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". . . to leave this splendor for our grandchildren": Lady Bird Johnson, Environmentalist ExtraordinaireRita G. KomanReprinted from the OAH Magazine of History Bluebonnets, wild poppies, and primroses were early landscape friends of Claudia Alta Taylor when she wandered the grounds of her childhood home in Karnack, Texas. Communing with nature and reveling in the scenic beauty of the land filled many comforting hours for a child whose mother passed away when she was only five. Claudia was the third child of Minnie Lee Pattilo, a socially prominent Alabama woman, and Thomas Jefferson Taylor, a self-made man who became the richest person in Harrison County, Texas. She had two older brothers who were away at school most of the time when she was growing up. By the time of her birth, on 22 December 1912, the family was settled into Brick House, a two-story mansion built by slaves in 1843. There, a nursemaid, who spent more time with her than her parents claimed she looked like a "lady bird." The nickname stuck (1). Upon Mrs. Taylor's death, her unmarried sister Effie Pattilo moved in to care for Lady Bird since Mr. Taylor was far too busy running his twelve thousand acres of cotton, general stores, cotton gins, and fishing business. Lady Bird's attendance at the local elementary school was followed with high school in nearby Marshall, Texas, where she graduated at age sixteen. Her father, who had remarried by then, insisted upon sending Lady Bird to a young ladies' finishing school for at least a year, feeling she was too young to go to college. Lady Bird was determined to gain a more substantial education, however, and after a visit to the University of Texas in Austin insisted she be allowed to attend. To stand up to a strong-willed father took courage, but she did it. He even supplied her with a car for transportation once she enrolled. At eighteen she could size up a situation and act on it with both ambition and perseverance; at twenty-one she graduated with honors and two degrees, in history and journalism. As extra insurance toward getting a job, she stayed another year to receive teacher certification and learn shorthand. Yet, before she had a chance to obtain a permanent position, she was introduced to Lyndon Baines Johnson, enjoyed a whirlwind courtship, and married him. The marriage was sealed with a $2.50 ring bought on the day of the wedding from Sears, Roebuck in San Antonio. Her recently acquired skills were later put to use helping her new husband obtain and maintain a position as a United States Representative from Texas (2). Politician's Wife Lady Bird proved to be tough, resilient, and capable of extracting her needs from a strong-willed, demanding man with a colossal ego. She loved LBJ's drive, his directness, and his ability to take charge. She believed in him, knew she could take care of him and "control whatever chaos he created" (3). He was a more extreme version of her father with even more ambition. When the politician for whom Lyndon worked left office, he got himself appointed the National Youth Administrator for Texas at age twenty-six. In this job he used unskilled workers to create roadside parks, picnic tables, and restroom facilities. They planted grass and painted murals. Lady Bird saw first hand how even limited public resources in depression-dreary 1935 could be used to beautify the physical environment, a lesson she never forgot. Within two years, she was asking her father for an advance of ten thousand dollars from her mother's inheritance to finance LBJ's first congressional run (4). Lady Bird immediately established herself as a political wife, becoming LBJ's greatest asset. After Lyndon won his seat in Congress, she served as his office manager and liaison to constituents. When World War II pulled him into the navy, Lady Bird ran the office and even led the drive for his 1942 reelection. She solved high level problems, typed and took dictation, and managed large sums of money. Thus, when the opportunity presented itself for her to invest more of her inheritance and her skills into Austin radio station KTBC, she grabbed it, bolstered by Lyndon's support. Using her inheritance of $41,000 over a five year period between 1937 and 1942, Lady Bird laid the foundation of the family broadcasting fortune over which she served as president and later board chair. She would eventually become the first multimillionaire to assume the role of First Lady (5). Woman of Diverse Talents Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Lady Bird excelled on all fronts--matrimonial, matriarchal, entrepreneurial, and political. After many miscarriages, the Johnsons saw the birth of two daughters--Lynda Bird in 1944 and Lucy Baines in 1947. Lyndon, with the full support of Lady Bird, sought and achieved the position of United States Senator from Texas, eventually rising to Senate Majority Leader. By 1960 he was a strong candidate for the presidency, but John F. Kennedy defeated him. Determined to win Texas, however, Kennedy put LBJ on the Democratic ticket as vice president. It was Lady Bird, as much as her husband, who helped carry the state by her willingness to go to any lengths to campaign for the party. John F. Kennedy frequently called upon her to fill in for his wife Jackie, who was pregnant with their second child. So successful was Lady Bird that Jackie Kennedy often asked her to substitute for her after she became First Lady. Lady Bird's southern graciousness always smoothed the way, making the two LBJs a formidable team (6). Upon Becoming First Lady The lives of the entire Johnson family were abruptly altered by the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Catapulted into the presidency, the Johnson team faced formidable circumstances until formally elected by a landslide in 1964. After that election, Lady Bird felt she was finally out of the shadow of her predecessor and could move in her own direction. Early in 1964 she had planted a live oak at Cincinnati's Eden Park in honor of her husband. During that summer she opened the American Landmarks Celebration on the garden steps of Woodrow Wilson's Washington home. Her interest in natural beauty seemed to propel her toward the beautification of her surroundings. Thus, with tremendous backing from President Johnson, she launched a beautification program that helped to lay the foundation of the environmental movement of the 1970s and 1980s (7). Under President Johnson's direction, staff member Richard Goodwin put together a Task Force on Natural Beauty with Charles M. Hoor of Harvard as chair. Lady Bird acted as direct liaison to the president and launched her beautification efforts through this group. The task force urged the federal government to focus on natural beauty and national programs for the preservation of landscaping and open space. This meant regulating billboards, cleaning up junkyards, rehabilitating city parks, and making national parklands more useful to citizens. The Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, recommended use of the National Park Service, a bureau in his department, to facilitate improving the national environment. The timing for such efforts was good, as groups like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society had been pointing out ecological and environmental threats for several years. Also, Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring in 1962, alerting the public to the dangers of pesticides. At Udall's suggestion, Lady Bird decided to make Washington, DC, into a model garden city (8). During his January 1965 State of the Union address, President Johnson spoke at length about the need to protect the national heritage of beauty and called for a White House Conference on Natural Beauty that spring. Laurance Rockefeller was named chair of the conference. Eight hundred people applied to attend the conference, of which 120 were chosen to discuss new, practical ideas for solving specific problems. By the end of thirty-six hours, it became obvious that the conference had served as a bridge from traditional conservationism to the new environmentalism to come. The president asked for and received seed money from Congress, but most funding came from private fundraising initiated by Lady Bird and increases in the National Park Service budgets. The task force committee acted as the inspirational force for citizens throughout the nation to beautify their own surroundings with immediate cleanup and planting efforts followed by longer range projects in the future (9). Lady Bird, along with wealthy Mary Lasker of New York and six trustees, quickly organized the Society for a More Beautiful Capital to begin raising substantial sums to beautify Washington, DC. Lasker herself donated thousands of bulbs and trees planted by National Park Service employees throughout the city. Mrs. Johnson did not just want to beautify the monuments and parks frequented by tourists; she wanted to go into the poor neighborhoods of DC and work to improve them, too. Inner city playgrounds, housing projects, and public schools showed signs of decay and lack of care. To draw attention to the needs of these communities, she organized a local committee that included Mayor Walter Washington. Collectively, they used donations and launched programs involving people in the neighborhoods affected. Lady Bird made appearances at schools and other sites earmarked for improvement to bring attention to the projects and give guidance on caring for plants and trees. Her efforts were so well received that local citizens began requesting plants for their own yards (10). Starting with one area of the nation's capital--Shaw--an urban renewal effort to clean up trash and control the rat population was initiated. Lady Bird stressed the importance of everyone's participation--children, youth, adults, and families--to restore pride in their surroundings by enhancing the physical appearance of their community. In 1966 a $7,000 grant from the Society for a More Beautiful National Capital helped launch Project Pride. Twenty Howard University students worked with eighty high school students employed through a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare grant as the Neighborhood Youth Corps to clean up neighborhoods; grass, shrubs, and flowers provided the final touch. Where the work was completed, pride kept it going, but when Lady Bird tried to move on to other areas of the city to expand the program, financial restraints imposed by the war in Vietnam began syphoning away potential funds and attention (11). While traveling Pennsylvania Avenue following his inauguration at the Capitol, John F. Kennedy was appalled at the sections of blight he passed. Consequently, he organized a Pennsylvania Avenue Rehabilitation Committee to study the whole area and restore it as a prominent site in Washington. Lady Bird grasped the cultural significance of this renovation as a model for decaying inner city areas throughout the country. With her persistence, the Society for a More Beautiful Capital raised $2.5 million for this work as well as one hundred separate park landscaping and planting projects. Her leadership in these endeavors was recognized with a congressional gold medal in 1984. Her efforts to make Washington beautiful had a far reaching impact, as the nation's capital continues to serve as a prototype and inspiration for all other U.S. cities (12). Highway Beautification Act Perhaps the greatest effort made by both Johnsons was the passage of the 1965 Highway Beautification Act. This act was the most tangible piece of legislation to come out of LBJ's national beautification campaign. The hard-fought battle to obtain its passage included Lady Bird's personal visits to key members of Congress, a lobbying exercise not typical of most previous First Ladies. Attempts to control billboards and junkyards along major interstate highways pitted environmentalists against advertisers and businesses, resulting in a less-than-perfect bill when finally passed. Even after passage with Johnson's signature, diverse interests tried to jettison its implementation. Both Johnsons were forced to continue fighting small battles to move it forward until the end of President Johnson's term in office. Funding became an up-hill struggle as the shadow of Vietnam lengthened. Details of federal and state control over various aspects also drew fire. Lady Bird rallied women's groups, such as garden clubs, throughout the country. She made speeches and tours of areas needing attention; she stressed the quality-of-life issues related to ecological concerns in which beautification was but a part; and she sought the involvement of the business community wherever possible. These efforts were carried out despite limited resources available to her as First Lady. What continually fueled her was her burning desire to wake up citizens, institutions, and businesses to the broader necessity of conserving the nation's environment (13). In the closing months of the Johnson Administration, Lady Bird's credibility was finally recognized by the press as it began to write positively about her environmental impact. A postage stamp urging Americans to "Plant for a More Beautiful America" was unveiled. LBJ signed the Land and Water Conservation Fund Bill to enlarge revenues from oil and gas and to allow the money realized to be used for wilderness and park acquisitions. Collectively, LBJ signed nearly two hundred laws relevant to the environment during his presidency, more than any previous president. A final honor for Lady Bird was the christening of Lady Bird Johnson Park in Washington, DC, by the National Park Service to commemorate all her beautification efforts. Upon retirement to Texas, she continued her work at the state level by presenting local awards for the Texas Highway Department's beautification accomplishments. In 1982, to celebrate her seventieth birthday, she gave $125,000 and sixty acres of land east of Austin to establish the National Wildflower Research Center. Others matched her gift to create an initial endowment of $700,000, enabling the center to begin in 1983. Today the center has a national membership in the thousands and sponsors research projects, symposia, and the use of wildflowers to reduce highway maintenance costs by millions (14). Legacy Lady Bird Johnson's legacy was to legitimize environmental issues as a national priority. She was able to point out the necessity of balancing humanity and nature while utilizing the power of government to protect the natural beauty of the land. The attitudes and policies she advanced and endorsed have shaped the conservation and preservation policies of the environmental movement that has grown throughout the nation in the three decades since she left Washington. Today, ecological ideas are firmly planted in the national mind due in part to her foresight and persistence. She was a staunch advocate for the preservation of the nation's environment when few people recognized its importance in our everyday lives. Learning Objectives
Activity I A. Have students research the evolution of parks within major cities and in natural habitats. Consider the following.
B. Divide the class into small groups, each working on one of the above topics.
C. Through discussion help students understand how each of the actions researched led to a growing national recognition of the need to conserve the environment. Consider local actions that have produced a similar effect. Activity II A. Provide students with copies of the abridged version of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 (Document 1, available at <http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/firstladies/>). B. Have students read the act to determine the key elements (i.e., removal of billboards and junkyards). List them on the chalkboard as they are discovered. C. Discuss how these elements could serve to beautify national and state roads. D. Have students research and describe state and local actions taken to beautify their own surroundings. Consider the following.
E. Through discussion, determine more recent legislative efforts to improve the environment, such as clean air and water acts. Activity III A. In 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was established. Study the collection of duties assigned to this national agency by providing students with copies of the abridged Special Message for the Reorganization Plan No. 3, (Document 2, available at <http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/firstladies>). B. Ask students to read the act and determine the key duties this agency performs. List them on the chalkboard. C. Subsequent legislation has further refined environmental protection since 1970. Divide students into small groups, assigning each group one of the following topics to research and report back to the entire class. (This could be an excellent team exercise to work on with a science colleague.)
Activity IV A. Have students look around their town, neighborhood, and/or school.
B. Consider launching a class, grade, or school project to beautify or enhance the school or public grounds in town. A program of service in conjunction with the student government association or a local garden club will build student pride in their surroundings. Endnotes
Selected Bibliography Lady Bird Johnson Flynn, Jean. Lady: The Story of Claudia Alta (Lady Bird) Johnson. Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1992. Gould, Lewis. Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1988. Johnson, Mrs. Lyndon Baines. White House Diary. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library: <http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/>. Middleton, Harry. Lady Bird Johnson: A Life Well Lived. Austin, TX: Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, 1992. Montgomery, Ruth. Mrs. LBJ. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1964. Smith, Marie D. The President's Lady: An Intimate Biography of Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson. New York: Random House, 1964. Environment Cooper, David Edward and Joy A. Palmer, eds. The Environment in Question: Ethics and Global Issues. New York: Routledge, 1992. DesJardins, Joseph R. Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth, 1993. Ferre, Frederick, and Peter Hartel, eds. Ethics and Environmental Policy: Theory Meets Practice. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. Rita G. Koman taught secondary American history and government for eighteen years and has been a frequent contributor to the OAH Magazine of History. She now develops curriculum and acts as a researcher and consultant. She lives in Manassas, Virginia. The title of this lesson was adapted from Lady Bird Johnson's foreward in Glen L. Evans, Texas in Bloom: Photographs From Texas Highways Magazine (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1984), 10. |
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