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Italy in the White House Symposium Scholarly Contributors
Barbara Faedda Barbara Faedda is Associate Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, where she also serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Italian. Faedda received her Ph.D. in Legal Anthropology and Social Science from the “S. Orsola Benincasa” University of Naples after studying at “La Sapienza” University of Rome. She is co-author of Luogh
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The White House Collection: Reminders of 1814
When the President’s House was consumed by fire in 1814, furnishings purchased over twenty-five years by the United States government for Presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were lost. Among them were the eighteenth-century objects from the two residences occupied by President Washington in New York in 1789 and 1790 and from the Philadelphia home in wh
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The White House Album: The Theodore Roosevelt Years
It is hard to believe that nearly a hundred years have passed since Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States. Recollections of him at the White House are vivid. And the White House was never quite the same after his seven years and 171 days there. He entered the presidency in 1901, but from the perspective of form and procedure, n
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History in White House Silver
One of the most interesting collections of silver of which this country can boast is at the White House. It was begun by President James Monroe in 1818, after the war with Great Britain, and has grown over the years, remaining in continuous use by the Presidents and a constant parade of guests. Considering the duration of its service at s
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Rules of Engagement
Shortly before Secretary of Congress Thomson arrived at Mount Vernon in April 1789 to announce that George Washington had been elected first president, a carriage departed the Potomac plantation headed for New York. Tobias Lear, Washington’s private secretary, was directed to precede his eminent employer to make ready the presidential household. When Lear arrived in the temporary national capi
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The Midnight Appointments
History has given us the image of a petulant President John Adams staying up to all hours of the night in his last days in office in March 1801, commissioning Federalist party members as judges throughout the land. With the ink still fresh on the last of his “Midnight Appointments,” he rode out of town and refused to attend the Republican Thom
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A Glimpse of Calvin Coolidge's White House
In addition to important holdings in historical memorabilia, art, and furnishings, the White House collection also has an archives of documentary material. Notable are the historic photographic images. Original photographs, stereographs, glass and film negatives, and color transparencies, as well as copies of photographs from other repositories, illustrate the history of the White House from the 1840s to
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Stamps, Parks, and a President
One hundred years ago, on August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation to establish the National Park Service, but this was not the first time a president has acted "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein... by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."1 On June 30, 1864, in
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Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle to Keep a Family Together
Although President Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children in his lifetime, he brought only a handful with him to the White House. In need of additional help, he hired the labor of an enslaved man named John Freeman from Dr. William Baker, the Maryland physician who owned him. The practice of hiring out enslaved workers in
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The President's House
The President's House: A History by noted historian William Seale, published by the White House Historical Association in two rich volumes, chronicles both the unique continuum of the White House in American history and its human side as home to presidents and their families. It chronicles every president from George Washington to George H. W. Bush. The William J. Clinton
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The President's House and Its People
Betty C. Monkman served more than thirty years in the Office of the Curator, The White House, retiring as Chief Curator in 2002. She is the author of The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families and Treasures of the White House, and she is a frequent contributor to White House History. In this interview with White House historian William
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From White House to Your House
Chicagos 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition gave us many firsts, among them the Ferris wheel, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and the introduction by the U.S. Post Office Department of the picture post card. Printed on government-issued postal cards with an imprinted one-cent stamp were illustrations of the fairs structures. Privately printed souvenir cards were also sold that depicted the fairs attractions,