About Our Authors

Authors

JAMES ARCHER ABBOTT is currently the executive director at Wright’s Ferry Mansion in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Abbott has served as director of Johns Hopkins University’s Evergreen Museum & Library, curator of American and European decorative arts for the Baltimore Museum of Art, and curator and educator for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Boscobel House and Gardens, and Historic Hudson Valley. His publications include Jansen, Jansen Furniture, and Baltimore’s Billy Baldwin.

The late LONNELLE AIKMAN was the author of the first edition of The Living White House. Her other books included We the People: The Story of the United States Capitol, Rider with Destiny: George Washington, and George Washington: Man and Monument.

WILLIAM C. ALLEN was the architectural historian in the office of the Architect of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., from 1982 to 2010. His research supported restoration projects and has appeared in articles, lectures, exhibits, and books. He authored History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics and contributed to Tudor Place: America’s Story Lives Here.

WILLIAM G. ALLMAN is the former curator of the White House, having retired from the office in 2017 after forty years. He coauthored Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House and Furnishing the White House: The Decorative Arts Collection. He contributed to The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families, The White House: An Historic Guide and Official White House China: From the 18th to the 21st Centuries.

MARCIA MALLET ANDERSON is chief publishing officer at the White House Historical Association, where she has served for more than twenty-five years. She is the editor of White House History Quarterly, the co-author of The Official White House Christmas Ornament: Collected Stories of a Holiday Tradition, and has produced more than one hundred titles for the Association.

LISA B. AUEL was on the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration Exhibit Branch. She is the author of Tokens and Treasures: Gifts to Twelve Presidents, the catalog accompanying the exhibition at the National Archives.

ELAINE RICE BACHMANN is the state archivist and commissioner of land patents at the Maryland State Archives and secretary of the State House Trust. Previously, Bachmann served as curator and director of the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property. She has written extensively about Maryland’s State House, Government House, and the state-owned art collection.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS is a historian specializing in the American presidency. He is the author of multiple editions of The Presidents of the United States of America. He has written several critically acclaimed books, and serves on the board of the White House Historical Association.

ALLIDA M. BLACK was the author of multiple editions of The First Ladies of the United States of America. She is the managing director of the Allenswood Group LLC, research professor of history and international affairs at The George Washington University, and editor emeritus of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project. Her other books include Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism and the reissue of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Tomorrow is Now.

DOREEN BOLGER was the director of the Baltimore Museum of Art for seventeen years before retiring in 2015. She contributed to Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride.

LESLIE L. BUHLER served as executive director of Tudor Place Historic House and Garden from 2000 to 2015. Prior to Tudor Place, Buhler worked at the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She edited Tudor Place: America’s Story Lives Here.

ABBY CLOUSE-RADIGAN is a librarian and scholar with a strong background in anthropology and literary studies. She has taught at the California Polytechnic State University and Wesleyan University, and served as a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. She also worked as a production manager for books at the White House Historical Association. Her book, Official Residences Around the World, was released in 2018.

MATTHEW R. COSTELLO is the Chief Education Officer for the White House Historical Association. He previously worked on the George Washington Bibliography Project for the George Washington Papers at the University of Virginia. His books include The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President and a chapter in James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House. Costello also teaches White House history at American University.

DAVID PARK CURRY is the former senior curator of American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts at the Baltimore Museum of Art. He contributed to Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride.

MARGARET LESLIE DAVIS is the author of Mona Lisa in Camelot: How Jacqueline Kennedy and da Vinci’s Masterpiece Charmed and Captivated a Nation, published by the White House Historical Association in print, audio, and digital editions. The Association’s edition, enhanced and expanded with items from the archives of the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was first published in 2018. Davis is a California lawyer and graduate of Georgetown University.

JAMES TERTIUS DE KAY is the author of numerous naval histories, including The Rebel Raiders, Monitor, and Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian. Excerpts from his title, A Rage for Glory: The Life of Commodore Stephen Decatur, USN, was included in The Stephen Decatur House: A History published by the White House Historical Association.

The late DAVID HERBERT DONALD was the Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of American Civilization Emeritus at Harvard University. He twice received the Pulitzer Prize in Biography: in 1961 for Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War, and in 1988 for Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. His books on Lincoln received numerous honors, including the prestigious Lincoln Prize. His Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Lincoln’s Domestic Life was published by the White House Historical Association.

The late MICHAEL FAZIO was an architect and architectural historian and worked as an architectural preservation consultant in the southeast region. He taught at the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University from 1974 to 2005 where he was later an emeritus professor. His articles appeared in the Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, Arris, Journal of Architectural Education, White House History, Alabama Heritage, and Classicist, among others. He was a coauthor of Buildings Across Time: An Introduction to World Architecture, The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and The Stephen Decatur House: A History, and author of Landscape of Transformations: Architecture and Birmingham, Alabama.

The late JAMES GOODE was a noted Washington, D.C. historian. He was the author of Best Addresses: A Century of Washington’s Distinguished Apartment Houses, Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington’s Destroyed Buildings, and Capital Views: Historic Photographs of Washington, D.C., Alexandria and Loudon County, Virginia, and Frederick County, Maryland.

HAROLD HOLZER is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. A prolific writer and lecturer, he chaired the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. His book Lincoln At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004) won the Lincoln Prize. He wrote the introduction to the White House Historical Association’s edition of Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln.

JOHN HUTTON is a professor of art history at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has written and illustrated several children’s books, including Alphababel: An Illustrated Tower of Languabets and the Sister Maus series. He is the illustrator of a series of award-winning children’s books published by the White House Historical Association, and the author and illustrator of How to Draw the Presidents.

MERLO KELLY is a design fellow in the School of Architecture, University College Dublin, and Grade 1 Conservation Architect with Lotts Architecture & Urbanism. Kelly’s research on Dublin’s architectural history has been widely disseminated in publications and lectures. Her recent books include An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of Dublin North City, and the three-volume More Than Concrete Blocks: Dublin City’s Twentieth Century Buildings and Their Stories. She wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House.

ELISE K. KIRK is an award-winning author, lecturer, and musicologist, whose articles have appeared in Opera News, White House History Quarterly, The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth Century Opera, and numerous other publications. Her books include American Opera and Music at the White House: From the 18th to the 21st Centuries, which won the distinguished ASCAP / Deems Taylor Award among others. As a presidential appointee, Dr. Kirk served on the National Advisory Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is a director emeritus of the White House Historical Association.

The late MARGARET BROWN KLAPTHOR was curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s First Ladies collection. She was later curator of the Division of Political History of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. She was the author of the first edition of Official White House China and several editions of The First Ladies of the United States of America.

WILLIAM KLOSS has written about the collections of the White House, the U.S. Senate, the State Department Diplomatic Reception Rooms, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. An independent art historian, he has served on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House since 1990. He is the author of Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride, and has contributed to White House History.

The late LAWRENCE KNUTSON was a journalist who retired in 2002 after a 37-year career with the Associated Press, where he covered Congress, the State Department, presidential campaigns, and the presidential administrations from Lyndon B. Johnson through George W. Bush. Knutson’s interest in the historical background of the news he reported led to his regular column centered on the history of Washington, D.C. He was the author of Away from the White House: Presidential Escapes, Retreats and Vacations and a contributor to White House History Quarterly.

OSBORNE PHINIZY MACKIE is a lawyer and an appraiser of fine and decorative arts antiques at Mackie-West Appraisals in Alexandria, Virginia. He has been on the advisory council at Woodlawn Plantation and the Pope-Leighey House and was the founding executive director and director emeritus of Tudor Place Historic House and Gardens in Georgetown. He contributed to The Stephen Decatur House: A History published by the White House Historical Association.

KATHERINE MALONE-FRANCE is currently the president of The Better Angels Society. Previously, she was the chief preservation officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She has also served as director of collections and programs at Decatur House. She contributed to The Stephen Decatur House: A History published by the White House Historical Association.

KRISTEN HUNTER MASON was previously the senior editorial and production manager at the White House Historical Association. She wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House and is a co-author of The Official White House Christmas Ornament: Collected Stories of a Holiday Tradition.

GIOVANNA McBRIDE was born and raised in Washington D.C., and is currently a student at Texas Christian University. From the age of four, Giovanna often visited the White House, where her mother, Anita McBride., served as chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush. Giovanna wrote about her experiences visiting the White House in Gigi at the White House.

ANDREW McCARTHY is an independent historian and scholar of architectural history, with a particular focus on James Hoban’s career in the United States and Ireland. He wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House, and lives in Tallahassee.

STEWART D. McLAURIN is president of the White House Historical Association. His career spans the non-profit, education, and public policy fields. Over the past 30 years, he has held senior positions with George Washington’s Mount Vernon, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Motion Picture Association, Georgetown University, American Red Cross, and the Federal Government. He is the author of White House Miscellany, James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House, and the children’s book, The White House: Designed by James Joban, Built by Many Hands, all published by the White House Historical Association.

The late ROLAND MESNIER was head pastry chef at the White House from 1979 to 2004. During his twenty-five year tenure, he served five United States presidents and their distinguished guests. He has been recognized by the international press, television and radio. He was featured in the 1996 National Geographic documentary “Inside the White House,” as well as dozens of other documentaries and interviews by filmmakers and journalists around the world. He is the author of A Sweet World of White House Desserts: From Blown Sugar Baskets to Gingerbread Houses; All the Presidents’ Pastries: Twenty-Five Years in the White House, A Memoir; Roland Mesnier’s Basic to Beautiful Cakes; Dessert University: More Than 300 Spectacular Recipes and Essential Lessons From White House Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier; and coauthored with Mark Ramsdell The White House in Gingerbread: Memories and Recipes; White House Cookies; and The Gingerbread White House: A Pop-Up Book. His most recent book, Creating the Sweet World of White House Desserts: Secrets from a Pastry Chef’s Kitchen, was released by the White House Historical Association in 2019.

BETTY C. MONKMAN served more than thirty years in the Office of the Curator, the White House, retiring as chief curator in 2002. She contributed to Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride, and is the author of The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families and Life in the White House, as well as coauthor of Furnishing the White House: The Decorative Arts Collection. She was the managing editor of the fiftieth anniversary edition of The White House: An Historic Guide.

CHRISTOPHER MORAN is chairman of Co-operation Ireland, a peace-building charity that promotes peace and reconciliation under the joint patronage of the Crown and the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins. An entrepreneur and public figure, Dr. Moran has a strong commitment to national heritage, arts, health and wellbeing, faith, and international relations. He wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House.

MELISSA C. NAULIN is the associate curator of decorative arts in the Office of the Curator, White House, where she has served since 2003. She coauthored Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House, as well as Furnishing the White House: The Decorative Arts Collection, and is a regular contributor to White House History Quarterly.

BRIAN O’CONNELL is a founder of O’Connell Mahon Architects in Dublin. He was elected to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland in 1970 and served as its president from 1991 to 1992. He wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House.

PATRICIA MARIE O’DONNELL is a landscape architect and planner. She is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners. She contributed to Tudor Place: America’s Story Lives Here.

FINOLA O’KANE is professor in architecture at University College Dublin. Her research into the designed landscape history of Ireland and of the Atlantic world has been widely published. Her books Landscape Design in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Mixing Foreign Trees with the Natives and Ireland and the Picturesque: Design, Landscape Painting and Tourism in Ireland, 1700–1840 were both awarded the J. B. Jackson Book Prize by the American Foundation for Landscape Studies. She also advises on the design and conservation of many of Ireland’s key landscapes. She wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House.

JONATHAN PLISKA is a landscape historian and author of A Garden for the President: A History of the White House Grounds and a number of children’s books. He has written and edited Cultural Landscapes Inventories for the National Park Service, including one for the Ellipse, and he documented the Civil War military earthworks that once surrounded Washington. His interest in historic gardens combines with biography and social history. Pliska lives, writes, and plants a garden of his own in Baltimore County, Maryland.

MARK RAMSDELL has been a pastry chef and instructor for more than thirty years. Chef Ramsdell worked at the White House as pastry assistant to Chef Mesnier during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. He is coauthor of The White House Gingerbread: Memories and Recipes and The Gingerbread White House: A Pop-Up Book. He now researches nautical cooking and continues to develop instructional texts on large gingerbread showpieces, architectural pastillage and petits gâteaux. His most recent book, Creating the Sweet World of White House Desserts: Secrets from a Pastry Chef's Kitchen, was released by the White House Historical Association in 2019.

FREDERICK J. RYAN JR. leads the newly formed nonpartisan Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. He was previously the publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, and served in a senior staff position in the Ronald Reagan White House and as Reagan’s post-presidential chief of staff. He is chair of the Wine Committee of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., and the author of Wine and the White House: A History.

The late WILLIAM SEALE was an American historian and author whose work focused on historical writing and the restoration of historic American buildings, notably state capitols. An independent author since 1965, he wrote extensively on the White House and participated in the restoration of many state capitols. He was the founding editor of White House History Quarterly. He wrote The Imperial Season; The Tasteful Interlude: American Interiors Through the Camera’s Eye; Recreating the Historic House Interior; The Virginia Governor’s Mansion; Temples of Democracy; The State Capitols of the USA, and many other books. With the Association, he provided commentary for At Home in the President’s Neighborhood: A Photographic Tour and authored numerous books including: The President’s House: A History; The White House Garden; The White House: History of an American Idea; An Artist Visits the White House Past; The Night They Burned the White House: The Story of Tom Freeman’s Painting; The White House: An Historic Guide; Blair House: The President’s Guest House; A White House of Stone: Building America’s First Ideal in Architecture; and To Live on Lafayette Square. He wrote a contributing chapter for James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House.

CANDACE SHIREMAN was previously the curator of Blair House, The President’s Guest House. She is the author of To Be Preserved for All Time: The Major and the President Save Blair House.

The late HUGH S. SIDEY was a journalist and Time magazine’s political and White House correspondent. He was chairman of the White House Historical Association board of directors from 2000 to 2003. He was the author of The White House Remembered and many editions of The Presidents of the United States of America.

ARIOTH SMIRNE and her son ROCCO SMIRNE are co-authors of A White House Alphabet, and a number of children’s books. Arioth is the vice president for special events at the White House Historical Association. Rocco was four years old when he first began writing for the White House Historical Association.

The late JANE SHADEL SPILLMAN is the author of White House Glassware: Two Centuries of Presidential Entertaining. From 1978 to 2013 she was curator of American Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York.

LYDIA TEDERICK served more than forty years in the Office of the Curator, the White House, retiring as chief curator in 2023. She has lectured and published articles on the White House Collection and specializes in historic photographs of the Executive Mansion. She is a regular contributor and an editorial adviser to White House History Quarterly.

ERIN KUYKENDALL THOMAS served as curator of collections at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden from 2011 to 2015, and as program director of The George Washington University-Smithsonian Associations M.A. Program in Decorative Arts and Design History for. She contributed to Tudor Place: America’s Story Lives Here.

CONNIE TROUNSTINE is a children’s author based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She teaches Children’s Writing at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Cincinnati and is the author of Fingerprints on the Table.

MATTHEW WENDEL is the author of the cookbook and memoir, Recipes from the President’s Ranch: Food People Like to Eat. From working as an investigator with the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners and the Texas Attorney General’s Office, he made the leap to the White House, the U.S. Department of State, and Blair House. Matthew cooked for the first family during the George W. Bush administration, for world leaders at Camp David and the Bush family’s Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford, Texas, and on staff for the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic.

BRUCE M. WHITE is the author of At Home in the President’s Neighborhood: A Photographic Tour. A fine art and architectural photographer, Bruce served as principal photographer for the sixtieth anniversary edition of The White House: An Historic Guide; The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families; Tudor Place: America’s Story Lives Here; A White House of Stone: Building America’s First Ideal in Architecture; and The Stephen Decatur House: A History. He has contributed to Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride and Blair House: The President’s Guest House, and many issues of White House History Quarterly. Other notable publications include: with James Goode, Capital Houses: The Historic Houses of Washington, D.C., and with Helen C. Evans, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai Egypt: A Photographic Essay.

JOHN WILMERDING is the Sarofim professor of American Art, emeritus, at Princeton University and chairman of the board of trustees of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He contributed to Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride.

Photographers and Artists

GAVIN ASHWORTH is a photographer specializing in fine and decorative arts photography for museums and private collections.

The late TOM FREEMAN was a painter of historical and maritime scenes that have been exhibited in the White House, the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. His work was regularly featured on White House Historical Association holiday cards. He also illustrated The Night They Burned the White House: The Story of Tom Freeman’s Painting.

LISA HELFERT has worked as a photographer in the Washington, D.C. area for over twenty-five years. She has traveled nationally and internationally for her work, which includes portraiture, archaeological photography, athletics, and much more.

MARGARET HUDDY is a painter specializing in watercolor landscapes. She created color interpretations of the flowers used at the weddings of Nellie Grant and Frances Folsom Cleveland for an article in White House History Quarterly. Her artwork has also been featured on White House Historical Association holiday cards and inspired the 2009 Christmas ornament.

MAGGIE KNAUS is a professional photographer and artist who has used many non-traditional photographic processes in her work. She is the principal photographer for The White House: An Illustrated History and contributed to The White House Celebrating Two Hundred Years and several issues of White House History.

The late ROBERT C. LAUTMAN was an architectural photographer and honorary member of the American Institute of Architects. His photograph of the White House as seen from the Jefferson Memorial was a cover for White House History Quarterly. His work appeared in several other issues, and was featured in an article on presidential funerals in White House History Quarterly.

SARAH MAYCOCK is an illustrator based in the South East of England whose watercolor and ink architectural drawing of Blair House and adjacent town houses was featured on the front cover of Blair House: The President’s Guest House. She has completed commissions for the Natural History Museum in London, Roadbook Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Liberty London, as well as fashion design, original architectural and wildlife paintings, and children’s books.

MARTIN RADIGAN has spent more than a decade seeking out and photographing beautiful places. Landscape has always been the favorite subject and primary focus of his work. Radigan’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications. For the White House Historical Association, he was a principal photographer in A White House of Stone: Building America’s First Ideal in Architecture and White House History issue 43.

DURSTON SAYLOR is a photographer who specializes in documenting significant architecture and interiors. Saylor is widely recognized for his twenty-year association with Architectural Digest. He was a principal photographer for the interior photographs published in Blair House: The President’s Guest House.

SANDY SORLIEN has been photographing American landscapes and architecture since 1980. Her work was in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She is now included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and has appeared in such publications as the New York Times and Photo Review. Her photographs are featured in White House History Quarterly.

The late KERRY TALBOTT taught illustration in the Communication Arts department of Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to that, he was a graphics artist for the Richmond News Leader and Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia, specializing in caricatures. He illustrated Fingerprints on the Table: The Story of the White House Treaty Table.

PETER VITALE specializes in interior space, architecture, and lifestyle photography. He has contributed to White House History and The White House: An Historic Guide.

PETER WADDELL is best known for his paintings of the history and architecture of Washington, D.C. An Artist Visits the White House Past, a collection of fourteen paintings commissioned by the White House Historical Association, was on exhibit at the White House Visitor Center from March to November 2011, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalog. His paintings have been featured in many of the Association’s books and White House History.

JAMIE WYETH is a renowned American realist painter from a family of artists. His painting of the White House from the South Lawn in 2000 was commissioned by the White House Historical Association to celebrate the building’s 200th anniversary. It is featured in The White House: Celebrating Two Hundred Years.