statement about an issue by being
seen with a particular individual?
Based upon these images, what would
you say the relationships were like
between the people in them? Do you
feel these images are accurate
representations of the relationships
between the people pictured in them?
Education
What differences do you notice about
the racial makeup of these photos?
Why do you think it is the First Lady,
not the President himself being shown
in these pictures?
Theme Questions

5. First Lady Barbara Bush at the White House
7/24/1990
Collection GB-WHPO: Records of the White House Photograph Office
National Archives Identifier: 5730826
GALLERY 1.1
REVIEW 1.1
Question 1 of 4
What category would you place “First Lady Barbara Bush at the White House” in?
A. Family
B. Diplomacy
C. Education
Tap to enlarge
and answer question

6. Carter Family Christmas Portrait
12/25/1978
Collection JC-WHSP: Carter White House Photographs Collection
National Archives Identifier: 182893
GALLERY 1.2
REVIEW 1.2
Question 1 of 4
What category would you place “Carter Family Christmas Portrait” in?
A. Family
B. Diplomacy
C. Education

7. Photograph of Lady Bird Johnson Visiting a Classroom for Project Head Start
3/19/1966
White House Photo Office Collection
National Archives Identifier: 596401
The photograph shows Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady, reading to children enrolled in Project
Head Start at Kemper School in Washington, DC.
GALLERY 1.3
REVIEW 1.3
Question 1 of 4
What category would you place “Photograph of Lady Bird Johnson Visiting a Classroom for Project Head Start” in?
A. Family
B. Diplomacy
C. Education

8. 8
Reflection
In addition to being practice in how to go about making a DBQ, this assignment has also been a
solid lesson in how not to create a DBQ. I feel that as an actual practicing teacher, this will be easier
as I will have a better idea of what I want and need the DBQ to do. I will have a topic in mind, and a
message that I am trying to convey to the students, or messages that I want them to come up with on
their own. There will be more structure in place. Creating a DBQ in the manner that we did for this
class allowed me too much freedom, I feel. I needed a more concrete goal, as my DBQ turned into
doing whatever I wanted to with it, not trying to meet specific requirements for student learning.
Going along with that, I decided early on that I wanted to create an image based DBQ. I found my
resources, and shaped my DBQ around what I had discovered. If I were to do this again, I would
reverse my work flow. The topic would come first, and then I would find documents that fit with it.
There would be more diversity in the sorts of documents that I included, rather than just using
images.
While I do like my DBQ, and feel that it would get students to think about something that wouldn’t
normally cross their minds, I am less pleased with the process that I went through to create my DBQ.
My problems aren’t so much with my content as with my process. If anything, I became too attached
to my content, and struggled to make changes because of that.
~ Emily Strocher Twitter/ @emilystrocher AboutMe

9.
Complete iBook available
free at iTunes
FROM - EXPLORING
HISTORY: VOL II

10. This eBook is a collaborative project of Peter Pappas
and his Fall 2014 Social Studies Methods Class
School of Education ~ University of Portland, Portland Ore.
Graduate and undergraduate level pre-service teachers were assigned the
task of developing an engaging research question, researching supportive
documents and curating them into a DBQ suitable for middle or high
school students.
For more on this class, visit the course blog EdMethods
For more on the assignment and work flow tap here.
Chapters in chronological order
1. The American Revolution by Scott Deal
2. The Pig War by Andy Saxton
3. Cesspool of Savagery by Michelle Murphy
4. Chemical War by Erik Nelson
5. Americans’ Perceptions of Immigration
in the 1920s by Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell
6. The New Deal and the Art of Public Persuasion
by Kari VanKommer
7. Combat Soldiers in Context by Kristi Anne McKenzie
8. The Marshall Plan: Altruism or Pragmatism?
by Sam Kimerling
9. Little Rock Nine: Evaluating Historical Sources
by Christy Thomas
10. First Ladies as a Political Tool by Emily Strocher
EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL II
x
Engaging questions and historic
documents empower students to be
the historian in the classroom.

11. Cover image: Replica of old French globe
Date:1 January 1, 2013
Petar Milošević
Peter Pappas, editor
School of Education ~ University of Portland
His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional
resources, projects and publications. Follow him at Twitter @edteck.
His other multi-touch eBooks are available at here. For an example of
one of his eBook design training workshops tap here.
CC BY-NC 3.0 Peter Pappas and Emily Strocher, 2015
The authors take copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has
been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to
remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.
xiSource