Thanksgiving at the White House
Thanksgiving at the White House is a quiet holiday for the presidents family, featuring a meal that traditionally included turkey,...
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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...
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The President and His Steward Meet with a Calamity
John Quincy Adams hired Antoine Michel Giusta as his valet after they met in Belgium in 1814. Giusta was a deserter...
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The White House, Lafayette Square and African Americans
To imagine what it was like here when the White House was being constructed in the 1790s, erase everything else...
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Tayloe House
Five hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents. According to the records of the District of Columbia that is the...
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St. John's Church
Every president since James Madison has attended services at St. John's Church. This distinctive yellow church was the second building...
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Rodgers House and Belasco Theater
The Rodgers HouseThe Rodgers House, formerly at 717 Madison Place, was constructed in 1831 by Commodore John Rodgers, a high-ranking naval officer....
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Self-emancipation in Lafayette Park
In 1810 an enslaved woman named Alethia “Lethe” Tanner purchased her freedom with $275 dollars she had earned selling vegetables in the area...
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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...
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Three Ushers Foil an Assassin
Thomas F. Pendel was a White House doorman from the Abraham Lincoln administration to the turn of the 20th century....
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712 Jackson Place
Many people know the sensational story of Congressman Daniel Sickles who shot his wife's lover in broad daylight in 1859 on...
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The Electric Career of Ike Hoover
A group of physicians and surgeons meeting in Washington 1891 was treated to a reception at the White House on the...