Collection The White House Social Secretary
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have demonstrated a profound knowledge of protocol and society in...
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Lady Bird Johnson and Patricia Nixon review White House plans, 1968. Preparing for the transition from one administration to the next, the incoming First Lady Pat Nixon (center) meets with Lady Bird Johnson and Chief Usher J.B. West on November 11, 1968, six days after the presidential election.
Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum/NARAMamie’s Army” cartoon, 1952. As the wife of a former general, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was likewise regarded as a military commander. This December 1952 newspaper cartoon illustrates the roughly 90 White House workers who would become “Mamie’s Army” when the Eisenhowers moved into the White House in January 1953.
Lima (Ohio) NewsThe Hardings say their goodbyes, 1923. Preparing to embark on a cross-country journey in June 1923, First Lady Florence Harding and President Warren G. Harding bid farewell to the White House staff. This would be the last time Harding was at the White House. He died in San Francisco on August 2, 1923, and Vice President Calvin Coolidge completed his term of office.
Library of CongressOn their final day in the White House, January 20, 1961, President and Mrs. Eisenhower exchange farewells with members of the staff. Lillian Rogers Parks, who retired just before the Eisenhowers left, observed, “When the old family goes out, you felt lost for just that flash. And then at 12 o’clock, when the other family comes in, you took on a new perspective. You just had to turn over; you had to forget those folks and start over.”
White House Historical AssociationWhen a new president moves in, he and his family bring along their own tastes, preferences, and customs. The new family’s ways are often quite different from those of the previous occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even time-honored White House festivities such as the Pageant of Peace and the Easter Egg Roll have been adapted to reflect the First Family’s entertainment style.
The transition to a new administration requires White House workers to help the new First Family understand how the household has previously functioned, while also adapting to the incoming family’s style and traditions. During the more than 200-year history of the White House, workers have seen many traditions set aside, and new ones established. Butlers, maids, plumbers, electricians, chefs, and doormen have provided the continuity necessary for a smooth transition.
When a new president goes in there, he doesn’t know his way around, and he’s watching you. And you must assure him—you must assure him by body language—that you have no interest other than in him, in the presidency. You don’t care who’s president—you’re working for the public. You’re a servant to the public, just like he is.
For more than one hundred years, White House Social Secretaries have demonstrated a profound knowledge of protocol and society in...
For more than two centuries, the White House has been the home of American presidents. A powerful symbol of the...
President Andrew Jackson was a slaveholder who brought a large household of slave domestics with him from Tennessee to the...
Animals -- whether pampered household pets, working livestock, birds, squirrels, or strays -- have long been a major part of...
Thomas F. Pendel was a White House doorman from the Abraham Lincoln administration to the turn of the 20th century....
A group of physicians and surgeons meeting in Washington 1891 was treated to a reception at the White House on the...
John Quincy Adams hired Antoine Michel Giusta as his valet after they met in Belgium in 1814. Giusta was a deserter...
"Largely through television," notes historian William Seale, the White House "is the best known house in the world, the instantly...
The whole family [of President Theodore Roosevelt] were fiends when it came to reading. No newspapers. Never a moment was...
White House staff who lived at the President’s House during the nineteenth century, including enslaved and free African Americans, us...
For most of the 19th century, the structure of the White House staff remained generally the same. At the top...
1862-1863: Mary Todd Lincoln, grieving over her son Willies death in February, began to participate in spirit circles or seances...