First Ladies
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Mrs. Carter Photograph
Article
The Bad Boy
When James and Dolley Madison moved to the White House officially on March 4, 1809, they were accompanied by her son Payne Todd, child of her first marriage. Payne had turned 17 only a few days before and had lived with his mother and adoptive father in Washington already for nearly eight years, ever in the shadows of the prominent and highly social
Article
Nell Arthur's Memorial Window
Stained glass, a medieval art, was revisited in the historically retrospective nineteenth century. The art was a prominent feature of two significant renovation projects in Washington, D.C., during the presidency of Chester Alan Arthur (1881–85). Saint John’s Church in Lafayette Square engaged Lorin, a studio based in Chartres, France, to create stained glass windows for its new pictorial glazing prog
Article
"Articles of the Best Kind"
When on March 4, 1817, James Monroe was inaugurated as the fifth president of the United States, the District of Columbia still bore scars from its sacking by the British three years earlier. The country had achieved few of the political and military aims that led it into the War of 1812, and having the capital torched by the enemy caused profound national
