After marrying Lyndon Johnson in 1934 when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign and then ran his office while he served in the Navy.

Johnson has been consistently ranked in occasional Siena College Research Institute surveys as one of the most highly regarded American first ladies per historians' assessments.

With Aunt Effie, we would board the train in Marshall and ride to the part of the world that meant watermelon cuttings, picnics at the creek, and a lot of company every Sunday.

"[14] According to Lady Bird, her Aunt Effie "opened my spirit to beauty, but she neglected to give me any insight into the practical matters a girl should know about, such as how to dress or choose one's friends or learning to dance.

"[15] She developed her lifelong love of the outdoors as a child growing up in the tall pines and bayous of East Texas, where she watched the wildflowers bloom each spring.

"[34] During the years of the Johnson presidency, Lyndon, in one incident, yelled at the White House photographer who failed to show up for a photo shoot with the First Lady.

[45] Afterward, Lady Bird created a tape on which she recorded her memories of the assassination, saying it was "primarily as a form of therapy to help me over the shock and horror of the experience."

She worked to beautify Washington, D.C., by planting thousands of flowers, set up the White House Natural Beauty Conference, and lobbied Congress for the president's full range of environmental initiatives.

[51] It was intended to improve physical conditions in Washington, D.C., for residents and tourists by planting millions of flowers, many of them on National Park Service land along roadways around the capital.

She worked extensively with the American Association of Nurserymen (AAN) executive Vice President Robert F. Lederer to protect wildflowers and promoted planting them along highways.

She became the first president's wife to advocate actively for legislation[2] when she was instrumental in promoting the Highway Beautification Act, which was nicknamed "Lady Bird's Bill".

At the ceremony to swear in the new president, Lady Bird held the Bible as her husband took the oath of office on January 20, 1965, starting a tradition which continues.

"[57] On September 22, 1966, Lady Bird dedicated the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, fulfilling a goal that both presidents Kennedy and Johnson had sought to accomplish.

[59] In mid-September 1967, Lady Bird began touring the Midwestern United States as part of a trip that one White House described as "mostly agriculture during the day and culture at night."

[61] In January 1968 at a White House luncheon,[62] Eartha Kitt, when asked by the first lady what her views were on the Vietnam War, replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed.

[68] In 1970, Lady Bird published A White House Diary, her intimate, behind-the-scenes account of her husband's presidency spanning November 22, 1963, to January 20, 1969.

[70]Writing in 1986, William H. Inman observed that Johnson was considered by some "the most effective First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt", citing her battles against highway billboard forests, auto heaps, and junk piles as well as her support for American public landscapes maintaining beauty and sanity.

[78] In November 1977, Johnson spoke at the 1977 National Women's Conference among other speakers including Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Cecilia Burciaga, Gloria Steinem, Lenore Hershey and Jean O'Leary.

In his remarks, President Carter expressed gratitude for her attending as he stated "she personifies too, as you know, the essence of what this great man did with those who worked around him", referring to her late husband.

[80] In June 1981, officials of Dartmouth College stated that Johnson and former president Gerald Ford would serve as co-chairs of the fundraising committee for the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences.

[82] In 1982, Johnson and actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center west of Austin, Texas, as a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving and reintroducing native plants in planned landscapes.

[85]In September 1991, Johnson unveiled a new line of English porcelain flower sculpture that drew influence from American wildflowers in the Corrigan's Jewelry at NorthPark Center in Dallas.

[87] In August 1984, Johnson publicly stated her support for the vice-presidential nomination of Geraldine Ferraro in that year's presidential election while admitting the difficulty the Mondale-Ferraro ticket faced in winning Texas.

In February 2006, Lynda Johnson Robb told a gathering at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, that her mother was totally blind and was "not in very good health".

[92] Lady Bird Johnson died at home on July 11, 2007, at 4:18 p.m. (CDT) from natural causes at the age of 94, attended by family members and Catholic priest Father Robert Scott.

[93][94][95] At the funeral service, her daughter, Luci Baines Johnson, gave a eulogy, saying, "A few weeks before Mother died, I was taking visiting relatives to the extraordinary Blanton Art Museum ...

Mother was on IV antibiotics, a feeding tube, and oxygen, but she wasn't gonna let little things like that deter her from discovering another great art museum.

[98][99] Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president.

[101] In additional questions asked in the 2014 survey, among 20th- and 21st-century American first ladies, historians assessed Johnson as the 5th easiest to imagine serving as president herself, having had the 5th-greatest public service after leaving the White House, and having been the 5th best in creating a lasting legacy.

On October 22, 2012, the United States Postal Service announced the issue of a souvenir Forever stamp sheet honoring Lady Bird Johnson as a tribute to her legacy of beautifying the nation's roadsides, urban parks and trails.