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William Seale

  • Article

    An Essay on "The Secret Garden" by Peter Waddell

    The artist's imagination here has been sparked by both the photographs and extensive invoices listing hundreds of types of plants purchased for the White House greenhouse and conservatory. In 1833, President Andrew Jackson built the first greenhouse, an orangery, which was moved to adjoin the house in 1856 located off the west end of the main hall. After the conservatory burned in 1867,

  • Article

    Foreword; White House History (Number 36)

    Surrounding the President of the United States are clouds of relatives, moving about close and distant, that are ever marked by their association with him. Some live on in history attached to him; four presidents, Adamses and Bushes, have been father and son. The two presidents Roosevelt were relatives.White House History presents in this issue a series of stories

  • Scholarship

    The Life and Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt

    The gilded American bald eagle featured on the 2017 White House Christmas ornament is inspired by the eagle cartouche emblazoned on the speaker’s stand at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inauguration, March 4, 1933. With his appearance at that stand, Roosevelt’s remarkable presidential journey began. Three future inaugurations lay ahead—1937, 1941, and 1945. This first of FDR’s inaugurations, however, was to be the las

  • Article

    An Essay on "The Splendid Mrs. Madison" by Peter Waddell

    The most famous hostess in the history of the White House was First Lady Dolley Madison, a lady in whom legend and fact intertwine now, as they often did in her own time. In this painting, the artist shows the principal drawing room of the Madison White House, today's oval Blue Room sometime during the years from 1810 to 1814, when her

  • Article

    Foreword; White House History (Number 31)

    Our interest in the surroundings of the White House extends in this issue to include both public and private places, all except one of which survives today. Elizabeth Smith Brownstein’s longtime interest in Civil War Washington has naturally attracted her to the Willard, the capital’s most revered and venerable grand hotel. Observers in Lincoln’s time thought it rivale

  • Article

    An Essay on "The Visit" by Peter Waddell

    One of the most revered historic interiors of the White House is the one that President Abraham Lincoln occupied as an office. Located in the east end of the Second Floor, it shared the upstairs with the family's private living quarters. Although intended as a bedroom, it had been used for an office since 1817.Historical documentation, written and visual, is

  • Article

    An Essay on "Tiber Creek: The Bathers" by Peter Waddell

    Tiber Creek now flows safely beneath a masonry vault, over which passes Constitution Avenue. In the 1820s, the open creek raced dangerously to the Potomac River through the sweeping landscape you see here. From marshy creek banks, the land rose gently to the elevation upon which the White House stood. Its muddy realities were covered by grasses and wildflowers.President

  • Scholarship

    Donald J. Trump

    Donald John Trump was born in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946. His father, Fred Trump, was a real estate developer whose success coincided with America’s topsy-turvy postwar economics. The family, first full generation Americans, was close, strict, and focused on the family business. Donald’s father was of German heritage, and his mother, Mary McLeod, of Scottish background. Donald Trum