Elizabeth Anne Ford (; formerly Warren; April 8, 1918 – July 8, 2011) was First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977, as the wife of President Gerald Ford. As first lady, she was active in social policy, and set a precedent as a politically active presidential spouse. She was also Second Lady of the United States from 1973 to 1974, when her husband was vice president.
Throughout her husband's time in the office of the presidency, she maintained high approval ratings, and was considered to be an influential first lady. Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness following her 1974 mastectomy. In addition, she was a passionate supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). As a supporter of abortion rights, and a leader in the women's rights movement, she gained fame as one of the most candid first ladies in history, commenting on the hot-button issues of the time, such as feminism, equal pay, the Equal Rights Amendment, sex, drugs, and abortion. Surveys of historians conducted by the Siena College Research Institute have shown that historians regard Ford to be among the best and most courageous American first ladies.
Following her years in the White House, Ford continued to lobby for the ERA, and remained active in the feminist movement. Soon after leaving office, she raised awareness of addiction when she sought help for, and publicly disclosed, her long-running struggle with alcoholism and substance abuse. After recovering, she founded and served as the first board chair of the Betty Ford Center, which provides treatment services for people with substance use disorders. Ford also became involved in causes related to HIV/AIDS. For years after leaving the White House, Ford continued to enjoy great influence and popularity, continuing to rank in the top ten of Gallup's annual most admired woman poll every year through 1991.
Ford was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush in 1991. She was also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal as a co-recipient with President Ford in 1998.
Early life and career
thumb|left|upright|Betty Bloomer at age 18, 1936
Betty Ford was born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer on April 8, 1918, in Chicago, Illinois, the third child and only daughter of Hortense (née Neahr; 1884–1948) and William Stephenson Bloomer Sr. (1874–1934), who was a travelling salesman for Royal Rubber Co. She was called Betty as a child.
Hortense and William married on November 9, 1904, in Chicago. Betty's two older brothers were Robert (d. 1971) and William Jr. After the family lived briefly in Denver, Colorado, she grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she graduated from Central High School.
In 1926, when Bloomer was eight years old, her mother, who valued social graces, enrolled her in the Calla Travis Dance Studio in Grand Rapids, where Ford was taught ballet, tap dancing, and modern movement. She developed a passion for dance, and she decided she wanted to pursue a career in the field. While she was still in high school, she started her own dance school, instructing both youth and adults. He died the day before his 60th birthday.
Bloomer's mother was opposed to her pursuing a career in dance and insisted that she return home, and, as a compromise, they agreed that Bloomer would return home for six months and, if she still wanted to return to New York City at the end of that time, her mother would not protest further. Bloomer became immersed in her life in Grand Rapids and did not return to New York. Her mother remarried, to family friend and neighbor Arthur Meigs Godwin, and Bloomer lived with them. She got a job as assistant to the fashion coordinator for Herpolsheimer's, a local department store. She also organized her own dance group and taught dance at various sites in Grand Rapids, including the Calla Travis Dance Studio. She further taught ballroom dancing lessons for children with visual impairment and hearing loss and gave weekly dance lessons to African American children. She had, three years into the marriage, concluded that their relationship was a failure. She desired to have a family with children and was unhappy with the frequent moves between cities she had experienced in her marriage. For their honeymoon, the two briefly traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they attended a college football game between the Michigan Wolverines and the Northwestern Wildcats, before driving to Owosso, Michigan, to attend a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey. The Fords would ultimately be married for the next 58 years, until Gerald Ford's death. An anecdote that was later reported was that, when Gerald Ford left Grand Rapids for Washington, D.C., Betty Ford's new sister-in-law Janet Ford remarked to her, "with Jerry, you'll never have to worry about other women. Your cross will be his work."
The Fords lived in Washington, D.C. after his election, until the spring of 1955, when the Fords moved into a house they constructed in the D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. Gerald Ford had ambitions to rise to the rank of speaker of the house, and therefore maintained a busy travel schedule, regularly crisscrossing the United States to fundraise and campaign on behalf of other Republicans in hopes that they would, in turn, provide him with the support he would eventually need to become speaker. This meant that Gerald Ford was away from home for roughly half the year, placing a great burden on Ford to raise their children.
Ford served as a parent-teacher association member, Sunday school teacher at Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill, and a Cub Scout "den mother". She regularly drove her children around to their activities, such as her sons' Little League Baseball games and her daughter's dance classes. She was also involved in her husband's political career by fulfilling the commitments expected of congressional spouses to help elevate her husband's regard among his House colleagues. She accompanied her husband to congressional and White House events, as well as on some trips abroad, and made herself available to newspaper and magazine articles. Ford also posed for newspaper publicity photographs and was a clothing model for charity fashion shows, after a Republican had urged her to do so since they felt that Democratic Party spouses had far outnumbered Republican spouses in such publicity-generating activity. Such talk was due to her husband seeing it as unlikely that he would ever fulfill his ambition of becoming speaker of the House in light of the Republican Party's failure to win a majority in the 1972 United States House of Representatives elections. Two days later, on October 12, 1973, President Richard Nixon nominated Gerald Ford to serve as vice president. With her husband assuming the office of vice president, Ford became the second lady of the United States.
The media "broke" the story that Ford had a previous marriage and had been divorced, initially reporting it as a secret revelation. However, Ford simply responded by giving the explanation that it was not something that she had tried to hide, but rather, something that she had only neglected to share with the news media because none of them had broached the subject in their previous questions to her. This response proved effective in killing the speculation that she was covering-up her past and earned her some admiration in the media. In addition to the arts, Ford also gave focus to projects helping the disabled during her time as second lady.
In June 1974, Ford attended the funeral of Alberta Williams King, the assassinated mother of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Other Nixon administration official figures did not attend, continuing with other obligations. With her husband, as vice president, tasked with heavily campaigning on behalf of his party for the 1974 midterm elections, Ford occasionally hit the campaign trail herself. Ford had declared that she would be accompanying her husband at campaign functions, "when he wants me to." Ford ultimately became a popular and influential first lady. In the opinion of The New York Times and several presidential historians, "Mrs. Ford's impact on American culture may be far wider and more lasting than that of her husband, who served a mere 896 days, much of it spent trying to restore the dignity of the office of the president." She was regarded to be the most politically outspoken first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, whom she regarded as a role model. Active in social policy, Ford broke new ground as a politically active presidential spouse.
thumb|right|200px|Betty and Gerald Ford riding in the presidential limousine in 1974
Steinhauer of The New York Times described Ford as "a product and symbol of the cultural and political times—doing the Bump dance along the corridors of the White House, donning a mood ring, chatting on her CB radio with the handle First Mama—a housewife who argued passionately for equal rights for women, a mother of four who mused about drugs, abortion and premarital sex aloud and without regret." Ford was open about the benefits of psychiatric treatment and spoke understandingly about marijuana use and premarital sex. The New York News Service wrote that Ford was, "constitutionally incapable of uttering 'no comment' or otherwise fudging an answer." While President Ford never attempted to silence his wife, some of his senior staff resented her independent candor.
thumb|200px|Ford sits in the White House Solarium with [[Morley Safer before filming her August 1975 60 Minutes interview with him.]]
Ford filmed an interview with the television news program 60 Minutes which was broadcast on August 10, 1975. the magazine profiled Ford as one of eleven women selected to represent "American women". That same year, People named Ford one of the three most intriguing people in America. In January 1976, Ford made a cameo appearance on the popular television program The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
thumb|200px|Ford in November 1975, sitting at the [[Hay–Adams Hotel with television producer Ed Weinberger and actress Mary Tyler Moore during the filming of Ford's cameo appearance on The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]
The Fords were among the more openly affectionate first couples in United States history. Neither was shy about their mutual love and equal respect, and they were known to have a strong personal and political partnership.
Ford ranked as one of the top-10 most admired women in the results of Gallup's annual most admired man and woman poll every year from 1974 (the year her husband first became president) through 1991, with the exception of Gallup having not conducted such a poll in 1976 (the final full year of her husband's presidency). She placed first in 1975. After her tenure as first lady ended, she would top the poll for a second time in 1978, the year she had established herself as an advocate for people with drug and alcohol dependence. he never managed to top it.
In Good Housekeepings annual readers' poll of most admired women, Ford placed second in 1974 and first in 1975. By late-1975, Harris found Ford to have established herself as one of America's most popular first ladies. On September 4, 1974, weeks after becoming first lady, Ford conducted a press conference in the State Dining Room of the White House in which she remarked that she, "would like to be remembered in a very kind way; also as a constructive wife of a president." Ford met with former Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam Nguyễn Cao Kỳ to discuss Southeast Asian refugees. Afterwards, Ford stated she was impressed with the conduct of the refugees.
Ford's involvement in political issues received some conservative criticism. Phyllis Schlafly accused Ford of acting improperly by intervening in state affairs. Some women protested Ford's lobbying for the ERA by carrying placards outside of the White House reading "Betty Ford, Get Off the Phone".
Health and breast cancer awareness
thumb|200px|President Ford sits at Betty's bedside at [[Bethesda Naval Hospital on October 2, 1974, as she recovers from her mastectomy.]]
thumb|right|200px|Ford hosts actress [[Rosalind Russell at the White House on May 11, 1976. Russell was suffering from breast cancer, and would die 6 months later.]]
thumb|200px|Ford viewing the Queen's Sitting Room during a tour of the White House, 1977
Weeks after Ford became first lady, she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer on September 28, 1974, after having been diagnosed with the disease. Ford decided to be open about her illness because "There had been so much cover-up during Watergate that we wanted to be sure there would be no cover-up in the Ford administration." The spike in women self-examining after Ford went public with the diagnosis led to an increase in reported cases of breast cancer, a phenomenon known as the "Betty Ford blip".
After her mastectomy, Ford received chemotherapy treatments and saw regular checkups. White House Physician William M. Lukash claimed in a March 1975 statement that Ford was suffering no side effects from her chemotherapy.
In March 1975, Ford temporarily cut back her public schedule after suffering a flareup of her chronic arthritis. Once she became first lady, it fell to Ford to arrange this already-scheduled dinner. She found out of this upcoming dinner and her responsibility for planning it through a phone call she received within 24-hours after her husband's swearing-in as president. As previously mentioned, the Fords had hosted a state dinner for King Hussein months earlier, during Gerald Ford's vice presidency, on March 12, 1974, after president Nixon asked then-Vice President Ford to take over for him in hosting a planned dinner for the King. At the first state dinner that she arranged as first lady, Ford revived dancing as an activity of White House state dinners. The Nixons had previously removed dancing from the state dinners during Nixon's presidency.
Of the state dinners she planned, Ford said, "From the beginning, Jerry and I tried to make the White House a place where people could have fun and enjoy themselves. Most of all we wanted the state dinners to express the very best about America, particularly during the bicentennial year." Columbia River salmon, soufflé, and flambé. The state dinners that Ford planned as first lady made a deliberate effort to showcase American ingredients. She is the most recent first lady not to have done so. The first instance of a first lady conducting one had been Eleanor Roosevelt in 1942. Ford's recent predecessor Lady Bird Johnson was among other first ladies that did not conduct solo trips abroad.
On January 19, 1977, her last full day as first lady, Betty Ford used her training as a Martha Graham dancer to jump up on the Cabinet Room table. White House photographer David Hume Kennerly took a photo of her on the table. Gerald Ford did not know about or see the photo until 1994. A Ford family friend said that President Ford "about fell off his chair" when he saw the photo for the first time. The photo was subsequently published and is regarded as an "iconic" photograph of Ford's time as First Lady.
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File:Photograph of President Gerald Ford, First Lady Betty Ford, President-Elect Jimmy Carter, and Rosalynn Carter Standing Under the Canopy Near the South Portico Following the Carters' Tour of the White House - NARA - 186838.gif|The Fords welcome President-elect Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter to the White House on November 22, 1976, during the presidential transition.
File:First Lady Betty Ford and Others Applauding From the Gallery during the 1977 State of the Union Address - NARA - 17343413.jpg|Ford and others applaud in the gallery during the 1977 State of the Union Address on January 12, 1977.
File:Vice President Walter Mondale, - NARA - 173349.tif|The incoming and outgoing first and second couples pose for a photograph at the White House on the day of the inauguration of Jimmy Carter. L-R: Vice President-elect Walter Mondale, incoming second lady Joan Mondale, outgoing Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, outgoing second lady Happy Rockefeller, Betty Ford, Gerald Ford, incoming first lady Rosalynn Carter, and President-elect Carter
File:Jimmy Carter Inauguration - NARA - 173353.tif|At his inauguration, Jimmy Carter takes the oath of office to succeed Gerald Ford as president. Betty Ford stands in the lower-left corner of this image.
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Post–White House life and career (1977–2011)
After leaving the White House in 1977, Ford continued to lead an active public life. In addition to founding the Betty Ford Center, she remained active in women's issues, taking on numerous speaking engagements and lending her name to charities for fundraising. Many of Ford's most significant contributions as an activist came following the Fords' departure from the White House. and jointly signed a publishing deal alongside her husband to for their forthcoming memoirs. In June 1977, Ford was a speaker at the Arthritis Association Convention. In September of that year, Ford traveled to Moscow for a television program taping and to serve as hostess for The Nutcracker. In November 1977, Ford appeared at the opening session of the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas.
Recovery from alcoholism and prescription drug addiction
Ford had suffered from a dependency on prescription medication and from alcoholism prior even to her husband's presidency. The fact that Ford had, for years, been given tranquilizers to treat a pinched nerve in her neck was public knowledge as far back as her time as second lady.
After the Fords left the White House, her addictions became more evident to her family and appeared life-threatening. On April 1, 1978, her family staged an intervention. The intervention forced Betty Ford to acknowledge the negative impact that her addiction was having on her health and family relationships. She agreed that day to detox from her medicine. She also, ultimately, agreed to attend rehab at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Long Beach, California. Ford registered herself at the hospital on April 11, 1978.
The Betty Ford Center
thumb|Photograph of Ford standing outside of the [[Betty Ford Center]]
In 1982, after recovering from her own addictions, Ford established the Betty Ford Center (initially called the Betty Ford Clinic) in Rancho Mirage, California. Its mission specializes in the treatment of chemical dependency, including treating the children of alcoholics. She partnered with her friend Ambassador Leonard Firestone to found it. She served as chair of the board of directors. She also co-authored with Chris Chase a book about her treatment, Betty: A Glad Awakening (1987). In 2003, Ford produced another book, Healing and Hope: Six Women from the Betty Ford Center Share Their Powerful Journeys of Addiction and Recovery. In 2005, Ford relinquished her chair of the center's board of directors to her daughter Susan. She had held the top post at the center since its founding.
Women's movement
Ford continued to be an active leader and activist of the feminist movement after the Ford administration. She continued to strongly advocate and lobby politicians and state legislatures for passage of the ERA. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ford to the second National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year (the first had been appointed by President Ford). That same year, she joined First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter to open and participate in the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, where she endorsed measures in the convention's National Plan of Action, a report sent to the state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, and the President on how to improve the status of American women. Ford continued to be an outspoken supporter of equal pay for women, breast cancer awareness, and the ERA throughout her life. She was an active member of the Junior League.
thumb|Ford (center) together at the [[1977 National Women's Conference with First Lady Rosalynn Carter (left) and fellow former first lady Lady Bird Johnson (right)]]
Ford continued to advocate for the ratification of the ERA. In November 1977, Ford and First Lady Rosalynn Carter joined to advocate for its ratification at the National Women's Conference in Houston. In November 1981, Ford stated that Governor of Illinois James R. Thompson had not done enough in support of the ERA as well as her disappointment with First Lady Nancy Reagan not being in favor of the measure, though also relayed her hopes to change the incumbent First Lady's mind in further encounters with her. As the deadline approached, Ford led marches, parades and rallies for the ERA with other feminists, including First Daughter Maureen Reagan and various Hollywood actors. Ford was credited with rejuvenating the ERA movement and inspiring more women to continue working for the ERA. She visited states, including Illinois, where ratification was believed to have the most realistic chance of passing. On October 12, 1981, Ford spoke in support of the ERA on a rally held at the National Mall. The amendment did not receive enough states' ratification. In 2004, Ford reaffirmed her pro-abortion rights stance and her support for the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, as well as her belief in and support for the ratification of the ERA.
Other matters
Ford involved herself with the American Cancer Society and the Arthritis Foundation.
Decades later, in his 2014 memoir, television producer Norman Lear revealed that in the late-1970s Ford had played a significant role in helping to persuade television executives to purchase the syndication rights to the series Maude, of which she was an avid viewer. He wrote that, at his request, Ford had attended the National Association of Television Program Executives convention and spoke to executives about her love of the series to help pique their interest in the series.
Ford tackled the stigmatized issue of HIV/AIDS during the HIV/AIDS crisis. Through the work she did at the Betty Ford Center, Ford recognized the link between drug abuse and AIDS. She involved herself in the Los Angeles AIDS Project. In 1985, Ford received the Los Angeles AIDS Projects "Commitment to Life Award". Her acceptance speech spoke hopefully of the prospect that attitudes towards HIV/AIDS would shift, being de-stigmatized as cancer and alcoholism had (in part due to her contribution). When she attended the 1992 Republican National Convention, Ford wore an AIDS ribbon pin.
In 1985, Ford received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an annual award given by the Jefferson Awards.
In the early 1990s, Ford voiced admiration for First Lady Hillary Clinton and praised her for taking an active role in policy within her husband's administration by leading the Clinton health care plan On November 18, 1991, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush. In 1999, she and President Ford were jointly awarded Congressional Gold Medals. That same year, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her and her husband. In 2000, the Lasker Foundation awarded Ford its annual Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award. Ford left $500,000 to the Betty Ford Center. After the service, Betty Ford was buried next to her husband on the museum grounds.
In July 2018, a statue of Ford was unveiled outside of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Historical assessments
According to John Robert Greene:
Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has conducted occasional surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. Ford has consistently ranked among the top-nine most highly assessed first ladies in these surveys. In terms of cumulative assessment, Ford has been ranked:
- 6th-best of 42 in 1982
The 2008 Siena Research Institute survey ranked Ford the 5th-highest of the twenty 20th and 21st century First Ladies. The 2008 survey also ranked Ford the 5th-highest in their assessment of first ladies who were "their own women" as well as 5th-highest in courage. In both the 1993 and 2003 Siena Research Institute surveys, Ford was similarly ranked the 5th-highest in historians' assessment of first ladies' courage. In supplementary questions asked during the 2014 Siena Research Institute survey, historians and scholars ranked Ford 3rd-highest among 20th and 21st century First Ladies in the greatness of post-White House service (with 16% ranking her as having had the best among all first ladies), 3rd-highest in advancement of women's issues (with 19% ranking her as having done the best), and 4th-highest in creating a lasting legacy (with 10% of ranking her as having done the best). In supplementary questions asked in the 2020 survey, historians and scholars ranked Ford 4th-highest among 20th and 21st century First Ladies in the greatness of post-White House service (with 10% ranking her as having had the best among all first ladies) and 4th-highest in advancement of women's issues (with 18% ranking her as having done the best). They also ranked her work on women's rights as the third-most effective signature initiatives among those of the then first ladies between 1964 and 2020.
Cultural depictions
Ford's life is the focus of the 1987 ABC biographical television film The Betty Ford Story, which has a story adapted from her memoir The Times of My Life. Gena Rowlands won both an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Ford. Ford is one of three former first ladies whose lives are the focus of Showtime's 2022 series The First Lady, in which she is portrayed by Kristine Froseth and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Ford was among the many celebrities featured on the cover art of the 1978 comic book Superman vs. Muhammad Ali.
Awards and honors
thumb|The [[National Woman's Party presents Ford with a plaque honoring her as its inaugural "Alice Paul Award" in the White House's Map Room on January 11, 1977 (the 92nd birthday of Alice Paul).]]
In 1975, when Time named "American women" as its "Time Person of the Year",
- 1975 National Art Association "Distinguished Woman of the Year Award"
- 1976 Parsons Annual Critics Awards Show "Parsons Award" (an award given to individuals that, "not only advance the cause of American fashion, but in doing so serve as an inspiration for students who are about to assume professional and citizenship roles in American society.")
- 1978 Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award
- 1981 Friends of Hebrew University "Scopus Award"
- 1985 American Academy of Achievement "Golden Plate Award"
- 1985 AIDS Project Los Angeles "Commitment to Life Award"
- 2003 Smithsonian Institution Woodrow Wilson Center "Woodrow Wilson Award"
- 2024 United States Postal Service commemorative postage stamp
Things and places named for Ford
- Betty Ford Cancer Research Center at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California (named after Ford in 1978))
- Betty Ford Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado