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Speeches in the White House
When the president gives an address, not only does what the president say matter, but also where. Given the iconic nature of the White House, the president uses certain rooms to demonstrate the nature of the speech. Two of the most popular locations for president speeches and addresses are the Oval Office and the East Room. The Oval Office serves
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A Very Hoover Holiday
Christmas of 1929 was a snowy season in the nation’s capital. President Herbert Hoover and First Lady Lou Hoover planned to celebrate the holidays without their family, including their grandchildren Peggy Ann and Peter who lived in California. The grandchildren were Herbert and Lou’s pride and joy, and Mrs. Hoover shopped around town at the “five and dime stores” to buy g
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The Revolutionary Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson
Nearly two decades after his election to the presidency, Thomas Jefferson elaborated on the significance of this triumph to his friend Spencer Roane. The “revolution of 1800,” he wrote, “was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 76.” This transformation was “not effected indeed by the sword…but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage
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Inauguration of 1861
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed soon after. In the midst of an unprecedented sectional crisis, President Abraham Lincoln entered office on March 4, 1861, to assume leadership of an anxious and worried nation. The Baltimore Sun commented that the “close of an old and the beginning of a new administration of
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A Duke at the White House
President Richard Nixon appreciated the cultural significance of music and how its composition encouraged creativity and self-reflection. In his memoirs Nixon noted that “playing the piano is a way of expressing oneself that is perhaps even more fulfilling than writing or speaking. . . I think that to create great music is one of the highest aspirations man can set for himself.”1 On A
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African Americans Enter Abraham Lincoln's White House, 1863-1865
The New Years’ Day reception became a White House tradition with President John Adams in 1801 and ended with President Herbert Hoover in 1932. A gala social occasion that attracted the interest of dignitaries, journalists and the general public, it eventually generated crowds of several thousand people who crashed the White House gates for a glimpse of the president or, best of al
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The Life of Eugene Allen
Eugene Allen served in the White House for 34 years. Assisting eight presidents, Allen’s top priority was to make the White House a comfortable residence for each chief executive and his family. Allen was born in 1919 on a plantation farm near Scottsville in central Virginia.1 During his youth, he worked as a waiter at a resort in Virginia and at a
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Martha Johnson Patterson: Hostess of the Andrew Johnson White House
Of her family’s role in the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Martha Johnson Patterson, daughter of President Andrew Johnson, admitted, “We are plain people, from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity.”1 One of the five children of President Andrew Johnson and First Lady Eliza McCardle Johnson, Martha
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A Widower's Hostess
When President Martin Van Buren assumed office on March 4th, 1837, there was no woman to assume the role of first lady. His wife, Hannah Van Buren, had contracted an illness and died in February 1819, years before he took office.1 President Van Buren hired staff to serve in the absence of a White House hostess. Census records from 1840 list the numerous
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Pioneering Women of the Woodrow Wilson White House, 1913-1921
American women did not yet possess the right to vote when Woodrow Wilson was elected to his first term in office as President of the United States on November 5, 1912. Despite the efforts of suffrage activists, there was little reason to hope that they would attain that right anytime soon. Although he was an intellectual and a man of high ideals,
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Arts Advisors in the Kennedy White House
President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s advocacy for the performing arts endures as a vital part of the Kennedy White House legacy. From 1961 to 1963, the White House became a focal point for arts and culture as the administration hosted numerous concerts and performances. One of the most significant White House concerts during the Kennedy years took pl
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The Arts in the Kennedy White House
Historians of American music, art, and dance often explore their subjects through different topical categories such as genres, schools, and periods. This approach involves studying the individuals and groups responsible for various trends, fashions, and styles. It also means examining how these contributions broadly shaped American culture and artistic expression. Presidential historians tend to focus extensively on a respective administration,