Rose Elisabeth Cleveland
Publicly, Rose Cleveland was considered a "bluestocking," a serious, academic woman with little patience or interest in those subjects which women of her era were socialized to find most compelling, such as clothing, decorating and entertaining. This is only a partial truth; as she revealed in one of her books, Rose Cleveland believed strongly in adhering to the societal conventions which dictated behavior and gender interaction. Her private letters, however, do reveal the frustration she experienced as a result of her nevertheless feeling she must adhere to the unwritten code dictating the protocols followed by Victorian-era First Ladies which limited her from dining in private homes or appearing in the public markets. That code did, however, permit First Ladies to appear in public theaters and like Mary Lincoln and Julia Grant, Rose Cleveland greatly indulged this personal passion. She had a particular love for the contemporary musical theater productions of Gilbert & Sullivan and managed to even coax her hard-working brother out of the White House to attend the theater with her.
Most of her friends were theatrical or literary professionals. Rose Cleveland was herself notable as the first First Lady, though not a presidential wife, to publish books she wrote during her incumbency. Her first bookGeorge Eliot's Poetry and Other Studieswas published while she was in the White House, in June of 1885; it went through 12 editions in a year and earned her some $25,000. While still serving as First Lady, the following year she publishedYou and I: Moral, Intellectual and Social Culture, a 545 page treatise considering the changes wrought on 1886 American life. Her last book,The Soliloquies of St. Augustine, translated into English,With Notes and Introduction by the Translatorwas published in 1910 by Little, Brown, and Company.
Rose Cleveland’s last efforts as First Lady were to enact the arrangements dictated by her brother for his White House wedding to Frances Folsom.
