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Digital Library Exhibit
Diplomatic Children’s Parties
For over 25 years, the White House holiday season featured an annual party for the children of diplomats. During their heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, the parties were hosted by the first lady and typically attended by over 400 children under the age of twelve, representing over 80 countries. Between 1962 and 1985, National Geographic photographers captured images from several of these parties for
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Anywhere Activities
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Bio
Ellen Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur’s beloved “Nell” died of pneumonia on January 12, 1880. That November, when he was elected vice president, he was still mourning her bitterly. His grief was the more poignant because she was only 42 and her death sudden. Just two days earlier she had attended a benefit concert in New York City—while he was busy with politics in Albany—a
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Bio
Mamie Eisenhower
Mamie Geneva Doud was born on November 14, 1896, in Boone, Iowa. She was the daughter of John Sheldon Doud and Elivera Mathilda Carlson Doud. The Doud family later moved to Colorado, eventually settling in Denver. Mamie attended local public schools and graduated from the Wolcott School, a private school for girls in 1915. That fall she met Second Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower,
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Bio
Barbara Bush
Rarely had a first lady been greeted by the American people and the press with the approbation and warmth accorded to Barbara Pierce Bush. Perhaps this was prompted by the image she called "everybody's grandmother." People were comfortable with her white hair, her warm, relaxed manner, and her keen wit. With characteristic directness, she said people liked her because they
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Bio
Helen Taft
As “the only unusual incident” of her girlhood, “Nellie” Herron Taft recalled her visit to the White House at 17 as the guest of President and Mrs. Hayes, intimate friends of her parents. Fourth child of Harriet Collins and John W. Herron, born in 1861, she had grown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, attending a private school in the city and studying music with ent