Collection The Decatur House Slave Quarters
In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room,...
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Standing portrait of Jessie DePriest taken by renowned black photographer Addison Scurlock on the day of the “Tea Incident,” June 12, 1929. Jessie Williams DePriest by all accounts was a well-educated, gracious, and polite woman. Dressed elegantly in the fashion of the time, her look conveyed style, grace and dignity providing an antithesis to debasing stereotypical depictions of African-Americans. The mainstream press described Mrs. DePriest as a “negress” or “colored lady.” Time magazine recognized Mrs. DePriest’s elegance, describing her as a “slender, middle-aged invited guest wearing an afternoon dress of Capri blue chiffon, a grey coat trimmed in moleskin, a small grey hat, moonlight grey hose, [and] snakeskin slippers” (June 24, 1929).
In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room,...
First Lady Lou Hoover's invitation to Jessie L. DePriest to a White House tea party in 1929 created a storm of...
In 1816, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. and his wife Susan moved to the nascent capital city of Washington, D.C. With...
Decatur House 8:00-8:45am Light Breakfast 8:45-9:00am Transition to the Carriage House 9:00-9:15am Welcome Stewart McLaurin, President, The...
Construction on the President's House began in 1792 in Washington, D.C., a new capital situated in sparsely settled region far...
JAMES ARCHER ABBOTT is the Executive Director of the Lewes Historical Society in Lewes, Delaware. His publications include JANSEN, JANSEN...
Elaine Rice Bachmann
As a public and digital historian, my work explores how and why groups and individuals reimagine the spaces around them...
David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and mo...
Construction on the President’s House began in 1792. The decision to place the capital on land ceded by two slave st...
The 2016 White House Christmas ornament honors the administration of the thirty-first president of the United States Herbert Hoover, who served...
President Andrew Jackson was a slaveholder who brought a large household of slave domestics with him from Tennessee to the...