Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson

Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson (December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007) was First Lady of the United States (1963–69) during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson.

Notably well educated for her time, she proved a capable manager and a shrewd investor. After marrying LBJ in 1934, when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign, and then ran his office while he was serving in the navy. Next, she bought a radio station and then a TV station, which would soon make them millionaires. As First Lady, she broke new ground by interacting directly with Congress, employing her own press secretary, and making a solo electioneering tour.

Johnson was a lifelong advocate for beautifying the nation's cities and highways ("Where flowers bloom, so does hope") and the Highway Beautification Act was informally known as Lady Bird's Bill. She was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US civilian honors.

Read more about Lady Bird Johnson:  Early Life, Education, Marriage and Family, Early Politics, Business Career, Second Lady of The United States, First Lady of The United States, Honors, Later Life

Famous quotes containing the words lady bird johnson, lady, bird and/or johnson:

    “The first lady is, and always has been, an unpaid public servant elected by one person, her husband.”
    —Lady Bird Johnson (b. 1912)

    “But when his horse had put its hoof
    Into a rabbit hole
    He dropped upon his head and died.
    His lady saw it all
    And dropped and died thereon, for she
    Loved him with her soul.”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “but as an Eagle
    His cloudless thunderbolted on thir heads.
    So vertue giv’n for lost,
    Deprest, and overthrown, as seem’d,
    Like that self-begott’n bird
    In the Arabian woods embost,
    That no second knows nor third,
    And lay e’re while a Holocaust,
    From out her ashie womb now teem’d
    Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
    When most unactive deem’d,
    And though her body die, her fame survives,
    A secular bird ages of lives.”
    —John Milton (1608–1674)

    “A woman preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
    —Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)