| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives. By Lisa M. Burns. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008. xii, 205 pp. $32.00, ISBN 978-0-87580-391-3.)
Scholarship on the first ladies has benefited from the publication of several solid books and a host of articles in scholarly journals. From what was once a sparse collection of serious works, a field of study on the first ladies has emerged. As a maturing field, "first lady studies" now features numerous case studies, empirical methodologies, and the development of testable theories and models.	1
Not surprisingly, much of the research has focused on gendered perspectives of the office and has relied for its conceptual foundations on fields of study such as women's studies and gender studies. Studies of the first ladies in the past decade have also centered on the first ladies' rhetoric and rhetorical styles, media coverage of the office and of individuals, and the public role and image of presidential spouses. Lisa M. Burns's First Ladies and the Fourth Estate builds on this framework by including elements of each of the more popular branches of study of the first ladies—gender, media, roles, and public image. The book examines the evolution of the role of the first lady through her interactions with and portrayal by the press and offers new insights and information on the public facets of the first ladyship.	. . .

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