Sharon Williams Leahy
Sharon Williams Leahy is an American historian and independent scholar whose research focuses on American first ladies, material culture, and architectural history. She holds an M.A. from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), where her thesis—“The Architectural Inheritance of the Burned Over District”—explored historic design traditions in upstate New York. She earned her Bachelors in Landscape Architecture (BLA) from Louisiana State University.
Leahy is co-author, with Christopher J. Leahy, of Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (University Press of Kansas, September 2026), the first full-length modern scholarly biography of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler. Drawing on newly discovered archival sources and previously unpublished correspondence, Presidentess presents the first full-length modern scholarly biography of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler, revealing a woman whose influence on politics, public image, and nineteenth-century America has long been overlooked.
A frequent media contributor, Sharon has appeared on C-SPAN, participated in the George W. Bush Institute’s podcast series The Controversies of Julia Gardiner Tyler, and was featured in East Wing Magazine. She also serves as a consultant on historic preservation projects across New York and Pennsylvania, preparing National Register nominations and historic property reports that preserve and interpret America’s architectural heritage
Listen to Sharon and Chris discuss Julia Gardiner Tyler’s legacy on the Ladies, First Podcast, Episode 11: “The Controversies of Julia Gardiner Tyler.”
Pre-Order our forthcoming biography, Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (Univ Press of Kansas, Sept 2026).
.Presidentess reframes Julia Gardiner Tyler not only as a First Lady, but as a case study in how nineteenth-century public identity was constructed through newspapers, caricature, and emerging mass media. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and correspondence, the book traces how she navigated—and at times actively engaged with—an evolving system in which reputation itself became a form of political power.