The only working first lady of the United States in history: Jill Biden goes to work full-time

Jill Biden returns to teaching. And will become the first working first lady in the history of the United States. Npr.

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After months of teaching writing and English to community college students through a screen computer, the first lady resumes her studies not online, but in person. On September 7, she already taught in the auditorium at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has been working since 2009.

She is the first working first lady of the White House.

"There are some things you just can't replace, and I can't wait to get back into the classroom," she recently told Good Housekeeping magazine.

The First Lady has been very keen to see her students in person after more than a year of virtual education fueled by the pandemic that continues to challenge her husband Joe Biden's administration.

A working first lady is "a big deal," said Tammy Vigil, a communications professor at Boston University who has written a book about first ladies Michelle Obama and Melania Trump.

The country's first ladies did not work outside the home, especially when the White House was their home. They supported their husbands, raised children and played the role of mistress of the house.

Some first ladies acted as special ambassadors for their husbands. Eleanor Roosevelt was particularly active, traveling the United States and reporting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose activities were limited to polio. She advocated for the poor, minorities and other disadvantaged people and began writing a nationwide newspaper column from the White House.

Later first ladies, such as Laura Bush, who was an elementary school teacher and librarian, stopped working outside the home after their children were born and did not work when their husbands were acting presidents. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama were working mothers before their husbands were elected heads of state, but once in the White House they gave up their careers.

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Jill Biden, 70, is blazing a new path for herself and her successors.

The First Lady said she always wanted to be a career woman. She taught at Virginia Community College for eight years while her husband was vice president, and was not about to let the extra responsibility of the first lady lead her to abandon a career with which she so closely identifies.

“Teaching is not just what I do. This is who I am,” she says.

In 2019, women accounted for nearly half, or 47%, of the U.S. workforce, according to Catalyst, a women's advocacy group in the workplace.

The leaders of the country's largest teacher unions are pleased that one of them can now influence the administration's education policy and raise the profile of a profession that many have long disregarded.

“She sees the whole workflow up close in person, and now, as the first lady, she not only expresses her point of view, but she also has the opportunity to create a platform and have an impact,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association.

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President Joe Biden told teachers attending the NEA's annual meeting that he learned about what they were going through watching his wife as she learned to teach online.

“It gave me first-hand insight into the process and the situation—I saw it all myself,” he said at the July meeting. “She was teaching—she was working four or five hours a day, preparing for classes, making lesson plans...differently.”

In 1976, a year after she met and began dating the then Senator Biden, Jill began teaching English at a Roman Catholic High School in Wilmington, Delaware. She later taught at a mental hospital and at Delaware Technical College.

Over the years, she has earned two master's degrees and a doctorate in educational leadership.

After Joe Biden became vice president in 2009, she joined the faculty at Northern Virginia Community College. Jill continued to teach there after her husband left office and throughout his 2020 presidential campaign, including after the outbreak of the pandemic.

Her virtual teaching continued as first lady from her office in the east wing of the White House or from hotel rooms as she traveled to promote administration policies. She checks work on flights.

“It breaks the norm of what first ladies do,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

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Jill Biden is trying to keep her political affiliation outside the classroom doors and said many of her former students in Virginia had no idea she was married to the vice president. She didn't talk about it either. Secret Service agents accompanied her for security, but she ordered them to dress casually and carry backpacks with them to try to blend in with the campus environment.

First ladies often appear in public—with or without the president—to promote their own or the president's causes, receiving national and local media coverage. Vogue magazine featured the first lady on the cover of its August issue.

Jill Biden will teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and will travel on the days when she is not working. Her employer, Virginia, requires everyone to wear protective masks indoors on the campuses of Northern Virginia Community College, regardless of vaccination status. The first lady is fully vaccinated.

The school offers fall classes in a variety of formats, including fully remote, on-campus, and hybrid.

Anne M. Kress, president of Northern Virginia Community College, said she looks forward to welcoming students and faculty, including Jill Biden, for the fall semester and expressed gratitude for their commitment to “improving in learning and equality of opportunity ”.

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