Sarah Yorke was born ca. 1803/05 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to parents Peter and Mary.1 Relatives raised Sarah after she was orphaned as a child.2 She married Andrew Jackson Jr., the adopted son of President Andrew Jackson, in 1831.3 Sarah lived at Jackson’s plantation, The Hermitage, and oversaw the operation of the household and the enslaved laborers there, during his presidency. She an

Grace Anna Goodhue was born on January 3, 1879, in Burlington, Vermont. She was the only child of Andrew and Lemira Goodhue. Following her graduation from Burlington High School in 1897, Grace attended the University of Vermont, and joined the women’s fraternity Pi Beta Phi. Following her graduation in 1902, Grace entered training at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts. Sh

At 2:30 on the morning of August 3, 1923, while visiting in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge received word that Warren G. Harding was dead and he was president. By the light of a kerosene lamp, his father, who was a notary public, administered the oath of office as Coolidge placed his hand on the family Bible. Coolidge was “distinguished for character more than for he

Mary Todd was born on December 13, 1818, in Lexington, Kentucky. She was the fourth of seven children born to Robert Smith Todd and Eliza Ann Parker Todd. Her mother Eliza died when Mary was six years old. Her father, a wealthy businessman and slave owner, remarried Elizabeth Humphreys in 1826. The following year, Mary began attending Ward’s Academy and at age fo

Abraham Lincoln warned the South in his first Inaugural Address, “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you....You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ it.” Lincoln consider

Michelle Robinson was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 17, 1964. Her father, Fraser, was a pump operator, and her mother, Marian, raised Michelle and her brother Craig at home.1 After graduating from public school, Michelle earned her B.A. in sociology from Princeton University in 1985 and then attended Harvard Law School, receiving her Juris Doctor three years later. Michelle then returned

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he became the first African American to hold the office. Obama faced major challenges during his two-term tenure in office. His primary policy achievements included health care reform, economic stimulus, banking reform and consumer protections, and a repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy preventing lesbian and gay Americans from serving

Caroline Scott was born in Oxford, Ohio, on October 1, 1832 to educator Mary Neal Scott and John Witherspoon Scott, a Presbyterian minister and president of Oxford Female Institute. Caroline, or “Carrie,” studied languages, music, and drawing at the institute, graduating in 1852.1 She also met Benjamin Harrison, a student at nearby Miami University, while in school. They later married on October 20, 1853.2 In 1854, the