Biography

Claudia Alta Taylor was born December 22, 1912, to parents Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Minnie Pattillo Taylor. She was born in the town of Karnac, in eastern Texas. Her mother died when Claudia was just five years old. She and her two brothers were cared for by their father and their Aunt Effie.


Claudia was given the nickname of "Lady Bird" as a young child by a nursemaid who called her "purty as a lady bird." The nickname stuck for the rest of her life.


Lady Bird graduated High School in 1928 then went on to college. She graduated from University of Texas in Austin in 1933 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and then in 1934 with a Bachelor of Journalism with honors.

She married Lyndon B. Johnson in November of 1934. She had two daughter, Lynda Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson. She died on July 11, 2007.

Highway Beautification Act of 1965

As a gift to Lady Bird, President Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 on October 22, 1965. Two weeks later, a signing ceremony was held where President Johnson said, "I saw Nature at its purest. The dogwoods had turned red. The maple leaves were scarlet and gold . . . . And not one foot of it was marred by a single unsightly man-made obstruction--no advertising signs, no junkyards. Well, doctors could prescribe no better medicine for me... We have placed a wall of civilization between us and the beauty of our countryside. In our eagerness to expand and improve, we have relegated nature to a weekend role, banishing it from our daily lives. I think we are a poorer nation as a result. I do not choose to preside over the destiny of this country and to hide from view what God has gladly given." Then after saying, "Beauty belongs to all the people," he signed the bill and gave the pen to Lady Bird,and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was passed to control outdoor advertising along the nation's Interstate Highway System. It also required certain junkyards along the highways to be removed or screened from view. The Act encouraged roadside development and scenic enhancement.

Her Work In Washington

Lady Bird was very active during her husband's time as President. She was very environmentally minded. She wanted America to look and stay beautiful. She considered beauty to be more than just wildflowers, she wanted clean river, air and land.

In 1964 she formed the Committee for A More Beautiful Capital. She desired that Washington D.C. would be a "garden city" and that others cities around the nation would follow suit. Her committee planted flowers throughout the city to beautify the area.

With her help, President Johnson developed the President's Council on Recreation and Natural Beauty. The Council was developed to spread conservation messages and a campaign against littering.

Mrs. Johnson used the media to show the American public the need for action to conserve important historical sites. She visited many national parks and scenic locations to encourage beautification of these areas.

After she left Washington, the Columbia Island on the Potomac River was renamed Lady Bird Johnson Park.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Lady Bird helped secure funding and 60 acres east of Austin, Texas, for a center to preserve and research wildflowers. After a few years, she realized that she needed more space. She secured another 43 acres southwest of Austin. There a permanent building was erected. The building was dedicated the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The center now preserves 279 acres with over 700 different varieties of wildflowers.

The Center has adult and children education to help teach about conserving wildflowers, conserving water, and using minimal fertilizer and insecticides that pollute the land and air.

Remarks at Signing of Highway Beautification Act of 1965

President Lyndon Baines Johnson:

Secretary Gardner, distinguished Members of the leadership of the Congress and Members of the Congress, and all other lovers of beauty:

America likes to think of itself as a strong and stalwart and expanding Nation. It identifies itself gladly with the products of its own hands. We frequently point with pride and with confidence to the products of our great free enterprise system—management and labor.

These are and these should be a source of pride to every American. They are certainly the source of American strength. They are truly the fountainhead of American wealth. They are actually a part of America’s soul.

But there is more to America than raw industrial might. And when you go through what I have gone through the last 2 weeks you constantly think of things like that. You no longer get your computers in and try to count your riches.

There is a part of America which was here long before we arrived, and will be here, if we preserve it, long after we depart: the forests and the flowers, the open prairies and the slope of the hills, the tall mountains, the granite, the limestone, the caliche, the unmarked trails, the winding little streams—well, this is the America that no amount of science or skill can ever recreate or actually ever duplicate.

This America is the source of America’s greatness. It is another part of America’s soul as well.

When I was growing up, the land itself was life. And when the day seemed particularly harsh and bitter, the land was always there just as nature had left it—wild, rugged, beautiful, and changing, always changing.

And really, how do you measure the excitement and the happiness that comes to a boy from the old swimming hole in the happy days of yore, when I used to lean above it; the old sycamore, the baiting of a hook that is tossed into the stream to catch a wily fish, or looking at a graceful deer that leaps with hardly a quiver over a rock fence that was put down by some settler a hundred years or more ago?

How do you really put a value on the view of the night that is caught in a boy’s eyes while he is stretched out in the thick grass watching the million stars that we never see in these crowded cities, breathing the sounds of the night and the birds and the pure, fresh air while in his ears are the crickets and the wind?

Well, in recent years I think America has sadly neglected this part of America’s national heritage. We have placed a wall of civilization between us and between the beauty of our land and of our countryside. In our eagerness to expand and to improve, we have relegated nature to a weekend role, and we have banished it from our daily lives.

Well, I think that we are a poorer Nation because of it, and it is something I am not proud of. And it is something I am going to do something about. Because as long as I am your President, by choice of your people, I do not choose to preside over the destiny of this country and to hide from view what God has gladly given it.

And that is why today there is a great deal of real joy within me, and within my family, as we meet here in this historic East Room to sign the Highway Beautification Act of 1965.

Now, this bill does more than control advertising and junkyards along the billions of dollars of highways that the people have built with their money—public money, not private money. It does more than give us the tools just to landscape some of those highways.

This bill will bring the wonders of nature back into our daily lives.

This bill will enrich our spirits and restore a small measure of our national greatness.

As I rode the George Washington Memorial Parkway back to the White House only yesterday afternoon, I saw nature at its purest. And I thought of the honor roll of names—a good many of you are sitting here in the front row today—that made this possible. And as I thought of you who had helped and stood up against private greed for public good, I looked at those dogwoods that had turned red, and the maple trees that were scarlet and gold. In a pattern of brown and yellow, God’s finery was at its finest. And not one single foot of it was marred by a single, unsightly, man-made construction or obstruction—no advertising signs, no old, dilapidated trucks, no junkyards. Well, doctors could prescribe no better medicine for me, and that is what I said to my surgeon as we drove along.

This bill does not represent everything that we wanted. It does not represent what we need. It does not represent what the national interest requires. But it is a first step, and there will be other steps. For though we must crawl before we walk, we are going to walk.

I remember the fierce resolve of a man that I admired greatly, a great leader of a great people, Franklin D. Roosevelt. He fought a pitched battle in 1936 with private interests whose target was private gain. And I shall long remember the words that I believe he echoed at Madison Square Garden, when he declared to the Nation that the forces of selfishness had not only met their match, but these forces had met their master.

Well, I have not asked you to come here today to tell you that I have a desire to master anyone. But until the clock strikes the last hour of the time allotted to me as President by vote of all the people of this country, I will never turn away from the duty that my office demands or the vigilance that my oath of office requires.

And this administration has no desire to punish or to penalize any private industry, or any private company, or any group, or any organization of complex associations in this Nation. But we are not going to allow them to intrude their own specialized private objective on the larger public trust. Beauty belongs to all the people. And so long as I am President, what has been divinely given to nature will not be taken recklessly away by man.

This Congress is to be thanked for the bill that you have given us. I wish it could have been more, but I realize, too, that there are other views to be considered in our system of checks and balances.

The grandchildren of those of you in this country that may have mocked and ridiculed us today, someday will point with pride to the public servants who are here in this room, who cast their lot with the people.

And unless I miss my guess, history will remember on its honor roll those of you whom the camera brings into focus in this room today, who stood up and were counted when that roll was called that said we are going to preserve at least a part of what God gave us.

Thank you very much.

http://www.lbjlibrary.org/collections/selected-speeches/1965/10-22-1965.html

In Memory Of Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Quote

Awards and Honors

Notable Awards:
• From 1971-1977, served on The University of Texas System Board of Regents.
• Member of the International Conference Steering Committee (1981-82)and the
University of Texas Centennial Commission.
• Trustee of the National Geographic Society.
• Member of the National Committee for the Bicentennial Era.
• Named to the Advisory Council to the American Revolution Bicentennial
Administration by President Ford. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed
Mrs. Johnson to the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
Other awards include:
• Togetherness Award, Marge Champion, 1958
• Humanitarian Award, B'nai B'rith, 1961
• Businesswoman's Award, Business and Professional Women's Club, 1961
• Theta Sigma Phi Citation, 1962
• Distinguished Achievement Award, Washington Heart Association, 1962
• Industry Citation, American Women in Radio & Television, 1963
• Humanitarian Citation, Volunteers of America, 1963
• Distinguished Alumnus Award, The University of Texas Ex-Students’
Association, 1964
• George Foster Peabody Award for the television program, "A Visit to
Washington with Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson on Behalf of a More Beautiful
America," 1966
• Eleanor Roosevelt Golden Candlestick Award, Women's National Press Club, 1968
• Damon Woods Memorial Award, The Industrial Designers' Society of America,1972
• Conservation Service Award, Department of the Interior, 1974
• American Legion Distinguished Award, 1975
• Ladies Home Journal "Woman of the Year" Award for Quality of Life, 1975
• Abraham Lincoln Award, Southern Baptist Convention, 1976
• Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Gerald Ford, 1977
• Texas Women's Hall of Fame, 1984
• National Achievement Award, American Horticultural Society, 1984
• Wildflowers Across America Award of the Year, Garden Writers Association,1984
• Texan of the Year Award, State of Texas, 1985
• Lord & Taylor Rose Award, 1987
• Congressional Gold Medal, 1988
• Gold Seal Award for Distinguished Service and Achievement,
• National Council of State Garden Clubs, 1990
• Lone Star Lifestyle Visionary Award, J.C. Penney Company, 1990
• Tom Dodd, Jr. Award of Excellence, 1990
• Star in Our Crown, Victoria Magazine, 1993
• Charles Leonard Weddle Memorial Award, Native Plant Society, 1994
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Nature Conservancy of Texas, 1994
• Texas Federation of Women's Clubs Award, 1994
• Motorola Earth Day Award, 1995
• Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement, 1995
• National Building Museum Honor Award, 1995
• Chairman's Award, National Geographic Society, 1995
• Conservation Achievement Award, Southwest Regional Office of the
• National Park Service, 1995
• Laurance Spelman Rockefeller Conservation Award for Distinguished Service,
1996
• Caritas of Austin's Harvey Penick Award, 1996
• Environmental Law Institute Award, 1996
• Star of Texas Preservation Award, Gillespie County Historical Society, 1996
• The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT)
• International Award of Excellence, 1997
• The Heritage Society of Austin Sue and Frank McBee Visionary Award, 1997
• The 39th Annual Freeman Award, 1998
• The Edith Wharton Achievement Award for Landscape Preservation, 1998
• Denver Botanic Gardens Medal for Eminent Contributions and Leadership, 1998
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Native Plant Conservation Initiative, 1999
• The Texas Audubon Society Centennial Award for Conservation, 1999
• Cornerstone Award, Texas Society of Architects, 2000
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park Medal of Honor, National Park Foundation,
2000
• The Daughters of the American Revolution Medal of Honor, 2003
• Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame Award, 2004
• Edwin P. Hubble Award, Edwin P. Hubble Society, 2004
• History Making Texan Award, The Texas State History Museum Foundation, 2005
• National Conservation Achievement Award for Conservationist of the Year,
• National Wildlife Federation, 2005
• Lindy Boggs Award, Stennis Center for Public Service, 2005
• Cornelius Amory Pugsley Medal, Academy of Park and Recreation Administration
and The National Park Foundation, 2005

Honorary Degrees:
• The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, Doctor of Letters, 1964
• Texas Woman's University, Denton, Texas, Doctor of Law, 1964
• Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, Doctor of Letters, 1967
• Williams College, Massachusetts, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1967
• Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, Doctor of Humanities, 1967
• The University of Alabama, Doctor of Humane Letters,1975
• Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University), San Marcos,
Texas, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1983
• Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1983
• Weizmann Institute of Science, Honorary Fellow, 1985
• George Washington University, Doctor of Public Service, 1986
• Johns Hopkins University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1990
• State University of New York, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1990
• Southern Methodist University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1996
• St. Edward’s University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1998
• Boston University, Doctor of Humane Letters, 1998

Sources

How The Highway Beautification Act Became a Law. 4/7/11. U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Accessed by http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/beauty.cfm

In Memory of Lady Bird Johnson. 8/1/07. Youtube Video. Accessed by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci65HVs_PV4&NR=1

Kathy, Kiely. n.d. "First lady, first environmentalist." USA Today, n.d. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 30, 2011).

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 6/30/11. Accessed by http://www.ladybirdjohnsontribute.org/biography.html

Remarks at the Signing of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. 10/22/1965. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. Accessed by http://www.lbjlibrary.org/collections/selected-speeches/1965/10-22-1965.html

Russell, Jan Jarboe. 2007. "A Lady First. (Cover story)." Texas Monthly 35, no. 9: 138-149. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 30, 2011).

2009. "CELEBRATING PEOPLE WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE." National Wildlife 47, no. 3: 56. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed June 30, 2011).