Dan Snow's History Hit - America's Secret President

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

In October 1919 President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke leaving him paralyzed and partially blind. In the face of this crisis of leadership the First Lady, Edith Wilson stepped in to conceal the extent of his illness. Edith acted as his gatekeeper deciding whom Woodrow Wilson saw, what material he read and even taking decisions on his behalf and firing people. Her influence was so great that some people have described her as America’s secret first female President.To help tell Edith's story and explore why she did what she did Dan is joined by Gonzalo Cordova and Travis Helwig. Gonzalo and Travis are the writers of the fantastic new narrative podcast Edith! from Crooked Media and QCODE. They discuss how they came to write the show, having to blur the lines between fact and fiction, the many intrigues that surrounded Edith Wilson and whether she really was the first female President. 

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. What a story I've got for you today. After Woodrow Wilson returned from the Paris Peace Conference, the Versailles Treaty if you like, of 1919, he began to campaign to get Senate approval for that treaty and for the League of Nations Covenant. However, in October 1919, he suffered a very serious stroke, left him bedridden and partially paralysed. And that's when one of the most remarkable First Ladies in history released Sips the Four. Edith Wilson, his wife, hid the extent of the President's illness. She lied to the American public and the world's public about how disabled President Wilson was. She took over a number of tasks that the President would have been expected

to perform for the rest of his term, about a year and a bit long. She decided what communications got through to the president. She acted as his gatekeeper and she acted as the sole link of communication between the president and his cabinet. They'd send her memos and correspondence and anything they needed doing. She even pushed for the removal of the Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, and she decoded and encoded encrypted messages for the president. She has been described as the first female president of the USA. Other historians have a more sober outlook and said that her stewardship did not amount to some kind of shadow presidency but she's been a fascinating figure her role debated ever since now she is

the star of a new podcast series a drama series starring britain's rosamund pike as edith wilson but written by gonzalo cordova and emmy award-winning travis hellwig many of you will recognize travis's name from his work at Crooked Media with John Lovett and the Pod Save America gang. I got a chance to talk to two guys about this history, about Edith, why on earth they embarked on this journey, and why they were so drawn to this particular episode in American political life. I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you wish to listen to other episodes of this podcast without the ads, no ads at all, you just get a History Hit TV, historyhit.tv. And then you sign up, get 30 days free, get a little subscription, you're going to love it. And as importantly

as the ad-free podcast is the fact we've got documentaries on there. It's like a Netflix for history. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of history documentaries for real history fans. The world's best history channel. No aliens, nothing. It's all proper history. Go and check it out. In the meantime, though, here is the brilliant Gonzalo Cordova and Travis Helwig. Enjoy. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to the podcast. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. You guys had the whole of world and US history podcast. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. You guys have the whole of world

and US history laid out before you. Why in the name of Henry Tudor's codpiece did you choose this episode to make a brilliant series about? It's a story that hasn't been told before. I mean, at least on this scale. And when Gonzalo and I learned about it a couple of years ago, it was sort of like my eyes were open to it. And I was sort of like, how did this happen. And when Gonzalo and I learned about it a couple years ago, it was sort of like my eyes were open to it. And I was sort of like, how did this happen? And no one talks about it. And it felt like a story that a lot of people might take and turn into a drama or some sort of melodrama. And to us, it was a very funny story. And we did our best to make this a comedy about a coup. Yeah, it's a very interesting story, too, because it just

couldn't happen now. And it's such a specific story. And it hits the time period. So right, like, it's a perfect storm kind of story where it couldn't happen now because of media, people would know that the president was incapacitated, and somebody else was doing it, obviously. And it just felt like it said a lot about stuff that people are talking about now, but in a way that was a lot more complex and weird and strange. And it has farcical elements in the real history. So it just felt like so natural for comedy. Pre-nuclear football, things were a little bit looser when it comes to the old US presidency, right? Gonzalo, you're the historian here, man. Am I picking up? Travis,

you kind of brought this as attention. Are you the history fan? I'm definitely the dumber of the two. In that case, you're probably the historian. I would say that both of us have a comedy background, and I'll say neither of us are historians. Both of us were just doing our best to read as many books as we could. We read Edith Wilson's memoir. We read the letters, you know, like their correspondence

between her and Woodrow Wilson and Trudy, Altruid Grayson, her best friend, who's a character in the series. So we did our best to do our research. But at the end of the day, we kind of just, if there was one line in a history book that inspired an entire episode, we'd go for it and kind of fill in the blanks a little bit, a lot. You know what? That's why historians who write nonfiction, they're so jealous of you guys, because you

get to do that. You are acting out the fantasies, the fever dreams of historians all over the world. I'm glad that we got to do what they've always wanted to do and- Make stuff up. Yeah. Some of them have done that. Yeah. Oh yeah, some have done that. Okay, let's get the history sorted here. We've got an audience listening in different parts of the world who might not be as familiar as some. We've got Woodrow Wilson, who people will know was the U.S. president, took the U.S. into the First World War, went to Versailles, helped hammer out the post-war settlement. So tell me about his wife, Edith. Right, so I guess since I'm the historian.

That's right, man. I'm looking at you. So the First Lady, Edith Wilson, was the second wife to President Woodrow Wilson. And in the fall of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke and he was incapacitated. It's unclear for how long he might have been in a coma when he came out, what exactly the conditions were when he came out. But it's very, very clear that he was incapacitated for a certain amount of time. were when he came out, but it's very, very clear that he was incapacitated for a certain amount of time. Edith Wilson took over, would relay information, would basically say, if you have something to tell the president, I will tell him. And then it's pretty clear he was in a coma for at least a little bit of it. So she would just come back and say, President Woodrow Wilson said this. And when he came out of it as well, it's pretty clear some historians are now starting

to piece together that he wasn't as capable as he was before suffering the stroke. And so what we do in the series is we basically extend that period where she was essentially president. She was the executive in chief to the entirety of the rest of his presidency, which there is some evidence to support that she was active during that time although there's also a lot of evidence that he was messing things up as a result of not being fully capable and it's in a way a sad story and i think we try to address that in the series as well there's definitely a little bit of the movie the birdcage and trying to take some of that running between rooms that farce element because reading it there's a lot of like her running between rooms and telling people that i have conveyed this information it's like no you didn't there's a lot of like her running between rooms and telling people that I have conveyed this information. It's like, no, you didn't. There's no way you could have.

And while she was president, she vetoed laws as him. There's different things where her handwriting, she had famously chicken scratch and suddenly Woodrow Wilson's handwriting changed dramatically after his stroke. And so there's a lot of people who say that it's because she was writing memos as him. So there's a lot of conflicting evidence. We know for a fact that she was in charge for at least a period of time. We don't know how long or exactly what she did. All we know is that Woodrow's day-to-day changed dramatically after his coma. Part of the reason why it seemed like such a good comedy character is because she really obscures the truth in her memoirs and really says that she just basically was a steward for like a few days while he recovered and just kept people away, but she didn't do anything. And it just felt like such a comedy premise of this person having this power, but not being

allowed to admit it. Also the comedy of storytelling, it taps into that very long tradition of the bizarre nature in which women were oppressed and denied access to power and education through much of recorded history. And yet you see, whether it's Augustus's wife, Livia, or you see it actually in the Dick Cheney film, don't you? His wife is like actually secretly campaigning on his behalf. You've got Edith here. There's a very rich strain, isn't there, of the woman behind the man helping, advising, and suggesting, but in some cases, literally doing. Yeah, I think what was interesting to us about Edith, too, is that Woodrow really did lean on her before even his stroke. And she was, in a lot of ways, his final counsel. So when he would try to make up his mind about something, he would go to Edith and see how she felt. And everyone in the White House sort of knew that that's what her role was. So when he suddenly became incapacitated, this person who we knew and we now know was an important part of the White House really saw everything in front of her fall away, not just her husband, but her power as well. And we thought that was a really interesting

dynamic for a female character in the early 20th century. This is the bit, though, when you make stuff up. I mean, were there times when like, can we say that? Or was this going a bit far? Like, what's the naughtiest things you guys did with history? The naughtiest? You know, I'd say that making the vice president a big, loud, drunk kind of a, we extrapolated some stuff. There's some elements of it that are somewhat true in that he did not want to be president. He seemed kind of scared. And we just came up with our own reasoning behind it. And not that we feel guilty about it, but we definitely were like, we're just making this character up in a sense because

he wasn't that exciting of a guy. There's a few other things. I think Edith has a best friend, Trudy, in real life, but all that we really had to go on were a few very friendly, cordial letters. But in the letters, Edith would call her my dearest child or use kind of infantilizing language, which maybe was just a product of the time. But we were like, we're just going to write her like she's a child because Edith in the letters keeps calling her a child. So we took a few swings like that. But I say, I think that was a pretty good choice because they were best friends, but 20 years apart. And Trudy's parents both died when she was very young. So it tracks for me that she would look to Edith as this mother figure,

and Edith would take advantage of that as she could. We have them say the F word a lot more than they probably would. All the asides feel pretty contemporary as well. I mean, I wasn't alive a hundred years ago, so I'm actually not sure, but it feels contemporary. It's kind of, it's colloquial. Also your handling of the Republican party,

because the Republicans have now spun off into this kind of anti-democratic, insane clique. Were you tempted to like just land loads of jabs there on the Republicans? How did you approach that? It's like science fiction reading about the past because it's not the Republican Party now and it's not the Democratic Party now. They have no connection.

It's really reading about the past. It seems like these parties had some people on the left and some people on the right back then. It really was just a contest to see who would win. So that's really the way we treated it. Maybe there's something about that that feels a little bit more timeless in that it's just these two things that are competing kind of for no reason. There's something interesting. They're trying to pass the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, and it ended up falling apart in Congress. And something that was interesting researching it that is not true at all today is that the Republicans and the Democrats both cross party lines a lot when they were voting. And nowadays, if you vote against your party, it is a scandal. And it just was the type of thing where it's where

you lived in America mattered more than what your party was. So like Woodrow Wilson, who was a Democrat, was an incredibly racist president, as was his wife. And I guess probably both sides were racist at that point. Yeah, but, you know but obviously the Democrats and the Republicans were the party of Lincoln. So there were a lot of race. I'd almost say that the Democrats were closer to, in some ways, the Republicans, at least on that issue. Now, I don't know if that's controversial to say, but we found ourselves when reading some of the policies, it's like, this feels closer to this insane party right now. So we kind of took jabs at that era of Democrat because the beliefs were what we found abhorrent.

This isn't a dance in its history. I'm talking about Edith Wilson, the shadow president. Or was she? More after this. What caused the anarchy? How did medieval migrants shape the language I'm speaking right now? Who won the Hundred Years' War? Could England's lost patron saint be buried under a tennis court in Suffolk?

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Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. You guys are part of the crooked media phenomenon. And I listen to all of your podcasts, and I've been lucky enough to interview a few of your other hosts and stuff. But when I heard you were doing long-form, scripted historical drama,

I felt that was a departure. That's pretty exciting. Where did it come from? I was the head writer of Crooked Media for a little over three years, and I worked closest to John Lovett on his show because I have a comedy writing background. And he, for those of you who don't know, was one of Obama's speechwriters. He was Obama's chief joke writer whenever he needed jokes. And so I became Obama's chief joke writer's joke writer.

Now, hang on, Trevor. Did you write the jokes about Trump that made him decide to run? No, but John Lovett did. And so if you're upset about Donald Trump being president, you can directly blame the executive producer of our show, John Lovett. That night, I think he looks back on and is like, man, some things are not worth saying. That's why he hired you. That's why he brought you on. Yeah, you got to blame someone else. So I was working with John on his show and my background was in script writing before that. But when Trump won, I wanted to help try to get rid of Trump. But I really wanted to tell this story. And I was talking to Gonzalo about it. And we said,

why not a podcast? And it felt like this really interesting, different sort of podcast that I hadn't necessarily heard before. And the people at Crooked and QCode were nice enough to go, sure, try it. We're very lucky that they were so on board and let us literally do whatever we wanted. It was quite nice. Yeah. One of the things that really connects it to the Crooked podcast world is that Edith is narrating her own story and it feels like she's the host in a way. And we really wanted to lean into how much power she kind of has over the host in a way. And we really wanted to lean into how much power she kind of has over the audience in that way. So we were very inspired by listening to

the Crooked podcast with more traditional, much like this show, people talking and asking questions and stuff. When I'm talking to creatives like you guys, it's like, what does history offer you? Why not just make up like a contemporary, like do a veep, right? What is it about the past, about the bare bones of a true story that is interesting for you guys to get into? The two of us wrote it. We both come from TV writing spaces where you're in writer's rooms with a lot of more people. And working on something with historical backdrop felt like having a full writer's room in a way. Because if we were stuck on a story, we would really go back to the books and be like, what fix can we find here? And it felt like a conversation with a more stiff,

dramatic writer. But it was like, let's take this and then make fun of this idea. In a way, it was more freeing, especially because we have the freedom to veer whenever we wanted. It just was like a resource for ideas rather than a completely blank slate. In a way, it did feel, if we had made this up from scratch, I don't know if we would have made it as specific and as odd as it was, because there's always a kernel of truth in most of the choices we made. And I know it's a cliche, but oftentimes it feels like history is stranger than fiction in a lot of ways. And we would have never come up with some of these ideas because they would seem too farcical in a lot of ways. If you were to tell me that there would be an attempted coup earlier this year where a man in a Viking hat would be standing at the lectern, I'd be like, you're a crazy person. Yet now in history, we're going to see the QAnon shaman in our history

books forever. And in the same way, it's Edith had these moments where members of the U.S. Senate were coming to the White House and she was literally hiding the president trying to convince them that he was too busy. Or, you know, the president did write a letter where he asked all of Congress to resign immediately, which is not something that any person would ever do in history. Or if you made it up, you'd be like, that president clearly is crazy. Everyone would impeach that man. But it happened. And we were able to take it and point at it and say, can you believe this happened? And we all just accept that this is reality. And I think that's really fun. Was she a good president? Obviously, historians disagree. Some have described as America's first female president. Was she a good asset? No. We obviously took some liberties and stuff. But I'd say that the historical

consensus seems to be that it was a huge mistake to do what she did. Some historians have kind of blamed the League of Nations falling apart on her doing this. If there was a lack of compromise during that time, we made her a little bit more competent just because it was more fun to have her go up against these people if you've sensed equal threat. But historians have found a lot of unopened letters where it's like, oh, she wasn't really reading most of this and making decisions. A lot of documents that nobody had gone through, which is not great presidential job there. But also, she probably was very, very, very limited and had her hands tied way more than a normal president would have. So it's a complicated answer. I think she really was just trying to keep the presidency in Woodrow Wilson's power. And that was her one objective. And if that was her goal, she did a great job. I just don't know if it's in these parameters. I think she was smart and cunning and certainly maybe nowadays could be a good president. But in those few months in which she was in charge, I don't think she had the right cards in her hand to be a good president.

I mean, also, guys, it's so unrealistic. No one would ever become president of the USA who lacked the application to go through the detailed business of government. I mean, like, what are you guys? Crazy. Listen, I'm a history guy. I'm telling you guys you're crazy. Sorry, you're right. We'll delete the podcast. But like, yeah, everyone who has that job surely has an insane grasp of detail. Have you heard from, speaking of people who made terrible presents, have you heard from Melania or Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama? Oh, yeah, we were talking to her before. No, no, we have not. I would love to know their thoughts. They haven't tweeted anything or anything. We're in a group text with Melania and Hillary and Michelle. It's great.

The idea of Melania listening to this on her morning jog is very funny to me, though. I hope that's true. I agree. Do you think she knows what a podcast is? I think it's too far removed from her culture. Yeah. So rich. So I don't know how extremely wealthy people get their news or their entertainment, some future device. Well, let's not forget Donald Trump did start a blog.

That is true. So that was very modern. That was very contemporary. Yeah, that's true. His social media network was a WordPress blog. Maybe we're underestimating. So what's next for you guys? Are you going to please do more history? We're both comedy writers.

We're going to keep writing funny stuff. And I'm not sure what we're both doing next. We're probably going to get a nice brunch next. Hang out. I'm going to go to Travis's pool. We're just friends. So I'm sure we'll work on something together in the future. But right now we're just taking a break because we were working pretty closely for over a year on this and there

was nothing going on this year that was stressful at all it was a pretty straightforward normal year absolutely but just a mental note never ever ask a Californian what they're doing next because brunches and people's pools that's that's not something us Brits like to hear because and my secret is that I was at university at the same time as Rosamund Pike, and she was obviously in a different set to me. But she sounds like she threw herself into this, right? It was an interesting work with her. Oh, incredible. and like really brought the character alive in a way that she made up from some of the flaws in our writing in a way that was quite nice for us. So she was wonderful and she loved the character and honestly working with her was a dream. She was fantastic. It wasn't really until we heard her perform the character that we knew who Edith was. And a lot of credit also goes to our director

Maureen Beruccia, who worked with all of the actors to really make these people feel like people. But the second we heard Rosamund, I think one of the first table reads, it was like, we both felt like we understood Edith. And she's just so dedicated. It just comes across the second she started talking. It's like, you've thought about who this is so deeply. She's incredible. Yeah, I can't say enough nice things about her. You should have hung out with her at university.

Do you know what? it wasn't through choice like if she had wanted to hang out i'd have been like yeah totally but she was just much cooler than i was yeah that's how we feel yeah oh it's always super embarrassing when people go why don't you at the same time rosamund pike i'm like yes she would um, people can binge, right? I think I've heard the last episode, right? So people can binge the whole series now. Yeah, all eight episodes or wherever you get your podcast, just look up the word Edith or Google Edith, Crooked Media Edith Podcast. But wherever you get your podcast, you can listen.

But also, guys, you guys are like super cool writers who've written for major league things on TV. Did you ever think that you'd be as excited about doing a podcast series? How recently would that have been extraordinary to you two that you'd have spent a year doing this podcast with serious actors and talent and it would have been global? I have so many friends who are comedy writers and actors and performers who say, I'm going to do a podcast and then it's just them watching a movie and talking about it. And it has so many views. And we did this the dumbest way possible. We basically researched for months and then took a year to write it. It honestly was just the fun of the story. It sounds insincere, but we just kind of wanted to do it. So we did it. And having worked at Crooked for as long as

I did and going on tour with them and seeing the response podcasts get from fans. I'd worked on TV shows, but I'd never seen the level of fandom that exists around podcasts. There's a connection that people make when you're like in their home or in your car or whatever. And there was something really exciting about telling a story where we can make that connection with a character who's maybe not being directly honest with the audience. And that felt really fun to have an unreliable podcast narrator. And it was something we hadn't heard before. And so it was exciting. And I don't know if people are considering doing it, I would recommend it if you could, I don't know, maybe we should get the union involved first and get some more money for it. But I love doing it truly. I didn't really hear the rest of the

answer. I got triggered by unreliable podcasting. I'm a little nervous now. Okay, guys, thank you very much indeed for making Edith and thanks for coming on the pod. Thanks so much, Dan. Yeah, thank you so much. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part

of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks, for listening to this episode of Dan's Notes History. As I say all the time, I love doing these podcasts. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them. If you fancied giving them a rating review, obviously the best rating review possible would be ideal.

It makes a big difference to us. I know it's a pain, but we'd really, really be grateful. And if you want to listen to the other podcasts in our ever-increasing stable, don't forget we've got Susanna Lipscomb with Not Just the Tudors. That's flying high in the charts. We've got our medieval podcast, Gone Medieval, the brilliant Matt Lewis and Kat Jarman. We've got The Ancients with our very own Tristan Hughes. And we've got Warfare as well, dealing with all things military. Please go and check those out

wherever you get your pods.