This photograph of the Grand Staircase was taken in January 1972 by Nelson Brown, Victor Boswell, and Robert S. Oakes during the administration of Richard M. Nixon. The Grand Staircase connects the Second Floor and family quarters of the White House with the State Floor and Entrance Hall below. During official occasions such as State Dinners, the president descends the staircase with honored guests while the United States Marine Band plays "Hail to the Chief." There have been five Grand Staircases since the White House was built, including two located in this alcove. The first was built during the 1902 Theodore Roosevelt renovations. The second, seen here, during the Harry S. Truman renovations of 1948-1952. Truman took particular interest to redesign the staircase into the two long, descending sets of stairs.
Born to parents Elliott T. Lane and Jane Buchanan Lane on May 9, 1830, in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, Harriet Lane lost both of her parents by eleven. Jane’s brother, then-Senator James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, became Harriet’s legal guardian. Harriet attended boarding school, first in Pennsylvania and later in Virginia and Washington, D.C., and lived with her uncle at his Wheatland esta
Most Americans have never heard of Harriet Lane, but at the time of her uncle James Buchanan’s presidency, she was the White House hostess, a friend to Queen Victoria, namesake to “societies, ships of war, [and] neck-ties,” “First Lady of the Land,” and a national celebrity.1 How, then, have Americans forgotten her?
First ladies hold a unique place in American history. The collection of first ladies' gowns and artifacts remains one of the most popular exhibitions, visited by millions of annual visitors at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C..1 First ladies are the focus of documentaries, podcasts, books, and scholarly works that examine their lives and contributions
Article 2 Section 1 of the United States Constitution begins with the following: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”1 This passage goes on to define the length of the president’s term; how the president will be elected; citizenship and age requirements; presidential succession; compensation; and finally, the presidential oath that all chief execut
By the fall of 1860, the Buchanan administration seemed headed for a tense but dramatic conclusion. Earlier that year, President James Buchanan had pointedly declined the renomination, exhausted by a fractured relationship with Congress and last minute attempts to quash talk of southern states’ secession from the union. He believed that his best efforts at reconciliation between states’ rights activists and abol