Collection Animal Ambassadors
Animals, whether pampered household pets, working livestock, birds, squirrels, or strays, have long been a major part of White House...
Main Content
Unique among first ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only president who never married. James Buchanan was her favorite uncle and her guardian after she was orphaned at the age of eleven. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her 20s.
She was born in 1830 in the rich farming country of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Her uncle supervised her sound education in private school, completed by two years at the Visitation Convent in Georgetown. By this time "Nunc" was secretary of state, and he introduced her to fashionable circles. In 1854 she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James's. Queen Victoria gave "dear Miss Lane" the rank of ambassador's wife; admiring suitors gave her the fame of a beauty.
"Hal" Lane enlivened social gatherings with a mixture of spontaneity and poise. After the sadness of the Pierce administration, the capital welcomed its "Democratic Queen" in 1857. Harriet Lane filled the White House with gaiety and flowers, and guided its social life with enthusiasm and discretion, winning national popularity.
As sectional tensions increased, she sat formal dinner parties with care, giving dignitaries proper precedence while keeping political foes apart. Her task became impossible. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office. He thankfully returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous beaux, but waited until she was almost 36 to marry. Within the next 18 years she faced one sorrow after another: the loss of her uncle, her two fine young sons, and her husband.
She decided to live in Washington, among friends made during happier years. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903, it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her the "First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts."
Harriet also dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became an outstanding pediatric facility, and its reputation is a fitting memorial to the young lady who presided at the White House with such dignity and charm. The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today.
Animals, whether pampered household pets, working livestock, birds, squirrels, or strays, have long been a major part of White House...
Biographies & Portraits
Biographies & Portraits
Quite naturally, shy Lieutenant Grant lost his heart to friendly Julia Dent, and made his love known, as he later...
Letitia Tyler had been confined to an invalid's chair for two years when her husband unexpectedly became president. After taking...
Born in 1820, Julia Gardiner by the age of 20 was already famous as the "Rose of Long Island." Descended from prominent...
Christened Claudia Alta Taylor when she was born in near Karnack, Texas, in 1912, she received her nickname as a small...
Cousins in a close-knit Dutch community, Hannah Hoes and Martin Van Buren grew up together in Kinderhook, New York. They...
Martin Van Buren never remarried after his wife, Hannah, died on February 5, 1819. He entered the White House in 1837 as a...
First of the first ladies to hold a job after marriage, Abigail Fillmore was helping her husband's career. She was...
Born Thelma Catherine Ryan on March 16, 1912, in Ely, Nevada, "Pat" Nixon acquired her nickname within hours. Her father called her...
"My life really began when I married my husband," says Nancy Reagan, who happily left an acting career for a...