Nellie Taft in the Philippines: A First Lady Forged in Manila

Long before she became First Lady of the United States, Helen "Nellie" Herron Taft spent four formative years in the Philippines - years she would later describe as among the richest of her life. It was in Manila, not Washington, that Nellie Taft first stepped into the public role she had dreamed of since girlhood, and the imprint of those years followed her for the rest of her life, all the way to the banks of the Potomac.