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2015 Official White House Christmas Ornament
The White House Historical Association commissions the official White House Christmas ornament each year. This is the 35th ornament in the series begun in 1981. The ornament honors 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and the first National Christmas Tree lighting in 1923. This is the first ornament to contain technology. A small LED light bulb integrated into the design illuminates the
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Sourcing the White House Turkey
Horace Vose (1840-1913) the Poultry King from Westerly on Rhode Islands southwestern shore, was a national figure in the late 19th and early 20th century, known as the man who annually provided the finest turkeys in the land for the first families Thanksgiving and Christmas table. Vose began raising turkeys with his uncle in the mid-1850s and in 1873 sent
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White House Ghost Stories
1862-1863: Mary Todd Lincoln, grieving over her son Willies death in February, began to participate in spirit circles or seances in the Red Room at the White House and the presidential cottage at the Soldiers Home. Spiritualism was wildly popular during the height of the Civil War as families sought comfort for the loss of loved ones. 1901-1904: Jeremiah Jerry
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Booker T. Washington Visits the White House
Theodore Roosevelt became president after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. The early months of his administration were a tense period of trial and error as Roosevelt had not been elected president. Fond of dinners as a means of entertaining, the Roosevelts held them nearly every night over the last few months of 1901 and constructed the guest lists with
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Frederick Douglass
The son of an enslaved woman and an unknown white man, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore. He was enslaved for twenty years in city households in Baltimore and on Maryland farms. In 1838, he fled north and changed his name to Frederick Douglass.Douglass was highly active in the abolitionist movement and became
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First Lady Hoover's Tea Party with Mrs. De Priest Creates a Stir
Oscar De Priest’s election to Congress as a Republican representative from Chicago in 1928 created an interesting political and social dilemma for the White House. De Priest was the only black to serve in Congress during his three terms (1928-1935). Even before De Priest took his seat in 1929, Washington buzzed about the arrival of a black congressman and what this me
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The Butler's Role at a State Dinner with Royal Visitors
Prior to the 1939 visit of the queen and king of England, Eleanor Roosevelt received a State Department memorandum, listing various rules of protocol. Mrs. Roosevelt became concerned about the order in which the Roosevelts, and the queen and king, should be served at the state dinner honoring the royal couple.1"I told Franklin," Mrs. Roosevelt recalled, "that British protocol required
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The White House Usher on the Role of Television
"Largely through television," notes historian William Seale, the White House "is the best known house in the world, the instantly familiar symbol of the Presidency, flashed daily on millions and millions of TV screens everywhere."1J. B. West was Assistant Chief Usher at the White House from 1941 to 1957, and Chief Usher from 1957 to 1969. During the Eisenhower administration, West had an
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Our Locations
The White House Historical Association Offices740 Jackson Place, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006For mailing please use: P.O. Box 27624 Washington, D.C. 20038
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White House Visitor Center
In July 2012, the National Park Service’s White House Visitor Center began undergoing a $12.6 million revitalization through a public-private partnership with the White House Historical Association. The Association's donation of $12.5 million for the project and operating endowment helped make this extraordinary public resource possible. David M. Rubenstein's gift of $5 million to the Association for the White House Visitor Center ensures ce
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The White House and the Movies
Read Digital EditionForeword, William SealePresidents and First Ladies in the Movies: Presence, Personality, and Power, Ron J. KellerPresidential Stardust: Fame, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity, Amy HendersonSets and Locations: The White House Re-Created, Diane LedermanD.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation": An Early "Blockbuster" Visits the White House, Elise K. KirkMovie Stars at the Dinner Table, William SealeWhite
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The First Ladies
Read Digital EditionForeword, William SealeThe Office of the First Lady: Managing Public Duties, Private Lives, and Changing Expectations, Anita B. McBrideThe Lady Bird Special: The Power of a Whistle-stop Campaign, Linda J. HoldenFirst Lady Lou Henry Hoover and the First White House Catalog, Elizabeth DinschelWhite House Furnishings, Prepared for Lou Henry Hoover by Dare Stark McMullin, December 1932Mary Lincoln: A