18 Scandals That Rocked America’s First Ladies

Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford Hayes, caused a minor scandal in Washington with her support of the Temperance Movement, which opposed excessive drinking and its accompanying social ills. Although a staunch opponent of alcohol, per the White House Historical Association, Lucy tolerated serving it during Russian Grand Duke Alexei’s visit to America in 1877. But after that, Rutherford (not Lucy) banned alcohol from all White House functions, likely to court Temperance voters.

Lucy supported the ban, writing that it protected her own sons from the “first taste of what might prove their ruin” and provided a positive example for other mothers to follow. Although she did not institute the ban, Temperance organizations gave her all the credit anyway, with Temperance leader Frances Willard praising her as a woman whose example would make temperance “a fashion.”

The praise was a double-edged sword. Opponents of the ban accused her of fighting a “temperance crusade,” while White House staff complained that “she compelled [them] to astonish their stomachs with cold water for the first time in their lives.” Sec. of State William Evarts, quoted in the book “Presidential Anecdotes” complained that at White House functions, “water flowed like champagne.”

Some staffers, however, tried skirting the ban by spiking drinks and fruit to create what one reporter called “Life-Saving stations.” One staffer even one-upped Lucy by having her serve cake, which, unbeknownst to her, he had spiked with rum. Her killjoy reputation cemented, she became derisively known as “Lemonade Lucy.”