Main Content
Elizabeth McDuffie (fourth from left) at first anniversary event of United Government Employees, 1937. McDuffie, a maid in the Roosevelt White House, served as a liaison between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activists. McDuffie also energetically campaigned for Roosevelt in 1936 and 1940. With Mrs. Roosevelt’s apparent blessing, she was a leader in the United Government Employees, a union with a special following among lower-paid workers.
Robert W. Woodruff Library
Notification of Personnel Action, 1948. Longtime chief butler and maître d’ Alonzo Fields received a raise of $330 (or 12.6 percent) in his annual salary. Fields helped ensure that White House employees received compensatory time off when they worked more than eight hours a day.
Mayland Fields
Book cover, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, 1961. Parks' memoir was adapted for an NBC television mini-series, Backstairs at the White House, in 1979. Parks began working as a maid and seamstress during the Hoover administration in 1929 and remained at the White House until 1960, nearly to the end of the Eisenhower administration. She and President Franklin D. Roosevelt shared a special bond because both had contracted polio.
Fleet Publishing
Book cover, My 21 Years in the White House, 1961, by Alonzo Fields. When Fields first started working at the White House in 1931, he discovered there were “separate dining rooms—black and white. We all worked together, but we couldn’t eat together. . . . Here in the White House, I’m working for the President. This is the home of the democracy of the world and I’m good enough to handle the President’s food—to handle the President’s food and do everything—but I cannot eat with the [white] help.”
Coward-McCann
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and White House staff, 1963. Taken at John F. Kennedy Jr.’s third birthday party, on December 6, 1963, this photograph reflects the racial diversity of the White House staff. (The boy’s actual birthday, November 25, 1963, was the date of his father’s funeral.)
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum/NARA
Backstairs at the White House TV mini-series still, 1979. In the mini-series, Lillian Rogers Parks’ mother, Maggie Rogers, was played by Olivia Cole, with (left to right) Leslie Nielsen as Chief Usher Ike Hoover and Robert Vaughn as President Woodrow Wilson.
Ed Friendly Trust and National Broadcasting CompanyAbout this Gallery
Twentieth-century historical forces and social movements left their marks on the working White House. In 1900, nearly 87,000 inhabitants (almost a third of the population) of Washington, D.C., were black, forming the largest urban community of African Americans anywhere in the United States. However, racial segregation, as a formal policy, was endorsed and enforced in the Taft White House (1909-13), and remained an accepted household management practice for many decades. World Wars I and II depleted the White House residence staff as workers were called up for military service. The Great Depression meant tight wages, and war rationing affected the types of meals prepared for the First Family.
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have demonstrated a profound knowledge of protocol and society in Washington, D.C. The position had its beginnings in the Theodore Roosevelt administration when First Lady Edith Roosevelt hired an executive clerk. From the intricacies of ceremony planning to routine office work, the social secretary must possess unfailing tact in
For more than two centuries, the White House has been the home of American presidents. A powerful symbol of the nation, it is a uniquely private and public space. Since John and Abigail Adams first moved into the “President’s House” in November 1800, hundreds of individuals have worked behind the scenes to help the White House fulfill its roles as a seat
The White House Military Social Aides have played an important role in many different White House events and functions. They have assisted the President with diplomatic protocol at State events, at annual meetings with the leaders of Congress and the Federal Judiciary, and at other significant social events. Military Social Aides play the role of assistant hosts at the White
While the presidency is often in the eye of the public, those who ensure operations at the White House run smoothly on a day-to-day basis often carry out their work behind the scenes. Furthermore, some of the president's most intimate relationships play out behind the walls of the Executive Mansion. In this collection, pull back the curtain on some of
