Names: Lisa Burns and Teri Finneman
University Affiliations: Quinnipiac University, University of Kansas
Research Focus: U.S. First Ladies
1. What is the primary focus or central question (s) of your history research? Explain.
Lisa: My motivation is recovering the stories of women whose contributions have been either minimized in our collective memory or forgotten entirely. This often happens with presidential spouses. I was excited to work with Teri on The Cambridge Companion To U.S. First Ladies because we’re taking a different approach to telling these women’s stories. Instead of the typical biographical approach focusing on individual women, this book is a collection of thematic essays examining the first lady institution and the political, social, and cultural influence of the women who’ve served in this role. The result is a more nuanced understanding of how these women have built upon each other’s work to shape the first lady institution and the expectations associated with the position.
Teri: Lisa and I are very focused on public education with our work. We created this book knowing we would do a fair share of speaking about it to the general public. Also, I created a podcast called The First Ladies to tie into the book for that reason. There is a strong niche audience for first ladies and presidential studies, so a key focus was creating content that they would find new and interesting to learn.
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