In the fall of 1976 “Keep Betty’s husband in the White House” campaign buttons erupted all over the country—a tribute to a woman unknown to most Americans only three years earlier—and to her grace, candor and lack of pretension.It was my good fortune to have been chosen by Mrs. Ford to serve as her White House social secretary.

For evening receptions, Grace Coolidge favored gowns with trains. Columnist Vylla Poe Wilson remarked in January 1926, " Mrs. Coolidge does not let the fact that she wears a train . . . interfere with the careful line of the gown itself. . . . [It] is never allowed to drag the gown."1Maggie Rogers, who served as Grace Coolidge's maid, regularly ensured that the First Lady's costume

A reunion picnic on June 24, 1983, was the scene of hugging, kissing, and backslapping, as former White House domestic staff greeted one another with laughter, emotion, and plenty of memories.1The 1980s began a series of reunions of former White House workers. Retired chief usher J. B. West was the organizer of the 1983 event. Lillian Rogers Parks, a former maid and

After the United States entered World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a frequent guest in the Roosevelt White House. Although the Prime Minister's visits were associated with weighty issues, White House workers remembered Churchill with delight and amusement. "The most colorful visitor ever to appear at the wartime White House was Winston Churchill," J. B. West records

One of the most important 19th-century accounts of life in the White House was Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. Behind the Scenes was the memoir of Elizabeth Keckly, dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln. Keckly (her name on some documents is spelled “Keckley”) was an independent businesswoman, and not technically a memb

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Architect of the Capitol and Surveyor of Public Buildings under Jefferson, had advised the Madisons about changes to the White House even before they arrived in 1809.1 He continued to consult with Mrs. Madison about her household until about 1813.2Latrobe once visited the White House in Mrs. Madison's absence, to make sure that the curtains had been laundered.

The frigate United States left Port Mahone, Minorca, arriving in New York City on December 25, 1834. On board was an orphan boy about seven years of age, Valentino Melah, a native of Messina, Sicily. His fortunes would lead him into the hotel business in Manhattan (the Astor House), New Orleans (the St. Charles), Long Branch, New Jersey (the Stetson), and his

Frances Cleveland, the bright and beautiful young wife of President Grover Cleveland, was much in demand on the social scene of Washington, D.C., and devised a novel way to set aside several hours a week for her French lessons. Her French teacher would go for a ride with Mrs. Cleveland, driven by Coachman Albert Hawkins, one morning each week.

The following excerpt is from Nancy Beck Young’s Lou Hoover: Activist First Lady, University of Kansas Press, 2004. The White House Historical Association provided a grant to support the book project.Despite all her preparation and planning, Lou Henry Hoover encountered controversy over the issue of race and White House protocol. On June 12, 1929, Jessie DePriest was a White House guest at

The White House Historical Association has reset the following excerpt of Isabella Hagner’s typescript memoirs, now in the White House collection in the Isabella Hagner James Papers in the Office of the Curator. Editor Priscilla Roosevelt has corrected the typographical errors, modernized some punctuation, added explanatory endnotes, and made a slight rearrangement of the original text in order to pr

References to the installation of plumbing fixtures began to appear in architectural plan books in the 1840s. Plumbing systems were already known in large hotels and grand mansions by 1833, when water was first piped into the White House. Sometime within the next year, a "bathing room" was established in the east wing. Interim upgrades appear to have been made during

When you join the White House staff, you enter a unique community full of surprising paradoxes. The men and women on the staff are loyal to their president and supportive of his or her policies but are also characterized by such a diversity of experience and life outlook that they are nonetheless pushed to travel in different policy directions. Some