Taft, Helen

▪ American first lady

née  Helen Herron , byname  Nellie 

born June 2, 1861, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.

died May 22, 1943, Washington, D.C.

 American first lady (1909–13), the wife of William Howard Taft (Taft, William Howard), 27th U.S. president and 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (Supreme Court of the United States).

      The fourth of 11 children, Helen Taft came by her interest in politics through her parents, John Herron, a prominent lawyer and Republican Party activist, and Harriet Collins Herron. Educated in private schools in Cincinnati, young Helen showed an ambition to make her mark beyond southern Ohio; in the late 1870s, soon after meeting William Howard Taft, a law student at the University of Cincinnati, she tied that ambition to his career. Historians have concluded that without her determined efforts he would never have become president.

      Following their marriage on June 19, 1886, William accepted several appointments, including those of judge of the Ohio Superior Court, U.S. solicitor general, and judge of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court. In 1900 President William McKinley (McKinley, William) appointed him president of the United States Commission to the Philippines. Although he showed some reluctance to move halfway around the world, Helen, believing it would aid him in becoming president, encouraged him to accept the job, and they moved, with their three young children, to the Philippines, where he became governor-general in 1901.

      William's appointment as secretary of war in 1904 brought the Tafts back to Washington, D.C., where Helen continued her effort to make her husband president. Although he would have preferred a judicial appointment, she liked the idea of living in the White House and often said that a visit there during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes (Hayes, Rutherford B.) had fueled her ambition. In 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt (Roosevelt, Theodore) appeared ready to offer her husband an appointment to the Supreme Court, she scheduled an appointment with the president to thwart the nomination.

      Roosevelt declined to run for reelection in 1908 and threw his support to Taft, who won the Republican nomination for president. Throughout the campaign Helen was recognized as one of her husband's most astute and trusted advisers, and with her husband's victory she became first lady amid predictions that she would be influential in presidential decisions. On inauguration day she broke an old tradition and became the first president's wife to ride beside him as he left the inaugural site at the United States Capitol (Capitol, United States).

      Just weeks later, Helen's hard work was undermined by a health crisis. In May 1909 she suffered a paralyzing stroke that impaired her ability to speak. After more than a year of therapy, she resumed making some official appearances but never regained her former vigour. Her major contribution to Washington was cosmetic: because she admired cherry trees, which she saw in her travels in Japan, she arranged for them to be planted throughout the city.

      After her husband's single term was completed in 1913, Helen wrote her autobiography, Recollections of Full Years (1914), becoming the first president's wife to see her memoirs published in her lifetime. The Tafts moved from Washington to New Haven, Connecticut, where William taught at Yale Law School until his appointment in 1921 as chief justice of the United States. Helen died in 1943 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beside her husband, who had died in 1930. The Tafts were the first presidential couple to be interred there.

Betty Boyd Caroli

Additional Reading

A short biography of Helen Taft is Stacy A. Cordery, “Helen Herron (Nellie) Taft,” in Lewis L. Gould (ed.), American First Ladies (1996), pp. 321–339.Helen's influence on her husband's career is discussed in Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate History (1981); and Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, 2 vol. (1939). Her own perspective is given in Helen Herron Taft, Recollections of Full Years (1914, reissued 1917).

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