The Quick 10: The Pre-Politics Careers of 10 Second Ladies

As the election approaches, we're learning more than we ever wanted to know about the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. You even hear a lot about the potential First Ladies "“ I have somehow picked up the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama saw Do the Right Thing on their first date. But you don't hear too much about the Second Ladies "“ or, in this case, the Second Spouses. Todd Palin, for example, holds down a few jobs "“ he works for BP and is also a salmon fisherman. His wife refers to him as the "First Dude" of Alaska.

Jill Biden taught English and history for 13 years at a public high school and later became a professor of English at Delaware Technical and Community College. She still holds the same job, but now has her doctorate and is the president of the Biden Breast Health Initiative.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that today's Q10 is about what the Second Ladies did with their lives before they were Second Ladies. Some of them will surprise you"¦ some of them won't. Thanks to Meg McGinn for the research!

2. Tipper Gore was a freelance photographer and was working toward her master's degree in Psychology. She ultimately gave both up, saying it was hard to get a job in the news industry with her husband serving in the Senate.

3. Marilyn Quayle was part owner of a law practice. The other owner? Her husband. Quayle & Quayle operated in Huntington, Indiana.

4. Joan Mondale acquired the nickname "Joan of Art" pretty honestly.

5. Margaretta "Happy" Rockefeller. You'd be happy too, if you were a Rockefeller. OK, bad joke, and probably not true. Anyway, she earned her "Happy" nickname as a child, before she was a Rockefeller. But she was already wealthy in her own right "“ she was heiress to a cordage fortune. But she worked for Nelson Rockefeller anyway, and eventually left her husband for him. He divorced his wife of 32 years and married Happy almost immediately. There is speculation that this scandal probably cost him the Presidential nomination.

7. Muriel Humphrey is actually responsible for her husband's success "“ she worked as a bookkeeper at a utility company to put Hubert through college in the 1930s. When he died, she took over his vacancy in the Senate.

8. Lady Bird Johnson financed LBJ's campaigns, managed his Congressional office while he was in the Navy, and bought a small radio station in Austin, Texas, with some money from her inheritance. Business was booming, and about 19 years later, her investment was worth more than $6 million (at least $40 million by today's standards).

9. I have to mention Ilo Brown Wallace, the 33rd Second Lady of the U.S., because she was from Iowa "“ Indianola, to be exact. Before she was living large in Washington, she was the co-founder of Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926. She and her husband used money she had inherited from her parents to start it. It's now Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's second-largest seed company.