Feather Schwartz Foster has been an independent writer of Presidential and First Ladies history for more than a decade, with a personal library of more than 1,500 president and president-related volumes collected over the last forty years. Her first book, LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities was published in 2003, followed by Garfield’s Train, A Novel. Her latest book, The First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Mamie Eisenhower, An Intimate Portrait of the Women Who Shaped America, was published in 2011.
Presidential Historian
She has made more than 300 personal appearances, including dozens of radio
and television interviews. This includes lectures at the New Jersey State Historical
Society, various city and state historical organizations in both NJ and Virginia, several
Daughters of the American Revolution chapters, library organizations and private groups. She has been a featured speaker multiple times at the Hennage Auditorium in Colonial Williamsburg. She has been interviewed on several nationwide NPR stations, and dozens of online sites, as well as repeated interviews on Virginia Currents (PBS). In 2013, she was featured on C-SPAN’s major two-year First Ladies Series, and is included in C-SPAN 's summary book on the subject, "FIRST LADIES: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women." She has also participated as a guest speaker at the 19th National War of 1812 Symposium held at the University of Baltimore, in October, 2015.
In addition to her regular Presidential/First Ladies blog, she has also continued to contribute articles on presidential and first-lady history to various online magazines.
After moving to Williamsburg, Virginia in 2008, she began regularly lecturing about the “old” First Ladies at the prestigious Christopher Wren Society, the adult education venue associated with the College of William and Mary. She also conducts similar programs at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA.
She is a former founding member of the New Jersey Writers Society, and is currently a member of the Chesapeake Bay Writers Club, the Virginia Writers Assn., and Biographers International Organization.
