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The Soldiers' Home: First Presidential Retreat
Leaving the White House during the summer is an old tradition of the presidents. Those with farms, such as Dwight Eisenhower, or ranches, such as Lyndon B. Johnson and President George W. Bush, go for relaxation in cherished surroundings. Others, notably Richard Nixon, have created retreats, such as his in Florida and California; both Roosevelts went home. Victorian era presidents
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Article
The White House Collection: The Truman Interiors
On March 27, 1952, President and Mrs. Truman returned to a freshly renovated White House after living at Blair House since November 1948. They were delighted with the success of the three-and-one- half-year project in spite of all its problems and disruptions. A week later they welcomed their first house guests, Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, and on April 22 the
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Presidents as Horsemen
The nineteenth century might be called the golden age of the horse. Horsepower pulled plow, canal boat, and wagon to market; horse-drawn stages linked towns; and omnibuses and carriages conveyed people to work within cities, to shop, or to the train station, which, a decade after the Civil War, emerged as the hub of a transcontinental transportation system. Before automobiles,
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Scholarship
The Truman Renovation Souvenir Program
As part of the implementation of the Truman renovation, the Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion was tasked with disposing excess building materials that could not be reutilized. On February 17, 1950, President Truman approved the creation of a souvenir program. The leftover pieces in question were somewhat limited to materials that had “no tangible value but which were desired by
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The Enslaved Household of Tench Ringgold
From 1818 to 1831, Tench Ringgold served as U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia. His home (today known as the DACOR Bacon House) sits on the corner of F and 18th Streets, about three blocks from the White House. Built in 1825, the house is a notable example of Federal-style architecture.1 Tench Ringgold came from an old Maryland merchant and slave-owning
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Scholarship
Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet
On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office and became the sixteenth President of the United States. While he had no way of knowing the extent challenges ahead, a pall hung over the celebrations as the nation hovered on the brink of civil war. To lead the nation during the looming crisis, Lincoln appointed a group of opinionated, stubborn,
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Article
Lighting the Menorah: Celebrating Hanukkah at the White House
Throughout the history of the United States, all the nation’s presidents have been Christians.1 In modern times, to celebrate the holidays, starting in early December the White House is decorated with brightly ornamented Christmas trees, garlands festooned over mantels and doorways, and the eighteenth-century crèche, a gift to the White House collection in 1967, gloriously displayed in the East Roo
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The Other White House
For a four-year period in American history, two official houses carried the name White House. Standing 90 miles apart, across the Virginia landscape, one overlooked the Potomac River and the other the James. They were the same age and architecturally were cousins. Designed by James Hoban, the White House had been rebuilt by him and completed late in 1817, after its destruction
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The President's Park
A recent magazine article described the garden of the White House, “known as the President’s Park,” as covering 82 acres and encompassing Lafayette Park and the Ellipse.1 Surrounded by a large fence, the White House indeed appears to be sited in spacious grounds, but the present White House grounds are only about 18 acres, less than a quarter of the original reserv
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Foreword; White House History (Number 28)
Mobility is essential to the presidency. The necessity of reaching the far-flung corners of the U.S.A. seems a requirement. It always has been achieved to the extent the times permit. For George Washington travel seems to have been a simpler matter, although the nation was smaller, the roads muddier. He journeyed by coach to the east and on
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Secret Spaces at the White House?
An Alexandre Dumas, père, would have a field day envisioning a romantic White House: passages behind the walls, portraits with peepholes for eyes unseen, alcoves covered by tapestries. If he were to see the house firsthand and to tour its 132 rooms, under- and aboveground, he would find his visions had no basis in fact—not that small truth ever mad
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Article
A Small Slice of Kennedy Decor: The Queens’ Sitting Room
Although the legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy’s interior decoration at the White House is fixed in Americans’ minds, there seems to be a general impression that the rooms, both public and private, have not been changed during the 40 years since her time here. Certainly much of the private quarters have been adjusted to suit the individual tastes of the succeeding firs