First Lady Michelle Obama: Advocate for Strong Families

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, “A Mother's Love,” Essence, May 2009, 107. 2. Molly Meijer Wertheimer, “First Ladies’ Fundamental Rhetorical Choices: When to Speak? What to Say? When to Remain Silent?” in Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century, ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 2. See also, Betty Boyd Caroli, First Ladies, expanded edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 3. Robert P. Watson, The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of First Lady (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2000), 39. 4. Wertheimer, “First Ladies’ Fundamental Rhetorical Choices,” xi. 5. Myra Gutin, “Public Discourse and the American First Lady in the 20th Century” in Laura Bush: The Report to the First Lady, ed. Robert P. Watson (Huntington, NY: Nova History Publications, 2001), 57. 6. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “The Rhetorical Presidency: A Two Person Career” in Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency, ed. Martin J. Medhurst (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 1996), 191. 7. Michelle Obama, quoted in Oprah Winfrey, “Oprah Talks to Michelle Obama,” The Oprah Magazine, April 2009, 143. 8. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, 109. 9. Michelle Obama, quoted in Oprah Winfrey, 144. 10. Of parallel interest is the bio-film of Michelle that served as her introduction at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Titled simply “Southside Girl,” the film depicted her middle-class upbringing on Chicago's south side and emphasized the values she learned at home. Michelle's Ivy League education receded into the background as the formative foundation of her childhood was foregrounded. 11. For example, Mrs. Obama posted the following on US News.com on October 17, 2008. “If Barack is elected … I would work daily on the issues closest to my heart: helping working women and families, particularly military families.” 12. Michelle Obama, quoted in Mike Baker, “Michelle Obama at Fort Bragg,” Huffington Post, March 12, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/12/michelle-obama-at-ffort-br_n_174345.html (accessed May 5, 2009). 13. Michelle Obama, quoted in Karen Travers, “Exclusive: Michelle Obama's Emotional Meeting with Military Families,” ABC News, March 13, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=7067528 (accessed May 2, 2009). 14. Michelle Obama, quoted in Mike Baker. 15. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, 109. 16. The hall is so named in recognition of the fact that slave labor was used to construct the US Capitol. 17. Michelle Obama, quoted in the Huffington Post, April 29, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28michelle-obama-honors-soj_n_192427.html (accessed May 5, 2009). 18. Michelle Obama, quoted in the Huffington Post. 19. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, 111. 20. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, 112. 21. Michelle Obama, quoted in Angela Burt-Murray, 113. 22. Michelle Obama, quoted in Oprah Winfrey, 146. 23. Campbell, 192–93. 24. This echoes Karrin Vasby Anderson, who identifies a “social” political style in first lady rhetoric that is grounded “not just in the public sphere but also in private interactions.” This style blends the two spheres, such that norms of femininity are consciously employed to “achieve political agency.” See Anderson, “The First Lady: A Site of ‘American Womanhood’” in Molly Meijer Wertheimer, Leading Ladies, 6–9. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMary L. KahlMary L. Kahl is an associate professor of Communication and Media at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Her work examines various facets of contemporary political communication, including presidential debates, women's political campaign discourses, and the gendered nature of public memory spaces