text: The role of the second lady is unpaid and not formally defined. The wife of the vice president of the United States was traditionally expected to serve as a hostess and appear at society functions. As the Office of the Vice President itself gained power and influence, the spouse of the vice president also became more visible. Second Lady Lady Bird Johnson often replaced First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy when she withdrew from public appearances. Pat Nixon, wife of Vice President Richard Nixon, was the first second spouse to add a great deal of substance to the role, traveling independently of the vice president and setting her own event schedule. historian Kate Andersen Brower wrote, "she helped to define this nebulous role for an entire generation of women who would succeed her." Subsequent second ladies also had their own issues which they advocated, such as education reform and literacy.
  Usage of title
  Writers including William Safire and Jeff McQuain have suggested that use of the term "second lady" to refer to the wife of the vice president of the United States did not become more commonplace until the 1980s. However, in 2017, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump argued that use of the phrase "second lady" could be traced back as early as the 1860s, strengthening in popularity around 1892, and "spiking" around the turn of the 20th century, according to his research using the Google Ngram tool.
  In 1996, Tipper Gore wrote that the spouse of the vice president did not have an official title, and that people were often unsure about how to introduce her, saying: "Sometimes they call me the Second Lady. Sometimes they refer to me as the Second First Lady. Once I was even introduced as the Second Lady of Vice." In 2008, when a Fox News host remarked that calling Lynne Cheney the Second Lady of the United States was "weird", Cheney acknowledged, "Well, it is, a little, but it's ok." The abbreviation for the Second Lady of the United States is SLOTUS.