The first day on a job is always filled with jitters. Especially when your workplace is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
The young woman battled the butterflies in her stomach and put on a brave face. She needed it. For when she walked through the columned entrance at the north portico and stepped into the White House on January 2, 1890, she was walking into history.
That Thursday morning nearly 135 years ago, Alice Sanger became the first woman to serve on a president’s staff.
Alice was welcomed aboard by her new boss, the president of the United States. Then she got down to work.
Women had been employed in the White House almost since the day John and Abigail Adams moved into the place 90 years earlier. But they had been maids, cooks, seamstresses, and had performed other domestic roles.
Not so for Alice. She was now an assistant secretary to President Benjamin Harrison and first lady Caroline Harrison. That may sound ho-hum to 21st-century ears when the vice president of the United States is a woman. But in the Victorian Era, it was an astonishing achievement. Decades before the emergence of the so-called “imperial presidency,” the executive staff was a small, close-knit group. And up until then, it had been all-male, too.
Modern historians believe Alice’s hiring was intended as a peace offering to the budding women’s movement. It was picking up steam just then and ultimately succeeded in getting women the right to vote 30 years later. But there was more to it than that.
You must dig deep into history to discover details about Alice’s life. Very little is known about her, which appears to be the way she and her boss wanted it. The Fall River Daily Evening News carried a feature story about her three months into the new job. “It is said that Miss Sanger knows more about the president’s affairs than anyone except Private Secretary Halford … She is a jewel of secrecy, this young woman, and both the president and Mrs. Harrison trust her with every confidence.”
Not bad for a girl who was born in Connecticut and later moved to Indiana, where the Harrisons also lived. She graduated from high school at age 15 and wanted to go to college. But that dream quickly died when her father became ill and lost his lucrative railroad job (along with the family’s bright fortunes). Alice was forced to attend what we would today call secretarial school, where she learned stenography and other office skills.
And she was a good stenographer, too. So good, in fact, that she eventually went to work for Benjamin Harrison’s law firm. And when Caroline Harrison grew overwhelmed by the mountain of letters sent to her, the first couple sent for Alice.
One of Alice’s important daily duties was preparing the first lady’s mail. A clerk dumped it on her desk first thing each morning. Alice sifted out correspondence from the cranks and crazies, then took the rest to the first lady’s room. Letters from close friends were given to Caroline Harrison for a personal reply.
Alice noted all others that required a response from Mrs. Harrison but not her personal attention. The Fall River Daily Evening News article put it this way: “The grand bulk of the letters — the begging variety — are taken up. … For instance, a woman in Wisconsin, or Alabama, or Texas writes for a dollar to buy a rheumatism plaster, and in leading up to the request inadvertently relates her whole history and the laborious process by which she contracted the disease.”
Alice then crafted a reply explaining, “Mrs. Harrison begs me to state that she is very sorry for your affliction, but there are so many calls on her charity that she is unable to …”
So many of those letters from Alice went out across the nation that the article noted, “her signature is probably known today better than any other woman’s in the United States.”
When Harrison was defeated for re-election in 1892, Alice also lost her job. She faded from history and is now just a trivia question history buffs ask. Which is a shame because she truly was a pioneer.
Decades before Mary Tyler Moore exuberantly tossed her beret in the air, Alice Sanger was already living the words of the groundbreaking sitcom’s theme song: “You’re gonna make it after all.”
Holy Cow! History is written by novelist, former TV journalist and diehard history buff J. Mark Powell. Have a historic mystery that needs solving? A forgotten moment worth remembering? Please send it to [email protected].
