From Our Presidents: Lunch Break: Menu from Lady Bird Johnson’s Whistle Stop Train Campaign
My favorite part of this is how the menu misspells that east Texas river to align with the way Lyndon always mispronounced it.
Lady Bird’s 1964 whistle-stop tour:
“She often used southern cuisine to win people’s affection, serving state specialties and distributing recipes for particular southern dishes. Her appeal to the southern appetite worked to identify her with her southern roots. In Wilson, North Carolina, a local politician introduced Lady Bird by saying she was “as much a part of the South as tobacco, peanuts, and red-eye gravy.”
How brave was that Lady Bird – such a great strength of will! And what a fine moral compass she had. She is completely underrated and undervalued in every area except wildflowers. That was no small thing but it’s the part of her legacy that is most well know by today’s generation of nudniks.
“The nation was still stunned from the assassination when the Johnson’s finally moved into the White House. Lady Bird was aware that she could not compete with the glamour of Jacqueline Kennedy and did not attempt it. Instead, she sought causes to which she could give her name and her energies. She made headlines during the 1964 campaign when she became the first First Lady to go on a campaign trip for her husband by herself. She styled the tour train “The Lady Bird Special,” and she made 47 stops and covered over 1600 miles. Three days later, when the tour ended in New Orleans, Lyndon joyfully met her at the train station. The “Secret Weapon” had all but defused much of the anger felt by Southerners toward Lyndon’s Great Society legislation.
And now it’s entirely appropriate that we gaze once again upon the Johnson White House China, which was deigned in part by Lady Bird herself.
