Collection Slavery in the President's Neighborhood
Many people think of the White House as a symbol of democracy, but it also embodies America’s complicated past an...
Have you ever wondered...
Can you name the most famous ghost of the White House?
The Abraham Lincoln ghost is by far the most famous spirit to haunt the White House. Probably the first known sighting of the Lincoln apparition at the White House was recorded in a newspaper story related by doorman Jerry Smith in 1903. Sightings usually place Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Bedroom and Yellow Oval Room. First Lady Grace Coolidge, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands claimed to have seen Lincoln. The first families have had great fun with Lincoln’s ghost and pulled pranks on guests staying in the Lincoln bedroom over the years.
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Collection Presidential Inaugurations
In April 1789, George Washington took the oath of office in New York City. Constitutional guidelines for inaugurations are sparse, offering...
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Collection Giving Thanks at the White House
Thanksgiving is a relatively quiet and personal holiday at the White House, as it precedes a very busy season of...
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Collection All Hallows' Eve Haunts & Traditions
Today, the celebration of Halloween conjures images of costumed trick-or-treaters, sweets, and jack-o'-lanterns; but there was a time when All...
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Collection The Presidents
Biographies & Portraits
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Bio Andrew Johnson
With the assassination of Lincoln, the presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an...
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Bio James Buchanan
Tall, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only president who never...
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Bio Barack Obama
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, he became the first African American to hold the office. The framers of...
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Bio Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address, "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine,...
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Bio Mary Lincoln
As a girlhood companion remembered her, Mary Todd was vivacious and impulsive, but "she now and then could not restrain...
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Inauguration of 1861
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed soon after. In...
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History in the Camera's Eye
Versailles, Potsdam, and other grand relics of power are all imposing architecture and vistas, one always leading to another— Ossa pi...
