James and Lucretia Garfield

The journalist Mary C. Ames once described Lucretia Randolph Garfield (1832–1918) as having a “philosophic mind” that made her not only her husband’s equal “but in more than one respect his superior.” Garfield loved literature and the classical world. She was fluent in French, German, Latin, and ancient Greek and spent much of her time in Washington, D.C., reading books that she borrowed from the Library of Congress.

On July 2, 1881, only a few months into his presidency, James Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a failed lawyer who had been denied a political appointment. The first lady was still recovering from a bout with malaria but rose from her sickbed to nurse her husband. President Garfield died that September, and she dedicated the rest of her life to the historical preservation of his books and papers.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of George and Sue Whiteley