Elizabeth Priscilla Tyler
Most notable of Priscilla Cooper Tyler's tenure was her accompanying her father-in-law on an official presidential tour during the summer of 1843. It was the first time that any President travelled the United States with a female member of his family as part of his official party, thus giving a previously unrecognized level of public visibility and status to the role of First Lady. Along with the President and her husband, Priscilla Tyler was honored at a public banquet and reception in Baltimore. In New York, the party was welcomed with a flotilla of seventy-four ships, many booming cannons; in the streets, their carriage path was strewn with flowers and an estimated 40,000 citizens turned out to cheer them. Unfortunately, while walking on the steamer ship, she hit a metal bar and had to rest and thus missed much of the continuing festivities, including the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston.
Nevertheless, as a result of the unprecedented trip, Priscilla Cooper Tyler received considerable press notice. As one New Yor knewspaper,The True Sun, editorialized, "she has shown all the power of her native strength of mind and without being dazzled by the elevation of her position..." Interestingly, the newspaper also offered an "apology for alluding" to her in print: it was considered improper and a breach of polite societal code to publicly refer directly in print to a woman of her social status. It was an early example of the public ambivalence in the 19th century of the proper role to be played by a First Lady. Was she a public figure with public responsibilities, or simply the most prominent of private ladies who presided over the most public house? Also notable was the fact that Priscilla Tyler was the first official hostess of the White House to give birth during her tenure; her second child, Letitia, was born in the spring of 1843.
