Basic Information
Name: Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson
Nickname: Lady Bird
Born: December 22nd, 1912
Died: July 11th, 2007
Nationality: American
Hometown: Karnack, Texas
WORK & EDUCATION
Occupation: First Lady
Education: University of Texas, Bachelor's degrees in history and journalism
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Parents: Thomas Jefferson Taylor, Minnie Pattillo Taylor
Siblings: Thomas Jefferson Taylor Jr., Antonio "Tony" J. Taylor
Spouse: Lyndon B. Johnson
Children: Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin
Friends: Nature Lovers
Foes: Come on, who didn't like Lady Bird
Analysis
Baby Claudia Alta Taylor was as "purty as a ladybird". At least her nurse, Alice Tittle, thought so, and the nickname stuck. She would be Lady Bird for the rest of her life.
Lady Bird Johnson was the ultimate steel magnolia: feminine and refined with the backbone to stand up to just about anything. Biographer Betty Boyd Caroli called her a "'fixer' of the liaisons [LBJ] broke and mediator in the messes he made" (source, Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President, p. 86-87). She read his moods, picked him up when he was down, encouraged him, supported him. In nearly 40 years of marriage, almost everything she did was for his benefit.
She was also smart—she'd earned two degrees from the University of Texas—and a good businesswoman. Her 1942 investment in an Austin, Texas, radio station turned into a multi-million dollar communications enterprise. LBJ called her the brains and money of the family, and he willingly acknowledged that his career wouldn't have amounted to much if it hadn't been for Lady Bird.
Lady Bird made history in other ways, too. She was the first first lady to campaign for her husband on her own. When LBJ's support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it dangerous for him to campaign in the South, Lady Bird traveled some 1,600 miles from Virginia to New Orleans on a train dubbed the Lady Bird Special.
The entire trip was organized by women, including the first lady and the wives of sympathetic southern governors and congressmen. Its impact on the election results may have been negligible, but it was a portrait of courage and grace that endeared Lady Bird to the nation.
Apart from LBJ's success, Lady Bird's other great passion was the environment. She set a new bar for the involvement of the first lady in policy-making. She attended legislative strategy sessions; not even Eleanor Roosevelt had done that. And she personally asked congressmen for their support of her ideas.
The parts of the Great Society speech that encourage efforts to preserve the natural landscape had Lady Bird's fingerprints all over it. She put it front and center in her husband's consciousness (source). She coordinated a massive beautification effort in the nation's capitol and campaigned to replace billboards with flowers on the nations highways.
Lady Bird had an important guy on her side in her efforts to spruce up the nation. The usually unsentimental LBJ told his staffers, "You know I love that woman and she wants that Highway Beautification Act, and by God, we're going to get it for her" (source).
She wasn't just about planting pretty flowers, though. In a tumultuous time for the nation, Lady Bird believed that, "A little beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony which will lessen tensions" (source).
After her husband's death in 1973, she lived another 34 years, founding the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982 and supporting the LBJ Presidential Library.
If you're ever in northern California, check out the Lady Bird Johnson Grove in Redwood National Park.
It will definitely lessen your tensions.