Presidents
Scholarship
At Work in the Lincoln White House
William Johnson accompanied Abraham Lincoln on the journey from Illinois to Washington, where Lincoln would take the helm of a nation engulfed in crisis. Lincoln hoped Johnson, who was African American, would work as his personal attendant in the White House, but the existing staff had other ideas. They refused to work with Johnson, an outsider with a particularly dark
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Donald Trump
Scholarship
The Life and Presidency of Harry S. Truman
The White House Historical Association’s 2018 White House Christmas Ornament honors Harry S. Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States. This ornament is designed to illustrate three significant changes made by President Truman during his administration, one to the Presidential Seal, and two to the White House itself. One side of the ornament features his celebrated Truman Balcony, added in
Scholarship
Enslaved and Entrenched
Elias Polk was born into slavery in 1806 on a farm owned by Samuel Polk, father of the future president of the United States, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Later that year, Elias moved with the Polk family west to Tennessee, where they settled on land near Spring Hill (about 40 miles south of Nashville).1 In 1824, newlyweds James and Sarah Polk were
Scholarship
Mr. Churchill in the White House
On December 13, 1941, six days after the “infamy” of Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill boarded the battleship Duke of York bound for America—and the White House. The British prime minister did not return to London until January 17, 1942, and this wartime visit to confer with President Franklin Roosevelt established Churchill’s own “special relationship” with the Executive Mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was no longe