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The Life and Presidency of Herbert Hoover
The 2016 White House Christmas ornament honors the administration of the thirty-first president of the United States Herbert Hoover, who served from 1929 to 1933. The ornament is inspired by the fire engines that responded to the 1929 Christmas Eve fire at the White House and the toy trucks presented to children by the Hoovers the following Christmas. Crafted from shiny brass plated with
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Planning the Lewis and Clark Expedition from the White House
From 1804 to 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery, an expedition created by President Thomas Jefferson for the purpose of charting and exploring land acquired from the Louisiana Purchase. Along the way, the expedition was to make natural observations, establish relationships with Native American tribes, and establish routes of travel for future settlement. Before leading the expedition
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Official White House China: From the 18th to the 21st Centuries
The house in which the President of the United States lives has always had a great fascination for American citizens who have come to feel they share in the ownership of the Executive Mansion. Throughout its more than 200 year history, the style in which the house is furnished has been determined—to varying degrees—by the money appropriated by Congress from
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"A Beautiful Spot Capable of Every Improvement"
The history of the white house grounds begins nearly two centuries before the construction of the house itself. Sailing up the Potomac River in 1608, Captain John Smith and the members of his exploring party became the first non-Native Americans to lay eyes on the future site of the presidential mansion. Algonquin and Nacotchtankes people already called the area home, and
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Speeches in the White House
When the president gives an address, not only does what the president say matter, but also where. Given the iconic nature of the White House, the president uses certain rooms to demonstrate the nature of the speech. Two of the most popular locations for president speeches and addresses are the Oval Office and the East Room. The Oval Office serves
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A Very Hoover Holiday
Christmas of 1929 was a snowy season in the nation’s capital. President Herbert Hoover and First Lady Lou Hoover planned to celebrate the holidays without their family, including their grandchildren Peggy Ann and Peter who lived in California. The grandchildren were Herbert and Lou’s pride and joy, and Mrs. Hoover shopped around town at the “five and dime stores” to buy g
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The Revolutionary Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
Nearly two decades after his election to the presidency, Thomas Jefferson elaborated on the significance of this triumph to his friend Spencer Roane. The “revolution of 1800,” he wrote, “was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 76.” This transformation was “not effected indeed by the sword…but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage
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Inauguration of 1861
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed soon after. In the midst of an unprecedented sectional crisis, President Abraham Lincoln entered office on March 4, 1861, to assume leadership of an anxious and worried nation. The Baltimore Sun commented that the “close of an old and the beginning of a new administration of
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African Americans Enter Abraham Lincoln's White House, 1863-1865
The New Years’ Day reception became a White House tradition with President John Adams in 1801 and ended with President Herbert Hoover in 1932. A gala social occasion that attracted the interest of dignitaries, journalists and the general public, it eventually generated crowds of several thousand people who crashed the White House gates for a glimpse of the president or, best of al
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The Life of Eugene Allen
Eugene Allen served in the White House for 34 years. Assisting eight presidents, Allen’s top priority was to make the White House a comfortable residence for each chief executive and his family. Allen was born in 1919 on a plantation farm near Scottsville in central Virginia.1 During his youth, he worked as a waiter at a resort in Virginia and at a
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Martha Johnson Patterson: Hostess of the Andrew Johnson White House
Of her family’s role in the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Martha Johnson Patterson, daughter of President Andrew Johnson, admitted, “We are plain people, from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity.”1 One of the five children of President Andrew Johnson and First Lady Eliza McCardle Johnson, Martha
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A Widower's Hostess
When President Martin Van Buren assumed office on March 4th, 1837, there was no woman to assume the role of first lady. His wife, Hannah Van Buren, had contracted an illness and died in February 1819, years before he took office.1 President Van Buren hired staff to serve in the absence of a White House hostess. Census records from 1840 list the numerous