The “American Resolve” Behind the Scenes
On the morning of September 12, 2001, hundreds of men and women showed their badges at the White House gates as they reported to work.
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On the morning of September 12, 2001, hundreds of men and women showed their badges at the White House gates as they reported to work.
A state dinner honoring a visiting head of government or reigning monarch is one of the grandest and most glamorous of White House affairs. It is part of an official state visit and provides the president and first lady the opportunity to honor the visiting head of state and his or her spouse. It is a courtesy, an expression of
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
Social functions at the Ulysses S. Grant White House attracted so many visitors that the Red, Blue, and Green parlors became extremely hot and stuffy. For this reason, a special ventilation system was added to circulate the air. Exactly how the system worked is not known, but it was operated from the ceiling by a pair of long tasseled cords-like
Saint John’s Episcopal Church on President’s Square pleased its architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, almost to excess. Trained in England, Latrobe (1764–1820) immigrated to the United States in 1796 impassioned with republican ideals. He became the first American architect of truly international stature, and he struggled to introduce the architectural profession to the new democratic republic. He worked on many of its mo
The 1850s saw many improvements and expansions to the mansion's existing conveniences. By this time many Americans who had gaslight wondered how they had ever lived without it. President Zachary Taylor ordered an enlargement of the gas system into the White House's offices, family quarters, and basement. Millard Fillmore determined that the house should be comfortable in any season and
President John Quincy Adams was an avid gardener who expanded the White House garden to two acres. An iron garden pump with "nine spout holes" was attached to a well at the Treasury building and provided water for the grounds. The Committee on Public Buildings discussed piping running water into the house in 1829 for fire protection, not convenience. President James
William Wilson Corcoran—banker, philanthropist, and patron of the arts—resided in picturesque splendor on the northwest corner of Lafayette Park at the intersection of H Street and Connecticut Avenue, NW, from 1848 to 1888. The son of an Irish immigrant, Corcoran made his fortune in banking. As a partner in Washington’s Corcoran & Riggs Bank during the Mexican War, he was re
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
Late in James K. Polk’s presidency, his wife Sarah Childress Polk received an unusual gift that implicitly equated expansionism with imperialism. As a tribute to President Polk’s success as commander in chief during the Mexican-American War, General William J. Worth gave the first lady a life-size, three-quarter-length portrait of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.1 Copied from the un
By the summer of 1946, President Harry S. Truman needed a vacation. Catapulted into the presidency by the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945, the former vice president had presided over the end of World War II that spring and summer and the uneasy peace that followed. During that time, U.S. relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated as
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