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Rules of Engagement
Shortly before Secretary of Congress Thomson arrived at Mount Vernon in April 1789 to announce that George Washington had been elected first president, a carriage departed the Potomac plantation headed for New York. Tobias Lear, Washington’s private secretary, was directed to precede his eminent employer to make ready the presidential household. When Lear arrived in the temporary national capi
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A Glimpse of Calvin Coolidge's White House
In addition to important holdings in historical memorabilia, art, and furnishings, the White House collection also has an archives of documentary material. Notable are the historic photographic images. Original photographs, stereographs, glass and film negatives, and color transparencies, as well as copies of photographs from other repositories, illustrate the history of the White House from the 1840s to
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"Proud Housewife": Mamie Eisenhower Collects for the White House
Every presidential family that resides in the White House leaves a mark on the building and its traditions. The extent of a family’s influence on the physical White House depends usually on its length of residence and its inclinations to take the trouble to make changes. History plays a part as well. While major additions to the White House an
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The President's House and Its People
Betty C. Monkman served more than thirty years in the Office of the Curator, The White House, retiring as Chief Curator in 2002. She is the author of The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families and Treasures of the White House, and she is a frequent contributor to White House History. In this interview with White House historian William
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From White House to Your House
Chicagos 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition gave us many firsts, among them the Ferris wheel, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and the introduction by the U.S. Post Office Department of the picture post card. Printed on government-issued postal cards with an imprinted one-cent stamp were illustrations of the fairs structures. Privately printed souvenir cards were also sold that depicted the fairs attractions,
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The Life and Presidency of Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge (he rapidly let go of "John") was born on the Fourth of July in 1872 to an old New England family. His father John Calvin Coolidge farmed in Windsor County, Vermont. The young Calvin lost his mother Victoria Josephine Moore to what may have been tuberculosis when he was twelve; when he was seventeen, his younger sister and
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The White House Historical Association Kennedy Rose Garden Exhibition
The White House Historical Association has the privilege of announcing the opening of a new exhibit, The Kennedy Rose Garden: Traditionally American, which explores President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 vision for a new garden adjacent to the Oval Office. The exhibit is free and open to the public July 16 – September 12, 2015; Monday – Saturday from 10 a.m – 3 p.m.
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White House Vegetable Gardens
John Adams, the first resident of the White House, wanted a vegetable garden plowed and fertilized with the goal of planting in the spring of 1800. By the time the ground was ready for planting, Adams had returned to private life after Thomas Jefferson’s victory in the 1800 presidential election. President Jefferson inherited a construction site when he came into office an
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Pathbreakers: Oscar Stanton DePriest and Jessie L. Williams DePriest
Shelley Stokes-Hammond prepared these biographical sketches as part of a project for a graduate documentation course at Goucher College where she received a Master of Arts in Historic Preservation in 2011.In March 1929, Oscar Stanton DePriest became the first African American to serve in the United States Congress since George H. White of North Carolina left the House in 1901. DePriest was
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Dolley Madison's House
Did you know that after her husband's death, First Lady Dolley Madison was so poor that she had to accept money from a former slave and hand-outs from her neighbors on Lafayette Square? The yellow house on the corner of H Street and Madison Place was Dolley Madison's home from 1837 until her death in 1849. Originally built by her brother-in-law, Richard
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Mrs. Polk Receives Unwelcome Advice About Her Servants
James K. Polk and Sarah Childress Polk lived in the White House from 1845 to 1849. Anson and Fanny Nelson, admirers of Mrs. Polk, published this story many years later:"An elderly lady, who had been present at [a White House] dinner-party, called on Mrs. Polk and said, 'May I take the liberty [to] make a suggestion to you, Madame?' The
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Jacqueline Kennedy Refines the Season
In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree. She decorated a tree placed in the oval Blue Room with ornamental toys, birds and angels modeled after Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" ballet. Mrs. Kennedy reused these ornaments in 1962 for her children's theme tree. Set up in the North Entrance, this