
As you may recall from your high school history class, Presidents were not always subject to term limits. Eleanor’s husband Franklin Roosevelt was elected as Commander-in-Chief four times during the 1930s and 1940s, which means Eleanor had to outfit herself for more inaugural balls than any other woman in American history. “To anyone fonder of clothes, her unprecedented chore might be a welcome one,” LIFE Magazine wrote upon the third inauguration in 1941. “But Mrs. Roosevelt cares scarcely more for sartorial nuances than Queen Mother Mary of England.” For her first ball, Mrs. FDR wore a slate blue gown with detachable sleeves—an outfit Graddy calls “a very slinky sort of film star dress.”