Non-Fiction: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train
Lectures and conversations with historians, authors, and thinkers.
In October 1964, Lady Bird Johnson made history as the first presidential spouse to take a leading role on the campaign trail—and she did it boldly, facing danger and shaking up the status quo. Aboard a custom, nineteen-car train called the Lady Bird Special, she traversed eight southern states to support Lyndon B. Johnson’s re-election bid amid heightened tensions following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Author Shannon McKenna Schmidt recounts this daring 1,682-mile journey, highlighting Lady Bird’s courageous leadership, the women who helped make this monumental undertaking possible, and how their strategy and civility impacted a pivotal moment in American history.
Shannon McKenna Schmidt is the author of You Can’t Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her. Her other books include The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back, which she previously presented at the Bryant Park Reading Room.
Produced in partnership with The New York Historical
July 1, 2026 – September 9, 2026
Wednesdays, 7pm-8pm
July 1: National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America by Michael Auslin
July 8: All the Presidents' Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money by Megan Gorman
July 15: Murder on the Mississippi: The Shocking Crimes That Shaped Abraham Lincoln by Saladin Ambar
July 22: Angelica: For Love & Country in a Time of Revolution by Molly Beer
July 29: Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics with Micki McElya
August 5: You Can’t Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her by Shannon McKenna Schmidt
August 12: To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right by Christopher Mathias
August 19: Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement by Peter S. Canellos
August 26: Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln by Matthew Pinsker
September 2: The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by
Garrett M. Graff
September 9: Fire in the Heart of the City: The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Charity by David Conrad-Pérez
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