Program and Luncheon

at The Fortnightly

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Madam President:  The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

Presented by author William Hazelgrove

In April NSCDA-IL welcomed William Hazelgrove who presented an engaging portrait of Edith Wilson and her largely overlooked legacy as “First Woman President” of the United States. After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralytic stroke in the fall of 1919, Edith Wilson, with little formal education but an accomplished business woman, dedicated herself to managing the office of President from 1919 -1921 to protect the legacy of her husband.  Her Oval Office authority was known to only a few, suspected by many in Washington D.C. circles but it was largely kept secret from the public. How did she pull this off?  More remarkably, this transpired in tandem with the tenuous peace that followed the end of WWI and months before women officially won the right to vote.

William Hazelgrove is the national bestselling author of ten novels and six non-fiction titles, including “Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson” and most recently “The Wright Brothers: Wrong Story”. He is the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence.