U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies
Featuring Anita McBride, founding member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education and co-author of U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies
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About this Gallery
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have been individuals with a tenacity of purpose, loyal to the president and first lady, and a profound knowledge of protocol and society in Washington, D.C. As time passed first ladies naturally expanded the number of staff working on social events.
The position of White House Social Secretary traces its origins to the employment of Isabella Hagner as a salaried executive clerk assigned to First Lady Edith Roosevelt in 1901. Before that time male clerks in the president’s office assumed the duties of correspondence, invitation lists, seating charts, floral decorations, and menus usually under the direction of a presidential aide. First ladies have had a social secretary and clerks on the government payroll, but the positions were not recognized as part of the institutionalized presidency until the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration.