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Lina Mann first joined the White House Historical Association in 2017 as American University’s Public History fellow and came onboard as a historian in March 2020. She is interested in many different aspects of White House history, including her latest research on the enslaved individuals that built, lived, and worked in the White House. Lina received her bachelor’s degree in History with minors in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and Museum Studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2016 and earned her master’s degree in Public History from American University in 2019.
Like many other slave owning presidents, James K. Polk maintained a different public position on slavery during his presidency (1845-1849) than he expressed privately. In addition to using enslaved labor at the White House, Polk secretly purchased enslaved people and separated children aged ten through seventeen from their families while in office. President Polk projected the persona of a benevolent
President Thomas Jefferson was widely recognized as a Francophile, embracing all things French including art, culture, and custom. While serving as Minister to France from 1784 to 1789, Jefferson developed a particular taste for French cuisine. However, French chefs were very expensive to employ, and Jefferson’s costs regularly outpaced his income. While Jefferson may have been short on cash, he did ha
The White House serves as a stage for ceremonial visits, performances, and international diplomacy, but it is also the backdrop for many of the country’s transformative moments. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the most comprehensive civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin, while al
When First Lady Michelle Obama delivered this powerful statement during a speech before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016, she shed light on a less discussed element of White House history. Enslaved people were involved in every aspect of White House construction—from the quarrying of stone, to the cutting of timber, to the production of bricks, to the physical la
The morning of Monday, March 5, 1877 was cold and overcast as Americans anticipated the Inauguration of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes after a long, tense, and disputed election. Hayes’ narrow win had only been decided three days earlier, defeating Democratic candidate and New York Governor Samuel Tilden by just one electoral vote, 185-184. The only caveat: Hayes was already the President of
For the first seventy-two years of its existence, the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., harbored one of America’s most difficult historical truths and greatest contradictions: slavery. The city’s placement along the Potomac River, in between the slave states of Maryland and Virginia, ensured that slavery was ingrained into every aspect of life, including the buildings, institutions, and social
Today, Inauguration Day falls on an exact day and time—January 20 at noon. Every four years, either the president or the president-elect takes the Oath of Office. Since 1981, presidents have typically taken the Oath on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building.1 This public ritual demonstrates America’s commitment to democracy and signifies a peaceful transfer of power to c
Henry Ossawa Tanner was one of the most distinguished Black artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Despite his immense success, Tanner’s life story reveals the challenges faced by many Black artists. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1859. His mother, Sarah Tanner, was a formerly enslaved woman who escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad, while his fa
In the summer of 1984, United States gymnast Mary Lou Retton triumphed at the Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, California. Retton went head-to-head with one of the best gymnasts in the world, Ecaterina Szabo of Romania, in the individual all-around competition. After scoring a perfect ten on both floor and vault, she bested Szabo by just 0.05 points, becoming the “fi
Greta Kempton (born Martha Greta Kempton) was born in 1903 in Vienna, Austria. She discovered painting early on, completing her first painting at the age of nine—a portrait of her sleeping governess. Kempton studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna National Academy of Design before emigrating to the United States in 1926 with her young daughter, Daisy. In
The hot Florida sun beat down on a crowd gathered at Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969. As the Apollo 11 mission blasted off and climbed through the blue sky, on its way to land the first astronauts on the moon, a former president stood in the viewing stands. Looking up into the sky, Lyndon Baines Johnson watched intently as a long-awaited and
In 1868, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Hobbs Keckly (also spelled Keckley) published her memoir Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House.1 This revealing narrative reflected on Elizabeth’s fascinating story, detailing her life experiences from slavery to her successful career as First Lady Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker. At the time of its publication, the book was