Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor, and almost nobody ever called her that. While she was still an infant, her nursemaid, Alice Tittle, remarked that the baby was as pretty as a ladybird. The comment became a lifelong name. Her father and siblings shortened it to Lady, her future husband called her Bird, and Bird is what she wrote on her marriage license. People still disagree about whether the name meant a bird or the beetle that North Americans call a ladybug.
The girl behind the nickname grew up shy and often alone in East Texas. She later served as first lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969, beside the 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson. This documentary asks how a quiet young woman who wanted to be a reporter ended up with her own staff, her own campaign train and a law that carried her name. It also asks why her money, her temperament and her love of wildflowers mattered as much as her husband's ambitions.
The Brick House, an antebellum plantation home on the edge of Karnack, Texas, was where she was born on the 22nd of December 1912. Karnack sits in Harrison County, close to the Louisiana line. Her father, Thomas Jefferson Jonson Taylor, had bought the house shortly before her birth. He was a sharecropper's son who became rich, eventually owning 15,000 acres of cotton land and two general stores. His daughter said of him: "My father was a very strong character, to put it mildly. He lived by his own rules. It was a whole feudal way of life, really."
Her mother, Minnie Lee Pattillo, loved opera and never felt at home in Karnack. Time magazine later pictured her in long white dresses and heavy veils, playing grand opera on the phonograph and reading the classics aloud to her small daughter. The magazine also said she scandalized neighbors by entertaining Black guests. When the girl was five, Minnie fell down a flight of stairs while pregnant. She died of complications from a miscarriage in 1918.
Her mother's sister, Effie Pattillo, moved to Karnack and largely raised her. Every summer until she was a young woman, the two took the train from Marshall to the Pattillo family in Autauga County, Alabama, for watermelon cuttings and picnics at the creek. Lady Bird said Aunt Effie opened her spirit to beauty but taught her nothing practical about dressing, choosing friends or dancing. At home she walked, fished and swam by herself among the tall pines and bayous. "People always look back at it now and assume it was lonely," she said. "To me it definitely was not."
There was no high school near Karnack, so she boarded with another family in Jefferson during the week. Her brothers were sent to boarding schools in New York. She graduated third in her class at Marshall Senior High School at the age of 15, and her father gave her a car for the 15-mile drive each way. Realizing in her senior year that she held the top grades, she deliberately let them slip to avoid giving a graduation speech.
A summer session at the University of Alabama in 1928 gave her a first journalism course, but homesickness sent her back to Texas. She enrolled at St. Mary's Episcopal College for Women in Dallas instead, and the school nudged her toward the Episcopal faith. In 1930 she chartered a plane to Austin to join a friend at the University of Texas. As it landed, she saw a field covered in bluebonnets and fell in love with the city on the spot.
She earned a history degree with honors in 1933 and a journalism degree cum laude in 1934. Her goal was to become a reporter, though she also earned a teaching certificate. That summer she and a girlfriend traveled to New York City and Washington, where they peered through the fence at the White House.
A 26-year-old congressional aide named Lyndon B. Johnson was introduced to her by a friend in Austin. He worked for Congressman Richard Kleberg and had large political ambitions. Lady Bird later recalled feeling "like a moth drawn to a flame." Biographer Randall B. Woods blamed Johnson's "neglect of his legal studies" on his pursuit of her.
On their first date, at the Driskill Hotel, Lyndon proposed. She did not want to rush, but he would not wait. Ten weeks later she said yes. They married on the 17th of November 1934 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas.
Three miscarriages came before their daughters, Lynda Bird in 1944 and Luci Baines in 1947. All four family members shared the initials LBJ. Both girls spent their teenage years in the White House under heavy media attention. Lynda married Charles S. Robb in a White House ceremony, and he later became governor of Virginia and a U.S. senator. Luci married Pat Nugent and later Ian Turpin. By the time Lady Bird died she had seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
The marriage was strained by Lyndon's many affairs. One long relationship, with socialite Alice Marsh, ran on and off from 1939 into the early years of his presidency. It ended because Marsh opposed the Vietnam War. Lady Bird's 2007 obituary noted that she "was openly humiliated."
She often smoothed over the damage her wilful husband left behind. After Lyndon clashed with Dan Rather, then a young Houston reporter, she followed Rather's car, stopped him and invited him back for punch. "That's just the way Lyndon sometimes is," she told him. In the White House, Lyndon once shouted at a photographer who missed a shoot with the first lady. She consoled the man afterward, and he said that despite his feelings about the president, he "would walk over hot coals for Lady Bird."
Her mother's estate was about to give her a far more public role in her husband's career.
Ten thousand dollars from her mother's estate launched Lyndon's run for Congress in Austin's 10th district. After he won, the couple settled in Washington, D.C. When he enlisted in the Navy at the start of the Second World War, Lady Bird ran his congressional office herself.
In January and February of 1943, she spent $17,500 of her inheritance on KTBC, an Austin radio station. The sellers were a three-man partnership that included Robert B. Anderson, a future secretary of the navy and secretary of the treasury, and the Texas oilman Wesley West. She became president of the LBJ Holding Company, and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network.
In 1952 she bought a television station over Lyndon's objections. She reminded him that the inheritance was hers to spend as she pleased. KTBC-TV was Austin's only VHF franchise and brought in revenue that made the Johnsons millionaires. Journalists later reported that Lyndon used his Senate influence to push the Federal Communications Commission into granting that monopoly license, which was held in her name.
Not everything in the holding company thrived. Two small banks it owned failed and were closed by the FDIC in 1991. The radio properties survived, though, and in 2003 Emmis Communications paid $105 million for KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KGSR and three other stations. Her original investment of $41,000 had grown to more than $150 million for the company.
That made her the first president's wife to be a millionaire in her own right before her husband took office. She stayed involved with the business into her eighties.
Over 71 days in 1960, Lady Bird traveled 35,000 miles through 11 states and appeared at 150 events. John F. Kennedy had chosen Lyndon as his running mate and asked her to take a bigger campaign role, because Jacqueline Kennedy was pregnant with their second child. The Democratic ticket won, and Lady Bird's efforts helped it carry seven Southern states.
The vice presidency turned out to be a frustrating job. She later called those years "a very different period of our lives." The couple had a measure of national celebrity, yet both found the office short on power. Lady Bird often stood in for Jacqueline Kennedy, and in her first year as second lady she covered more than 50 events, about one a week.
On the 22nd of November 1963, the Johnsons rode two cars behind President Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas when he was assassinated. They had planned to host the Kennedys at their ranch that night. Two hours after Kennedy died, Lyndon took the oath on Air Force One, with Lady Bird and Jacqueline Kennedy beside him.
Lady Bird recorded her memories of the day on tape, calling it "primarily as a form of therapy to help me over the shock and horror of the experience." She gave a transcript to the Warren Commission as testimony, and the Johnson advisor Abe Fortas added notes to it. In the following days she worked with Jacqueline Kennedy on the move into the White House. She admired Kennedy's strength but feared from the start that people would compare her unfavorably with her predecessor.
On her last day in the house, Jacqueline Kennedy left a note telling Lady Bird she would "be happy" there.
Liz Carpenter, a fellow University of Texas graduate, served as Lady Bird's press secretary from 1963 to 1969. She was the first professional newswoman to hold that post for a first lady, and she also directed the staff. Lady Bird was the first first lady to have a press secretary, a chief of staff and a liaison with Congress, and her term began the practice of hiring East Wing employees to work on the first lady's own projects.
Before any of that, Lyndon had said he would turn down the 1964 presidential nomination. He was unhappy after his time in Kennedy's administration and believed his party did not want him. Aides could not move him, but Lady Bird did. She assured him of his worthiness and warned that if he stepped aside, the Republicans would likely take the White House.
From the 6th to the 9th of October 1964, she crossed eight Southern states on a chartered train called the Lady Bird Special. At one point she gave 45 speeches in four days. It was the first solo whistle-stop tour by a first lady. That month she also campaigned by air in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana and Kentucky. Her husband beat Barry Goldwater in a landslide, and on the 20th of January 1965 she held the Bible as he took the oath, starting a tradition that continues.
Her official travels were reported in local detail. When she dedicated a landscape plaza in Peoria, Illinois, in September 1965, the local beautification association's president, Leslie Kenyon, said she was the first presidential spouse to visit as an official guest in the city's 140 years. At the Glen Canyon Dam in September 1966, she said the dam belonged to all Americans, "no matter whether he lives in New York or Page, Arizona." In late August 1967 she attended Expo 67 in Montreal at her husband's urging.
The Vietnam War intruded on a White House luncheon in January 1968. Asked for her views by the first lady, the performer Eartha Kitt answered: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot." The remarks reportedly angered both Johnsons, and Kitt's career suffered.
By September 1967, Lady Bird was voicing worry that a second term would damage her husband's health. Health may have been one reason he chose not to run again. In 1970 she published A White House Diary, covering the 22nd of November 1963 to the 20th of January 1969. The Secret Service protected her for 44 years, and she knew first ladies from Eleanor Roosevelt to Laura Bush.
"Where flowers bloom, so does hope," Lady Bird said, and she treated the line as a program. In Washington she planted thousands of flowers, and the wider capital project put millions of blooms along roadways, many on National Park Service land. She set up the White House Natural Beauty Conference and lobbied Congress for the president's full range of environmental initiatives. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall said she single-handedly influenced Lyndon "to demand-and support-more far-sighted conservation legislation."
In 1965 she led the call for the Highway Beautification Act. The law targeted outdoor advertising along the Interstate system and existing federal-aid primary highways, including removal of certain signs. It also required that some junkyards along those roads be removed or screened, and it encouraged scenic roadside development. Newspapers and Congress nicknamed it "Lady Bird's Bill." She became the first president's wife to push actively for legislation.
Robert F. Lederer, an executive of the American Association of Nurserymen, worked with her to protect wildflowers and promote planting them beside highways. Similar programs sprang up across the country. She also backed Head Start, which prepares children from lower-income families for school.
The tributes began before she left the White House. In November 1968, Columbia Island in Washington was renamed Lady Bird Johnson Park in honor of her beautification campaign. On the 27th of August 1969, President Richard Nixon dedicated a 300-acre grove of redwoods near Orick, California, as the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. It lies within Redwood National Park, and she attended the ceremony with her husband.
Lyndon died of a heart attack in January 1973, four years after leaving office. Lady Bird was in a meeting when it happened, and he was gone by the time she reached him. His body lay in state at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, and he was buried two days later. Their daughter Lynda said God "knew what he was doing" in taking him first, because he could not have lived without her.
Widowhood did not slow her. From 1971 to 1978 she sat on the University of Texas System board of regents, and she became the first woman on the National Geographic Society's board of trustees. In the 1970s she turned to Austin's riverfront through the Town Lake Beautification Project. In 1982 she and the actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center west of Austin to preserve native plants. After she raised $10 million for its new home, the center was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1995.
President Gerald Ford gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the 10th of January 1977. Its citation praised her for making government human with compassion, grace, warmth and wisdom. She also received the Congressional Gold Medal, the first wife of a president so honored. Historians surveyed by the Siena College Research Institute ranked her third among first ladies in 1982, behind Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt. Her later rankings stayed between fifth and seventh, and in 2020 her environmental work was judged the most effective first lady initiative.
Biographer Betty Boyd Caroli said in 2015 that she "really invented the job of the modern first lady."
Her health declined from 1986, when she fainted at a funeral. A stroke in August 1993 left her legally blind from macular degeneration, and a more severe stroke in 2002 impaired her speech and walking. Even then she kept up her curiosity. Her daughter Luci recalled that, weeks before the end, Lady Bird visited the Blanton Art Museum on IV antibiotics, a feeding tube and oxygen. Luci described the family "rolling through the museum like a mobile hospital."
Lady Bird died at home on the 11th of July 2007, at the age of 94. Three weeks earlier, she had given $300,000 to pay off the mortgage of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg. On the 15th of July, a cortege left the Texas State Capitol, and the public lined Congress Avenue in Austin. Unlike earlier first ladies' funerals, her pallbearers came from the armed forces. She was buried beside her husband at the family cemetery in Stonewall, 34 years after his death.
Austin had long wanted to name Town Lake for her, but she had declined. It was renamed Lady Bird Lake on the 26th of July 2007. In 2012 the U.S. Postal Service issued a Forever stamp sheet in her honor, and in 2013 her daughter Lynda accepted the Rachel Carson Award on her behalf.
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Common questions
Who was Lady Bird Johnson?
Lady Bird Johnson, born Claudia Alta Taylor, was first lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 as the wife of the 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson. She was second lady from 1961 to 1963 while he was vice president.
Why was Lady Bird Johnson called Lady Bird?
Her nursemaid, Alice Tittle, said the infant was as pretty as a ladybird. Her father and siblings called her Lady, and her husband called her Bird.
What was the Highway Beautification Act and what was Lady Bird Johnson's role in it?
The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 controlled outdoor advertising and required some junkyards to be removed or screened along Interstate and primary highways. Lady Bird Johnson took the lead in calling for it, and it was nicknamed "Lady Bird's Bill."
How did Lady Bird Johnson become a millionaire?
She spent $17,500 of her inheritance on the Austin radio station KTBC in 1943 and later bought a television station. Her original $41,000 investment grew to more than $150 million for the LBJ Holding Company.
What was the Lady Bird Special?
The Lady Bird Special was a chartered train on which Lady Bird Johnson toured eight Southern states from the 6th to the 9th of October 1964. It was the first solo whistle-stop tour by a first lady.
When did Lady Bird Johnson die and where is she buried?
Lady Bird Johnson died at home on the 11th of July 2007 at the age of 94. She is buried beside her husband in the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall, Texas.
How did Lady Bird Johnson change the role of first lady?
She was the first first lady to have her own press secretary, chief of staff and liaison with Congress. Her press secretary, Liz Carpenter, was the first professional newswoman in that post.
All sources
117 references cited across the entry
- 1NewsLady Bird Johnson dies in Texas at age 94Hilary Hylton — Reuters — July 12, 2007
- 2Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94Joe Simnacher — July 12, 2007
- 4NewsChampion of Conservation, Loyal Force Behind LBJJoe Holley — July 12, 2007
- 6Obituary: Lady Bird JohnsonBBC Online — July 12, 2007
- 7MagazineThe White House: The First Lady BirdAugust 28, 1964
- 8MagazineThe White House: The First Lady BirdAugust 28, 1964
- 10MagazineThe White House: The First Lady BirdAugust 28, 1964
- 111930 United States Federal Census
- 13NewsA Talk With the First LadyHenry B. — September 10, 1967
- 14Wilson, Janet. "East Texas wildflower," Austin American-Statesman. July 13, 2007. p.2 (Lady Bird Johnson Commemorative Section)
- 15Russell, Jan Jarboe, Lady Bird, A Biography of Mrs. Johnson, 1999, New York: Scribner, pp. 69–70
- 16St. Mary's CollegeDuBose Murphy — November 1, 1995
- 17Russell (1999), pp. 70–71
- 18Russell (1999), pp. 71–72
- 19University of Texas, Austin, Yearbook 1933
- 20Russell (1999), p. 83
- 21Russell (1999), p. 88
- 22BookLyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a PresidentRobert Dallek — Oxford University Press — 2005
- 23Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady a Nation MournsArmando Duke — July 12, 2007
- 24NewsLady Bird Johnson Was LBJ's Anchor In Troubled TimesPatricia Brennan — December 11, 2001
- 25BookLBJ: Architect of American AmbitionRandall Bennett Woods — Harvard University Press — 2007
- 26Lady Bird Johnson, 94, Dies; Eased a Path to PowerEnid Nemy — July 12, 2007
- 27Historic Presidential Affairs That Never Made it To the TabloidsBecky Little — May 7, 2018
- 28Three New Revelations About LBJRobert Dallek — April 1, 1998
- 29Wilson, Janet. "Wife, mother, partner," The Austin American-Statesman, July 13, 2007, p.3 (Lady Bird Johnson Commemorative Section)
- 30NewsGreen first lady planted a movement; Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson dies at 94Claudia Feldman — July 11, 2007
- 32NewsHow Lady Bird Shaped LBJ's PresidencyHady Karl Mawajdeh — KERA News — November 30, 2015
- 33NewsLady Bird JohnsonJuly 13, 2007
- 34BookHow We Got Here: The '70sDavid Frum — Basic Books — 2000
- 35MagazineThe Johnson Years: Buying and SellingRobert A. Caro — December 18, 1989
- 36BookPlaying with Fire – The 1968 Elections and the Transformation of American PoliticsLawrence O'Donnell — Penguin Press — 2017
- 37NewsFAREWELL TO A LADY: Mrs. Johnson made millions without losing sight of peopleLori Hawkins — July 16, 2007
- 38BookLady Bird Johnson: An Oral HistoryMichael L. Gillette — Oxford University Press — December 6, 2012
- 39News"... to leave this splendor for our grandchildren": Lady Bird Johnson, Environmentalist ExtraordinaireOrganization of American Historians
- 40BookAmerica's First Ladies: A Historical Encyclopedia and Primary Document Collection of the Remarkable Women of the White HouseNancy Hendricks — ABC-CLIO — 2015
- 41News"It All Began So Beautifully": Lady Bird's Emotional Memories of November 22, 1963Rebecca Onion — Slate.com — November 18, 2013
- 42BookFlawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973Robert Dallek — Oxford University Press — 1999
- 45Lewis L. Gould, Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady (UP of Kansas, 1999) p. 36.
- 47NewsLady Bird Johnson Gave America A Big BouquetAnn Gerhart — July 12, 2007
- 48The Highway Beautification Act: A Broken LawScenic America
- 49NewsWe should pay more attention to the candidates' spouses. They have more power than we realize.Betty Boyd Caroli — October 9, 2015
- 50JournalLady Bird SpecialMeredith Hindley — May–June 2013
- 52Whistlestop CampaignLyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas
- 53NewsWife Holds Bible as President Takes OathRobert Young — Chicago Tribune — January 21, 1965
- 54NewsLady Bird Dedicates Peoria's CourthouseChicago Tribune — September 23, 1965
- 55NewsLady Bird Attends Dam RightsLouise Hutchinson — Chicago Tribune — September 23, 1966
- 56NewsExpo 67 'Great': Mrs. JohnsonChicago Tribune — August 21, 1967
- 57NewsLady Bird Set for Midwest TourLouise Hutchinson — Chicago Tribune — September 18, 1967
- 58NewsMrs. Johnson Tours, Urges Life on FarmLouise Hutchinson — Chicago Tribune — September 20, 1967
- 59The black actress who made Lady Bird Johnson cry: The truth hurtsStephanie Buck — March 13, 2017
- 60NewsEartha KittAmorosi, A. D. — February 27, 1997
- 61NewsEartha Kitt versus the LBJsFrank James — December 26, 2008
- 62NewsEartha Kitt, a Seducer of Audiences, Dies at 81Rob Hoerburger — December 25, 2008
- 63NewsClaudia Taylor 'Lady Bird' Johnson: 'A front row seat to history'William H. Inman
- 64NewsDozens of agents to join in mourning Lady BirdClaudia Feldman — July 13, 2007
- 65Eleanor Roosevelt Retains Top Spot as America's Best First Lady Michelle Obama Enters Study as 5th, Hillary Clinton Drops to 6th Clinton Seen First Lady Most as Presidential Material; Laura Bush, Pat Nixon, Mamie Eisenhower, Bess Truman Could Have Done More in Office Eleanor & FDR Top Power Couple; Mary Drags Lincolns Down in the RatingsSiena Research Institute — February 15, 2014
- 66Copy of FirstLadies_Full Rankings_working_dl_2.xlsSiena Research Institute — 2020
- 682014 Power Couple ScoreSiena Research Institute/C-SPAN Study of the First Ladies of the United States
- 70News'She really invented the job': Lady Bird Johnson and the rise of the modern first ladyKelly Moffitt — St. Louis Public Radio — November 9, 2015
- 72NewsLady Bird Johnson: Winding Downpbs.org
- 73NewsClaire Underwood Could Learn a Lot From Lady Bird JohnsonWendy Smith — The Daily Beast — December 23, 2015
- 74NewsJimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924–1974E. Stanly Jr. Godbold — Oxford University Press — 2010
- 75NewsA former first lady leaves us her legacyAmanda DeBard — July 12, 2007
- 77NewsFord Regrets Misunderstanding About His Wife's CommentsAugust 26, 1975
- 78NewsLady Bird Johnson Gets Carter Apology For Comment On HusbandToledo Blade — September 23, 1976
- 81NewsDartmouth College officials say former President Gerald Ford and ...UPI — June 25, 1981
- 82NewsDartmouth Remembers Nelson Rockefeller ('30)September 25, 1983
- 85BookBeyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building HopeJimmy Carter — Simon & Schuster — 2008
- 86NewsLady Bird Johnson accepts gift for Wildflower CenterUPI — September 29, 1991
- 87NewsFormer First Lady Visited VineyardJuly 13, 2007
- 88NewsLady Bird Johnson 'Proud'August 3, 1984
- 89Remarks at the 25th Anniversary Celebration of President Lyndon B. Johnson's InaugurationGeorge H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — April 6, 1990
- 90THE 2000 ELECTION: THE FORMER PRESIDENTS; Guess What's Table Talk at the White House Dinner?Marc Lacey — New York Times — November 10, 2000
- 91NewsLady Bird Johnson, Suffering From Fatigue, Is in HospitalFebruary 8, 1986
- 92NewsRecalling life in the mansionFebruary 2006
- 96Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, July 13, 2007, p. 29
- 97Lady Bird Johnson Funeral – Luci Baines Johnson Eulogy PT 2Luci Baines Johnson — July 16, 2007
- 99NewsLady Bird Johnson laid to rest in TexasKelley Shannon — July 15, 2009
- 100NewsCeremonial Guardsmen lay Lady Bird Johnson to restStaff Sgt. Madelyn Waychoff — July 19, 2007
- 101NewsNixon Names Grove in Lady Bird's HonorRobert Young — Chicago Tribune — August 28, 2017
- 102NewsLady Bird Johnson dies at 94Janet Wilson — July 12, 2007
- 103Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of AchievementAmerican Academy of Achievement
- 104Austin renaming Town Lake for Lady BirdAmy Raskin — July 27, 2007
- 105The Legacy of Lady Bird JohnsonApril 13, 2023
- 106NewsChronicleNadine Brozan — June 10, 1995
- 107NewsSTATE CONVENTION: Texas Dems ready to put differences asideJohn Moritz et al. — June 6, 2008
- 108NewsCOMMENTARY: Beto events even draw 'Republican kind of people'; will that help other D's?Bud Kennedy — June 23, 2018
- 109Residence Hall Construction Moves AheadSt. Edward's University — May 21, 2008
- 110Environmentalist Lady Bird Johnson to be Featured on Forever StampRobert Bolen — USPS.com — October 22, 2012
- 111Lady Bird Johnson, Rachel Carson and Women Conservationists Honored at the National Audubon Society LuncheonRegina Weinreich — August 1, 2013
- 112BookLady Bird Johnson: An Oral HistoryMichael L. Gillette — Oxford University Press — 2012
- 113JournalFirst Lady as Catalyst: Lady Bird Johnson and Highway Beautification in the 1960sLewis L. Gould — June 1, 1986
- 114BookLady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First LadyLewis L. Gould — University Press of Kansas — 1999
- 115BookA Biography of Lady Bird Johnson: Legacy of BeautyRose Houk — Western National Parks Association — 2006
- 116Journal"... To Leave This Splendor for Our Grandchildren": Lady Bird Johnson, Environmentalist ExtraordinaireRita G. Koman — 2001
- 117BookLady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. JohnsonJan Jarboe Russell — Taylor Trade Publishing — 2004
- 118BookLady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain SightJulia Sweig — Random House — 2021