Eleanor Roosevelt pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Betty Ford Center offers treatment for alcohol and other drug addictions, as well as prevention and education programs for family and children.

Before Jimmy Carter went into politics, he helped run his family's peanut farm.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton was elected as the first female senator from New York. She was re-elected in 2006.

President McKinley took great care to accommodate Ida's condition. In a break with tradition, he insisted that his wife be seated next to him at state dinners rather than at the other end of the table. And guests noted that whenever Mrs. McKinley was about to undergo a seizure, the President would gently place a napkin or handkerchief over her face to conceal her contorted features. When it passed, he would remove it and resume whatever he was doing as if nothing had happened.

John Tyler's wife Letitia died peacefully, aged 51, in the evening of September 10, 1842 from a stroke. She was taken to Virginia for burial at the plantation of her birth.

When Abigail Fillmore moved into the White House she was appalled that there was no library. With a special appropriation of $2,000 from Congress, she spent contented hours selecting books for a White House library in the Yellow Oval Room and invited writers such as William Thackeray, Charles Dickens, and Washington Irving to meet with her, essentially creating a White House literary salon.

Frances Folsom Cleveland was only 21 when she married President Grover Cleveland on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room of the White House. A close friend and former law partner of Frances' father (who died in a carriage accident when she was 10), Cleveland invited Frances and her mother to visit the White House in 1885. Though rumors flew that the president might marry Mrs. Folsom, it was her daughter Frances that he proposed to.

Mrs. Eisenhower's fondness for a specific shade of pink, often called "Mamie pink" or "First Lady pink," kicked off a national trend for pink clothing, housewares, and bathrooms.

Helen Taft was the first first lady to own and drive a car, to ride in her husband's inaugural parade, to support women's suffrage, to publish her memoirs, to smoke cigarettes, and to successfully lobby for safety standards in federal workplaces.