Collection The Working White House
For more than two centuries, the White House has been the home of American presidents. A powerful symbol of the...
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First Lady Rosalynn Carter opens gifts from staff, 1977. When the Carters celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary, White House staff surprised them with the gift of a silver tray. From left: President Jimmy Carter, nursemaid Mary Fitzpatrick holding James Earl Carter IV, butler Eugene Allen, chef Henry Haller, butler Alfred Saenz, and maid Julia M. Sanders, with First Lady Rosalynn Carter and daughter, Amy, in front.
Jeff CarterFrankie Blair and Susan Ford wash the Fords’ golden retriever, Liberty, 1974.
David Hume Kennerly, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum/NARAFirst Lady Barbara Bush with White House chefs at Christmas, 1992. White House pastry chefs Franette McCulloch (left) and Roland Mesnier pose with First Lady Barbara Bush in front of the elaborate gingerbread house they made for the holiday season.
George Bush Presidential Library and Museum/NARAQuentin Roosevelt and Roswell Pinckney seated on the White House steps in 1902. Theodore Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, enjoyed playing with Roswell, the son of steward Henry Pinckney. Quentin Roosevelt was killed in aerial combat during World War I. Roswell Pinckney worked for the U.S. State Department from 1917 until his retirement in 1960.
Library of CongressWinnie Monroe with the Hayes children, c. 1877. Winnie Monroe worked as a cook and nurse in the White House during the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential CenterInkwell, c. 1901. Prizefighter Robert Fitzsimmons, a close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, had been trained as a blacksmith and enjoyed using his talents to create small mementos. He made this silver inkwell for the president, who in turn presented it as a souvenir to his trusted valet, James Amos. Amos counted it among his treasures for many years, eventually donating it to the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace in New York.
Lent by Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic SiteTip envelope, c. 1948. It was a longstanding White House tradition for workers to receive a gratuity from the first family at Christmas. Alonzo Fields recalled that President and Mrs. Hoover would give each employee “an autographed picture and an envelope with a crisp new $5 bill for servants of the lower bracket, and larger amounts for those of the higher brackets.” The size of the tip President Truman presented to Fields in this envelope is not known.
Lent by Mayland FieldsAbout this Gallery
In the day-to-day life of the White House, interactions between the first family and the residence staff have varied widely. Theodore Roosevelt’s children counted on valet James Amos to umpire their baseball games. Lynda and Luci Johnson baked cookies in the White House kitchen. Mamie Eisenhower invited workers and their children to the Eisenhower farm in Pennsylvania; and many presidents and first ladies have hosted holiday parties for staff families. Whereas the Hoovers preferred that workers not use the elevator, Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited Lillian Rogers Parks, also a polio victim, to ride with him in the lift.
For more than two centuries, the White House has been the home of American presidents. A powerful symbol of the...
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have demonstrated a profound knowledge of protocol and society in...
President Andrew Jackson was a slaveholder who brought a large household of slave domestics with him from Tennessee to the...
Animals -- whether pampered household pets, working livestock, birds, squirrels, or strays -- have long been a major part of...
A group of physicians and surgeons meeting in Washington 1891 was treated to a reception at the White House on the...
Thomas F. Pendel was a White House doorman from the Abraham Lincoln administration to the turn of the 20th century....
1862-1863: Mary Todd Lincoln, grieving over her son Willies death in February, began to participate in spirit circles or seances...
John Quincy Adams hired Antoine Michel Giusta as his valet after they met in Belgium in 1814. Giusta was a deserter...
For most of the 19th century, the structure of the White House staff remained generally the same. At the top...
White House staff who lived at the President’s House during the nineteenth century, including enslaved and free African Americans, us...
Prior to the 1939 visit of the queen and king of England, Eleanor Roosevelt received a State Department memorandum, listing various...
The whole family [of President Theodore Roosevelt] were fiends when it came to reading. No newspapers. Never a moment was...