Who Will Be the Next First Spouse?

The Presidential race to the White House is heating up and we are left to wonder who will occupy the next First Spouse seat in 2012?

Better still, when will her Gold Coin release by the US Mint be made public?

The United States Mint has already determined who will be the First Spouse representatives on the Gold Coin releases for 2012. They are:

Alice Paul (1881-1885), Frances Cleveland (1885-1889), Caroline Harrison (1889-1893) and Frances Cleveland (1893-1897).

What do we know about these women who will grace the 2012 First Spouse coins?

Both of Frances Cleveland's two grandmothers were alive at the time she became First Lady, after marrying President Cleveland on June 2, 1886.

Caroline Harrison was responsible for having electricity installed in the White House. She would later succumb to tuberculosis and would die at age 60 in the White House on October 25, 1892.

Frances Cleveland would return to the office with her husband, Grover, in 1893. Grover was almost three decades older than his wife.

That leaves us with one First Spouse Coin for Alice Paul. Who is this woman that was never really a First Spouse and how did she make the cut?

Chester Alan Arthur's wife, Nell, died of pneumonia in January of 1880 while he was serving as Vice-President and prior to his assuming the duties of the President following James Garfield's assassination.

The architects of the First Spouse coin series had a bit of dilemma when it came to bachelors or widowers who held the office of the President. Instead of featuring the deceased spouse of the widowers who never became the First Lady and to accommodate for the bachelor-Presidents, they chose instead to feature prominent women figures of the era.

Enter: Alice Paul who was a feminist, suffragist and political strategist who dedicated her life to the cause of securing equal rights for women.

When we look to the 2012 First Spouse coins from the US Mint, Alice Paul will be the only one thus far who really wasn't a First Spouse at all.

Sources:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/

http://www.firstladies.org/FacinatingFacts.aspx

http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/firstSpouse/?action=schedule