Celebrating Women's History

Laura Welch Bush

Also known as: Laura Bush, Laura W. Bush

Birth: 1946 in Texas, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: literacy activist, librarian, teacher
Source: Biography Resource Center Online. Gale Group, 2000.
Updated: 09/25/2008

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

When Laura W. Bush married in 1977, it was only after extracting a pledge from her fiancé that she would never be asked to make a political speech on his behalf. She acquiesced just a year later, and when her spouse, George W. Bush, later became the Republican Party front-runner in the 2000 American presidential campaign, the reserved onetime librarian and elementary school teacher delivered the first major speech at the GOP's National Convention in Philadelphia.

An Only Child

Bush was born in Midland, Texas, in the years following World War II. An only child, she was the daughter of a home-builder father and a mother who served as bookkeeper for the business. Throughout her childhood, Bush's parents attempted to have a second child, but the pregnancies ended in premature births; in some cases the siblings survived a few days. The unfortunate family situation, Bush has said, seemed to instill in her the shy demeanor and eagerness to please. "I felt very obligated to my parents," she told Frank Bruni in the New York Times. "I didn't want to upset them in any way."

Bush and her future husband both grew up in Midland, and even spent seventh grade at the same junior high school. But a calamity marred Bush's idyllic teen years: at the age of 17, she ran a stop sign in her car and collided with another; one of the other car's occupants, a boy who was a friend of hers, was killed. No charges were filed against her, but the tragedy would make an indelible impression on Bush. "It was a terrible, terrible thing," she told Bruni. For college, Bush chose Southern Methodist University, from which she earned her education degree in 1968. During her college years, she developed an interest in the burgeoning women's liberation movement. She began to think that perhaps her parents had shunted her into a traditionally "female" occupation of teaching, and that perhaps she could have met a greater academic challenge. "And Daddy almost immediately pulled out his wallet and said, 'I'll send you to law school,'" Bush recalled in the interview with Bruni. "He would have loved to. I had to admit, when he did that, that I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a teacher."

Married Scion of Prominent Republican Family

Bush, always an avid reader, taught school for a few years before deciding to earn a master's degree in library science from the University of Texas at Austin. She settled in that city after her 1973 graduation, and became a librarian for the local public school system. On a visit back to Midland, she was introduced by mutual friends to George Walker Bush, son of a prominent Texas oil-drilling entrepreneur who retained connections to the East Coast political world. His father, George Bush, had served as the U.S. ambassador to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At the time, the younger Bush had his own oil business as well. They played miniature golf on their first date, and were married just three months later, in November of 1977. She agreed to the union only with the stipulation that she would never be asked to make a speech for a political campaign; at the time, her fiancé's father was planning to make a bid for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination.

Bush quit working when she married, but took college literature courses. Initially, she had trouble conceiving a child, and she and her husband were considering adoption when she became pregnant with twins. It was a difficult pregnancy, and doctors informed them that one of her twins would probably not survive. Both did, however, and were named Barbara and Jenna in honor of their grandmothers. In time, her husband decided to enter politics, and Bush became the wife of the Texas governor in 1995. The new role forced her to become a more public person, despite her shyness, and over the next few years she developed a greater degree of confidence in her abilities as a speechmaker. As the state's First Lady, she kicked off the Texas Book Festival, which raised nearly a million dollars for the state's public libraries, and took up literacy and breast cancer awareness as her causes. She also successfully pressed for and helped write legislation to create reading-readiness programs for preschoolers in the state.

Election 2000

In contrast to her husband, known for his exuberance and energy, Bush remained quiet and reserved. "I think I temper that personality," Bush told the New York Times's Bruni, "but I also think that he makes life much more exciting for me." Those close to her note that Bush has her own sly sense of humor, and she is credited with convincing her husband to give up drinking, which he did in the mid-1980s after she expressed concern that his habits were becoming harmful to his health and their family life. When her husband decided to make a bid for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, as she told another New York Times reporter, Richard L. Berke, their teenage daughters were unenthusiastic. "They didn't want him to run, because they wanted to be perfectly private teenagers like every teenager," Bush said. She may have also yearned for a more private life, given the media attention focused on the Clinton marriage throughout the 1990s, but as she told Bruni in the New York Times, "I would never say to George, for something that he really wanted to do, that he couldn't do that."

While campaigning for her husband, Bush has managed to make a favorable impression, though saying little. In interviews, she declines to comment on political matters, preferring instead to focus on her husband and family. As a former teacher and librarian, she is also an eloquent spokesperson for education topics, one of the hot-button issues of the 2000 presidential campaign. In her speech at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia on July 31, she reiterated her husband's pledge to improve early childhood development programs and increased funding for teacher training. She also talked about the home they were building in Texas, a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly dwelling in which they plan to host the next generation of Bush children. "One day, God willing, George will be a fabulous grandfather. In the meantime, he'll make a great president" she said in conclusion.

George W. Bush did win the 2000 election, making him the 43rd President of the United States and Laura Bush the First Lady. Her commitment to education and reading was evident from the start. As First Lady, Bush's first main agenda was to recruit many new teachers, especially those who were retired from the military. Bush felt that those who had served the nation through the military were very capable and qualified for teaching positions because of their knowledge in the sciences and mathematics. In 2001, she hosted a first ever event, the National Book Festival, where there were well-known authors signing books, readings, music, and performances. Bush along with the Library of Congress hoped that the festival would "encourage a nationwide celebration of books and the joy of reading" as quoted from the School Library Journal. Also in 2001, Bush founded the Laura Bush Foundation so that school libraries throughout the United States would have enough funding for up-to-date books. Due to the cut back in budgets many schools had faced, the primary funding went for technology and many books contained information that was decades behind. As quoted from US Newswire, "One of the purposes of the Laura Bush Foundation is to help libraries find a balance between technology and contemporary books by providing needed funding for book purchases."

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Bush became more of a predominant figure. She was seen as a comforter to a grieving nation, traveling with the President to visit wounded troops and victims of 9/11. She even held a radio address for her husband and spoke about the unfair treatment of women by the Taliban. By the end of the President's first four years in office, Bush had gone from being in the background to being in the spotlight. She became an even greater asset to the President's campaign in the 2004 election. From appearing in advertisements to heading fund-raisers, Bush immersed herself in her husband's second run for the Presidency. Their twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, also stepped on to the campaign trail to support their father.

Following her husband's re-election in 2004, the First Lady continued her advocacy of women's rights and her support of education. In 2005, she called for greater voting rights for women in the Middle East, at a World Economic Forum gathering at Dead Sea, Jordan. In May of 2006, Bush and media executives announced a $500,000 grant for school libraries along the U.S. Gulf Coast that were devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

UPDATES

January 15, 2007: Bush attended a UNESCO conference on literacy to begin a three-day visit to Paris. Source: Associated Press, January 15, 2007.

September 9, 2007: Bush had surgery for pinched nerves in her neck, a procedure the White House said was successful. Source: New York Times, September 9, 2007.

October 25, 2007: Bush, during a visit to Amman, Jordan, said the Palestinian territories, Egypt, and Morocco were added to a breast cancer awareness partnership with the United States. Source: Associated Press, October 28, 2007.

September 1, 2008: Bush, speaking at the Republican National Convention, encouraged contributions for victims of Hurricane Gustav. Source: CNN.com, September 1, 2008.

FURTHER READINGS

Periodicals

• Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, July 18, 2004.
• Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, November 7, 2000; February 26, 2001; March 20, 2004.
• New York Times, August 3, 1999; July 31, 2000; August 1, 2000.
• School Library Journal, August, 2001.
• Texas Monthly, November, 1996.
• US Newswire, July 30, 2001.

Online

• CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/21/laura.bush.reut/index.html, May 21, 2005; http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/04/first.lady.libraries.ap/index.html, May 4, 2006.

SOURCE CITATION

"Laura Welch Bush." Biography Resource Center Online. Gale Group, 2000.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC