I just finished reading You Can’t Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her by Shannon McKenna Schmidt.

I was giddy about this one:

Lady Bird is incredible. I already knew that, but wasn’t very familiar with her whistle-stop tour.
The other book I read by Shannon McKenna Schmidt (The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back) was amazing. See??
It’s my time first dipping into the 1900s (non-fictionally speaking) this year.

It lived up to my expectations. Let’s take a peek!

Flip through my sketchbook.

Then scroll through more doodles. As always, my doodles don’t necessarily highlight the most important parts of the book. And they are in no particular order. Certainly not chronological. No spoilers. Unless you didn’t know if LBJ won or not in 1964. If not, then there’s a big spoiler.

He wins!

We must go

People wondered “why make the effort” to visit the South. They weren’t going to vote for Lyndon Baines Johnson no matter what and, honestly, LBJ could win without them.

The Johnsons were not about to ignore the South.

Lady Bird said to Liz Carpenter:

“We must go. We must let them know we love the South. We respect them. We have not turned our backs on them. I don’t think there’s much chance of carrying it for Lyndon, judging by the letters I get from my Alabama cousins, but at least we won’t lose by default.”

Their whistle-stop tour aboard the Lady Bird Special involved:

19 cars
300 people
1,682 miles
8 states
47 stops
4 days

And, friends, Lady Bird did not recycle her speeches. Each stop received a specially-crafted message tailored to them.

Dewey (but no Huey or Louie)

I was kinda shocked that Huey Long showed up since he was dead and all.

But he didn’t.

I just misread.

Dewey Long showed up. He was not dead. And also was someone else entirely.

Last time Huey Long showed up in my reading, I was also thrown. But it was actually him that time.

The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King, by Rich Cohen

I help her help him

Liz Carpenter was the first East Wing Staff Director. Also the first professional journalist to serve as Press Secretary for a First Lady.

Though she previously almost declined an opportunity to help Lady Bird campaign for JFK and LBJ (fear of flying!), she overcame her nerves.

Carpenter said she would “match the political talents of Southern women against any others, any time and any place. They have the uncanny ability to look fragile and lovely as a magnolia blossom, and still possess the managerial ability of [a union] organizer.”

While preparing for the tour, she cautioned:

“Another thing you are going to have to fight is the lack of imagination in men.”

Abandon these local animosities

Lady Bird quoted Robert E. Lee:

“Abandon these local animosities and make your sons Americans.”

Out of the cauldron…

When LBJ was 28 years old, Lady Bird helped finance his campaign for Congress. She convinced her father to give her $10,000 of her inheritance from her mom earlier than planned.

LBJ had been serving in the Naval Reserves, but the day after Pearl Harbor he requested active duty. Lady Bird ran his office while he was away, keeping in contact with his constituents.

She said, “Out of the cauldron of that war year, I received two gifts:”

realization she could “do a job.”
To balance out his unpredictable income, she used part of her inheritance to buy a radio station, which she transformed into a “multimillion dollar radio and television enterprise” (in McKenna Schmidt’s words).
Deeper understanding of his role in Congress.
And once he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Liz Carpenter said “she fell in love with the Senate.”

She carried Texas

Those damn tea parties

When Kennedy beat Henry Cabot Lodge in the senate race, Lodge complained “it was those damn tea parties that beat me.”

Kennedy won by ~70,000 and ~70,000 attended Rose Kennedy’s teas… which she said was “I daresay, a coincidence.”

But also, that they helped.

Since Henry Cabot Lodge came up, I’ll use that as an excuse to recycle the doodle below of his ancestors. The forked-bearded John Cabot was Henry Cabot Lodge’s great-grandfather. He’d moved to Salem, Massachusetts. And now I must share that “this is good old Boston, home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God.”

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was Henry Cabot Lodge’s grandson…. making John Cabot his great-great-great grandfather.

I think.

The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe

Inexhaustible sidekick

Star reporter Isabelle Shelton wrote:

“In Lady Bird Johnson, the president has an extremely capable, seemingly inexhaustible sidekick who can be expected to seek out votes in creeks and hollows, mountains and valleys, farms and city squares across the land.”

Truman & Dewey

On his whistle-stop tour, Harry S Truman would ask the crowd “How’d ya’ like to meet my wife and daughter?”

He called Bess and Margaret The Boss and The Boss’s Boss.

They did not care for that.

He did not seem to care that they didn’t care for it.

Truman was running against Thomas E. Dewey, who completely took it for granted that he would win. LBJ wanted to win by a landslide, partially so as to not look like he’d pulled a Dewey.

Have you read A Pair of Aces by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray? So good. Thomas Dewey was the US District Attorney in that book (and in real life).

Stag government

LBJ strove to put an end to “stag government” and asked Liz Carpenter for her help. She had until 10 a.m. the next day to prepare to meet with his Cabinet.

“We were there. We assured the Cabinet that all brains don’t come in male packages.”

Within months, there were:

800 promotions
150 new appointments

Including:

Charlotte Moton Hubbard, who became the highest ranked Black woman in the federal government after her promotion to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.
Geraldine Whittington’s new role as LBJ’s Secretary, which was announced on the game show What’s My Line.