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Bio
Lyndon B. Johnson
A "Great Society" for the American people was the vision of Lyndon Johnson. As president, he obtained passage of one of the most significant legislative programs in the nation's history, but found his presidency overwhelmed by opposition to his war in Vietnam.Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in central Texas, not far from Johnson City, which his family had helped
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Bio
Angelica Van Buren
Sarah Angelica Singleton, better known as Angelica, was born in Wedgefield, South Carolina, on February 13, 1816, to mother Rebecca Travis Coles and father Richard Singleton.1 She grew up on their South Carolina plantation. As a young woman, she received a robust education, studying at Madame Grelaud’s Seminary in Philadelphia.2 While staying in Washington, D.C., her relative by marriage, Dolley Ma
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Bio
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was born in the rural town of Kinderhook, New York, on December 5, 1782. His father, Abraham, owned a successful inn and small farm. The Van Buren tavern served as a hub of social activity for the town, and the constant coming and goings of travelers between New York City and the state capital of Albany brought young Martin
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Bio
Warren G. Harding
Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not the experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.” A Democratic leader (and Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law), William
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Bio
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was born on November 24, 1784 in Virginia, but his family moved shortly thereafter to Louisville, Kentucky. He was raised on a plantation called Springfield, surrounded by enslaved laborers owned by his father Richard. Taylor received a basic education and aspired from a young age to join the military. He enlisted at the age of twenty-two and became an officer
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Bio
Melania Trump
Melanija Knavs (Melania Knauss) was born on April 26, 1970, in Novo Mesto, Slovenia (the former Yugoslavia) to parents Viktor and Amalija Knavs. As a young woman, Melania studied design before pausing her studies to pursue a modeling career abroad. She became a successful fashion model, appearing in television advertisements, fashion magazines, and billboards. She came to the United States during the 1990
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Bio
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He grew up in poverty and was apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. As an adult, he opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, where he met and married Eliza McCardle. The couple raised five children together, and Eliza supported her husband’s aspirations by teaching hi
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Bio
Mary Arthur McElroy
Mary Arthur was born in New York on July 5, 1841. Mary was the sister of future President Chester A. Arthur, nearly twelve years her senior, and the youngest child of William and Malvina Arthur. As a young woman, she married John E. McElroy, with whom she had four children; the family settled in Albany, New York.Mary Arthur McElroy’s brother, Ch
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Bio
Rose Cleveland
Rose "Libby" Cleveland was “a woman of unusual gifts, of large and varied information, of vigorous views and strong convictions.” Born in New York in 1846, she was the youngest of Richard and Ann Cleveland’s nine children and the sister of future President Grover Cleveland, who was nine years her senior. Miss Cleveland attended school at Houghton Seminary, taught in Pennsy
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Bio
Jane Harrison
William Henry Harrison’s wife, Anna, was too ill to travel when her husband set out from Ohio for his 1841 Inauguration. The president-elect asked his daughter-in-law, Jane Irwin Harrison, to accompany him and act as hostess until Anna’s proposed arrival in May. Jane Irwin was born on July 23, 1804, in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, to parents Archibald and Mary Irwin.1 While visiting fami
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Article
Easter Egg Roll: Fanfare and Keepsakes
Over the years, White House egg roll events have been made memorable by new attractions. In 1993, the Clintons scaled back the fanfare so that children would remember the day for its egg rolling games. A generation earlier, First Lady Pat Nixon gave out certificates of participation as a souvenir to eggrollers. First Ladies Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter distributed plastic
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Scholarship
Artists Perform for the President
The abundance of fine artists who performed during the Theodore Roosevelt era continued to appear during succeeding administrations, and President and Mrs. William Howard Taft and the Woodrow Wilsons molded the popular White House musicale into a well-established tradition. Beginning with the Roosevelts and continuing through the Eisenhowers, Steinway & Sons assisted the First Lady with the selection of the