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Bio
Harriet Lane
Unique among first ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only president who never married: James Buchanan, her favorite uncle and guardian after she was orphaned at the age of 11. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her twenties. She was born
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Bio
James Buchanan
Tall, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only president who never married. Presiding over a rapidly dividing nation, Buchanan did not quite grasp the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional
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Bio
Sarah Polk
Sarah Childress was born to Joel and Elizabeth Childress on September 4, 1803, in Tennessee.1 Her father was a wealthy plantation owner, which led to a privileged upbringing for Sarah and her siblings. She was well educated, studying at Abercrombie’s Boarding School in Nashville and the Moravian Female Academy in Salem, North Carolina.2 Sarah’s father was involved in Tennessee politics and
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Bio
Dolley Madison
Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, the third of Mary Coles and John Payne Jr.’s nine children.1 Dolley was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, where her parents briefly moved to establish a Quaker community before returning to Virginia. Although John Payne owned enslaved people during Dolley’s early childhood, he freed them in 1783. It is unknown where Dolley was
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Bio
Elizabeth Monroe
Elizabeth Kortright was born in New York on June 30, 1768, daughter of an old New York family. Her father, Lawrence, served the Crown privateering during the French and Indian War and made a fortune. He took no active part in the War of Independence; and James Monroe wrote to his friend Thomas Jefferson in Paris in 1786 that he had married the
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Bio
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter promised a government “as competent, as compassionate, as good” as the American people. His achievements were notable, but in an era of rising energy costs, mounting inflation, and increasing world crises, he found it difficult to meet Americans’ high expectations.James Earl Carter Jr. was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and the Baptist
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Bio
Abigail Adams
Inheriting New England’s strongest traditions, Abigail Smith was born on November 22, 1744 at Weymouth, Massachusetts. On her mother’s side she was descended from the Quincys, a family of great prestige in the colony; her father and other forebears were congregational ministers, leaders in a society that held its clergy in high esteem. Although Abigail did not receive a formal educ
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Bio
John F. Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president; he was the youngest to die. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, son of financier Joseph Kennedy and his wife Rose, on May 29, 1917. Grad
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Bio
Louisa Adams
The first first lady born outside the United States, Louisa Catherine Adams did not come to the United States until four years after she had married John Quincy Adams. Louisa Catherine Johnson was born in London on February 12, 1775, to an English mother, Catherine Nuth Johnson, and an American father—Joshua Johnson, of Maryland—who served as United States consul after 1790. A ca
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Bio
Letitia Tyler
Letitia Christian was born on a Tidewater Virginia plantation on November 12, 1790, to Mary and Colonel Robert Christian. Although she was not formally educated, Letitia learned all the skills of managing a plantation, overseeing enslaved people, rearing a family, and presiding over a home that would be John Tyler’s refuge during an active political life. They were married on March 29, 1813—his
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Bio
Julia Tyler
Julia Gardiner was born in 1820 to Juliana MacLachlan and David Gardiner, descendent of prominent and wealthy New York families.1 Julia was trained from childhood for a life in society; she made her debut at 15. A European tour with her family gave her new glimpses of social splendors. Late in 1842 the Gardiners went to Washington for the winter social season, and
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Bio
Claudia Johnson
Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas, on December 22, 1912. She was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Minnie Lee Pattillo Taylor. Her nickname, “Lady Bird,” came from Alice Tittle, a nursemaid who remarked that she was “as purty as a lady bird.”1 After graduating high school, Lady Bird attended St. Mary’s Episcopal School for Girls, a junior college in