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 Caroline Scott Harrison
First Lady and Domestic Activist
With his family Benjamin Harrison was reportedly warm, but others,
even political friends, found him frigid. As one observer put it:
“He can make a speech to ten thousand men, and every man of them
will go away his friend. Let him meet the same ten thousand men in
private and everyone will go away his enemy.”
So why would such a dry and rigid man (later dubbed the “White
House iceberg”) decide to marry an artistic and ebullient woman
like Caroline Scott? While their relationship was certainly a
demonstration of how opposites attract, perhaps it was the
contrast of their personalities that intrigued Harrison. And from
the beginning they were deeply in love.
Carrie was born at Oxford Ohio in October, 1832, the daughter of a
Presbyterian minister who was also a teacher and director of a
girls’ school. Before coming to Oxford, Dr. Scott had been an
instructor at a school where Benjamin Harrison was enrolled and
when the Scotts moved to Oxford, Harrison also did so. There he
resumed his friendship with Carrie, since he had known her from
the family’s previous residence.
Harrison was a devoted and
compliant suitor, spending time courting Carrie during warm summer
evenings on the front porch of the Scott family home, It was this
practice that caused his fellow pupils to dub him the “pious
moonlight dude.” One time Harrison even escorted Carrie to a dance
where, as a Presbyterian, he did not dance, but sat out the
evening as she danced – with other young men.
Despite the prestige of an
illustrious family name – Harrison’s grandfather William Henry had
been briefly president in 1841 – his family was not rich. Ben was
the fifth of 13 children and the family farm barely managed to
sustain the family. However, Ben applied himself so he could
attend Miami University, graduate and then work at a Cincinnati
law firm. Then he planned out his future: he would be admitted to
the bar, establish a law practice, and within a few years consider
marriage. Since this would take several years, Harrison and Carrie
believed marriage to be far in the future.
Carrie completed her schooling and
then began to teach music at the same school, as she helped nurse
the teacher whose position she had assumed. However, Harrison was
concerned that all this effort could endanger her health and also
that a long engagement and separation would be unbearable to both
of them. In short, he believed Carrie would be better off married
to him than being away from him. Carrie’s father agreed and after
they were married in October, 1853, Carrie went to live at the
Harrison family home as Ben continued to study law. Within a year
they settled in Indianapolis where Ben set up a law practice and
Carrie awaited the birth of their first child. Russell Harrison
was born in August, 1854 while Ben struggled to set up his
practice. Then a few years later, Harrison acquired a prestigious
partner in William Wallace, son of a former Indiana governor and
brother of “Ben Hur” author Lew Wallace. This connection improved
his professional and financial prospects but he still welcomed the
extra income he received as reporter to the Indiana Supreme Court.
Daughter Mary Harrison (called
Mamie) was born in April, 1858, and while Carrie kept house for
the family, she often found extra company as various Harrison
relatives arrived and left. At the start of the Civil War,
Harrison began as a recruiter to help the governor and ended up in
entering the service, demonstrating great leadership talent. At
the same time, he gained a new appreciation for his marriage and
decided to curtail his overwork and the resulting income if it
meant he neglected Carrie. It was a resolution he kept.
During the Civil War, Carrie did
her part for the Union cause by joining organizations that raised
money, working in the Ladies’ Sanitary Committee and assisting the
Indianapolis Orphans’ Asylum. She remained on their board for her
lifetime.
After the war, he resumed his law
practice, as well as his business of publishing Indiana Supreme
Court reports and thus provided well for his family. By 1875 the
family had moved into a roomy home where Carrie entertained local
political figures as Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor.
However, while she did not care for politics; she developed her
own interests in society and in community welfare. She enrolled in
art and literature classes, remained active in the local
missionary society and also helped start a book discussion group
called the “Impromptu Club.” In addition to church and family
activities, she developed her artistic talent by painting
watercolors.
In 1881, just before Harrison was
set to take a seat in the Senate, Carrie took a fall on icy
pavement and her injuries prevented her from going to Washington
with him. An operation in 1883 meant a continued convalescence as
daughter Mamie kept house for her father in Washington. Though
Carrie could not travel to Nebraska for son Russell’s wedding, she
was well enough to supervise the wedding of her daughter in
Indianapolis.
When Harrison entered the White
House in 1889, Washington society was well aware of the contrast
between the short, plump, white haired new First Lady and her
youthful and glamorous predecessor, Frances Cleveland. Still,
Carrie had her own personality and projects in mind. “We are here
for four years,” she said, “I do not look beyond that, as many
things may occur in that time, but I am very anxious to see the
family of the president provided for properly…”
The White House family quarters
were crowded during the Harrison administration because of the
many family members living there - ranging from her grandchildren
to her 90 year old father. “Very few people understand to what
straits the President’s family has been put at times for lack of
accommodations,” Carrie said, “Really, there are only five
sleeping apartments and there is no feeling of privacy.”
But besides being crowded, the
White House was in desperate need of modernization and for a time
there was some consideration given to moving the presidential
family to other quarters. Carrie reportedly would have preferred
that the building be completely rebuilt but when political
differences with Congress prevented the authorizing funds, she did
the next best thing and renovated the entire mansion as she could.
When the multi year project was
completed there was a new kitchen, heating system, downstairs
flooring, more bathrooms and new furniture, as well as a new
switchboard to replace the one phone that had previously been in
place. They also added an accommodation to modern technology –
electric lights. Reportedly when White House Usher Ike Hoover did
not turn them off in the evening, the Harrisons would leave them
on all night. Carrie, the President and other family members were
so unfamiliar and wary of contact with electricity that they would
not turn off the lights for fear of receiving a shock.
Carrie maintained a full schedule
of entertaining, as well as other activities as she used her name
and prestige to advance the cause of women. She sponsored fund
raising for the Women’s Medical Fund of Johns Hopkins University
but only with the specifications that the school admit female
students on a fully equal basis with men. With her encouragement,
her husband hired Alice Sanger, the first female stenographer to
be paid for work in the White House. She also was instrumental in
establishing the Daughters of the Revolution and served as its
first director, hoping that the new organization would assist the
cause of women’s rights and suffrage. As a part of this
organization she was the first wife of a president to write and
deliver a speech in public. “Since this society has been organized
and so much thought and reading directed to the early struggles of
this country,” she said, “it has been made plain that much of its
success was due to … women of that era… I feel sure that their
daughters can perpetuate a society worthy the cause and worthy
themselves.”
Another major accomplishment was
her establishing the White House China collection. Even before
entering the White House, Carrie had been an avid painter, and
with a special interest in painting china, a common ladies’
pastime at the time. She even had her own kiln. Once in the White
House, she explored the closets and discovered in storage china
and other articles of tableware that had used by many of her
predecessors. Many of these pieces then went on display. Also, she
designed her own china pattern that was used at White House events
and, using her personal emblem of a shamrock, she established
china pieces that would be available as souvenirs for tourists.
However, she also used her talent for her family as she decorated
a porcelain bathtub with magnolias for her grandson, Benjamin
Harrison McKee, Mamie’s 2-year-old son. Known to the media and the
public as “Baby McKee,” he was perhaps the most photographed child
in the White House until the arrival of the Kennedy children sixty
years later.
Carrie’s health remained good for
the first few years as she maintained her busy schedule. However,
in the fall of 1892, just as her husband was running for
reelection, she became ill and died on October 25.
A final tribute came from James
Whitcomb Riley, beloved Indiana poet:
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“Yet with the
faith she knew
We see her still
Even as here she stood
All that was pure and good
And sweet in womanhood
God’s will her will.”
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In 1893 the defeated
President Harrison returned to Indianapolis and then three and
half years he remarried. The new Mrs. Harrison was Carrie’s
widowed niece Mary Scott Dimmick, who had lived in the White House
as an aide to her aunt. It would seem natural that the former
President seek solace in the company of a young woman who had
meant so much to both of them, but his children Russell and Mamie
did not agree. When Harrison and Mrs. Dimmick were married in
1896, father and children became estranged. Eventually the
President removed them from his will.
A daughter Elizabeth was born to
the President and his new wife, but he did not live long
afterward. Harrison died in 1901 and the second Mrs. Harrison
lived till 1948.
~*~
A native of Kansas City, Missouri , Anne grew up
in northwestern Ohio , and holds degrees in
history: a BA from Wilmington College,
Wilmington , Ohio (1967), and a MA from Central
Missouri State University , Warrensburg ,
Missouri (1968).
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