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Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
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Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Raised in a formerly prominent Southern aristocratic family, Edith Bolling moved to Washington, DC and married jeweler Norman Galt in 1896. A few years after her husband’s unexpected death, Edith Galt caught the attention of widower President Woodrow Wilson, who was grieving the loss of his first wife, Ellen. The two fell in love and became inseparable, marrying in 1915. As First Lady, Edith Wilson frequently traveled with her husband, and even ran the affairs of the Executive Branch after Woodrow Wilson fell ill in 1919. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| 1872 | Edith Bolling is born in Wytheville, Virginia. |
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| 1896 | Edith Bolling marries Norman Galt. |
| 1908 | Norman Galt dies, leaving Edith Bolling Galt to manage his jewelry store. |
| 1915 | Woodrow Wilson and Edith Bolling Galt announce their engagement in October and are married in December. |
| 1918 | Edith Wilson travels with her husband throughout Europe. |
| 1919 | Woodrow Wilson has a stroke and Edith Wilson de facto controls the executive branch during his illness. |
