North View, Kennedy Administration

This aerial photograph of the White House was taken in May 1962 by George F. Mobley and Bates Littlehales during the administration of John F. Kennedy. This photograph was captured during a session for the cover of the first edition of "The White House: An Historic Guide," released by the White House Historical Association in 1963. The shot was captured atop the ladder of a firetruck situated on Pennsylvania Avenue in Lafayette Park.

Photographer: George F. Mobley, Bates Littlehales
Date of Work: May 1962
Type: Photograph
Credit: White House Historical Association

View in the Digital Library

Page
White House History Table of Contents

NUMBERS 1 THROUGH 6 (COLLECTION I) WHITE HOUSE HISTORY • NUMBER 1 1 — Foreword by Melvin M. Payne 5 — President Kennedy’s Rose Garden by Rachel Lambert Mellon 13 — White House Album: History in the Camera’s Eye by Oliver Jensen 23 — The Association’s Twentieth Year by Nash Castro 29 — History in White House Silver by Joseph D. Carr 39 — Stone Walls Preserved by James I. McDaniel 46 — A Colored Man’s Reminiscences of
Page
The Green Room

James Hoban, the original architect of the President's House, intended that the space now called the "Green Room" be used as a "Common Dining Room." An 1801 inventory revealed that first residents President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams actually used it as a guest bedchamber. However, the next chief executive, Thomas Jefferson, did serve meals in this room. Jefferson
Page
White House Tour

Following a competition for the design of the President's House in the spring of 1792, Irish architect James Hoban was commissioned to build a home and office for the President of the United States. With guidance from President George Washington, Hoban employed craftsmen brought from as far away as Scotland and oversaw a free and enslaved labor force that constructed one
Page
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 you see now on and around Lafayette Square. The park was a field—muddy or dusty, depending on the weather. Enslaved workers who were building the White House were housed in temporary shelters—each about 10 feet wide and 10 feet long—lined
Page
The History of Lafayette Park

Read Digital Edition Foreword, Robert L. BreedenThe Design of Lafayette Park, William SealePresidents and the Potomac, Gilbert GudeA "Dark Horse" in Sunlight and Shadow: Daguerreotypes of President James Polk, Clifford KrainikWhite House Album: The Theodore Roosevelt Years, James M. GoodeThe White House Collection: James Buchanan's White House, Betty C. Monkman Subscribe to White House History
Page
A Mirror on America
Bio
Sarah Polk

Sarah Childress was born to Joel and Elizabeth Childress on September 4, 1803, in Tennessee.1 Her father was a wealthy plantation owner, which led to a privileged upbringing for Sarah and her siblings. She was well educated, studying at Abercrombie’s Boarding School in Nashville and the Moravian Female Academy in Salem, North Carolina.2 Sarah’s father was involved in Tennessee politics and
Bio
James K. Polk

On November 2, 1795, James K. Polk was born in Pineville, North Carolina to Samuel and Jane Polk. The promise of greater economic opportunities and prosperity drew Samuel Polk and his family westward, and they soon settled just south of Nashville, Tennessee. He became a respected community leader, county judge, businessman, and prominent slave owner. Upon his death in 1827, Samuel Polk left
Scholarship
Martha Johnson Patterson: Hostess of the Andrew Johnson White House

Of her family’s role in the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Martha Johnson Patterson, daughter of President Andrew Johnson, admitted, “We are plain people, from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity.”1 One of the five children of President Andrew Johnson and First Lady Eliza McCardle Johnson, Martha
Scholarship
James K. Polk's July 4th White House Celebrations

Beginning with Thomas Jefferson in 1801 and for much of the nineteenth century, the White House hosted an annual reception on July 4. During the administration of President James K. Polk from 1845 to 1849, Fourth of July celebrations held at the White House and near its grounds celebrated the rise of American patriotism intensified by the Mexican-American War and westward expansion. On July 4, 1845,
Scholarship
James K. Polk: The Mexican-American War and the Daguerreian Era

The presidency of James Knox Polk is underscored, among other things, by the War with Mexico. Amidst a military confrontation along the Rio Grande, Congress overwhelmingly declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846 – the first major conflict for the United States in nearly three decades.1 Shortly after, President Polk and several members of his cabinet sat before daguerreotypist John Plumbe in th
Scholarship
Enslaved and Entrenched

Elias Polk was born into slavery in 1806 on a farm owned by Samuel Polk, father of the future president of the United States, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Later that year, Elias moved with the Polk family west to Tennessee, where they settled on land near Spring Hill (about 40 miles south of Nashville).1 In 1824, newlyweds James and Sarah Polk were