Only in New York
With each passing day White House history unfolds on a public stage to be duly documented for posterity. Immeasurably more of that remarkable history, however, is experienced backstage in utilitarian spaces and ordinary routines. With this issue of White House History Quarterly our authors have turned to photo albums, storage areas, diaries, and keepsakes to bring unexplored history to light. They take us behind the scenes, exploring from the rooftop to basement, from past to present, to catch glimpses of the life and fabric of the White House unlikely to appear in history books.
Before there was a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or even a City of Washington, some of the earliest chapters of White House history were written in New York City. George Washington took the first presidential Oath of Office at Federal Hall on Wall Street in 1789 and lived in the first presidential mansions on Cherry Street and on Broadway before the young federal government was moved to Philadelphia in 1790. For more than two centuries, New York City has welcomed, accommodated, celebrated, and mourned Washington’s successors. Though all of these later presidents would reside in the White House in Washington, D.C., the lives of many included consequential years in New York. In a city so rich in history, many landmarks have inevitably been lost to time, while others—still standing or at least identified by markers on newer buildings—offer moments in White House history to millions of passersby. With this issue, White House History Quarterly explores the historical connections between New York City and the White House from the first Oath of Office to the present day.
Our visit to New York opens with a journey expertly led by Matt Green, who since 2011 has walked more than 9,000 miles of the city, block by block, embracing countless chance encounters with presidential history along the way. “There’s a big difference between reading about a place in a book and being there in person,” he explains. “What it feels to stand in front of it, to touch it, to discover something about it—all of a sudden it comes alive to me.” Through Green’s expedition we, too, discover such easily overlooked places as the site where Chester A. Arthur took the Oath of Office and bodegas named for Barack Obama, as well as the four-hundred-year-old tulip tree that has witnessed it all.
The nearly one hundred people who serve on the Residence staff are dedicated to the smooth operation of the house. For many it is their life’s work, but for most their names will not be easily found by future scholars. Thanks to White House photographer Tina Hager, however, the early twenty-first-century staff will be remembered through the Residence Portraits Project. Encouraged by First Lady Laura Bush to complete the ambitious project, Hager ventured into the White House kitchens, elevators, laundry and mechanical rooms, and even under a restroom sink, creating beautiful photographic portraits that reveal not only the likenesses but the personalities and dedication of butlers, ushers, chefs, housekeepers, carpenters, gardeners, electricians, and others. Future historians will be grateful for this rich collection, shared here in the Quarterly, which documents an era in time.
Former White House Curator William G. Allman presents the many New York manufacturers whose works are among the most treasured objects in the White House Collection of decorative arts today. Included are furniture by Charles-Honoré Lannuier and Duncan Phyfe, pianos by Steinway & Sons, silver by Tiffany, and lighting by Edward F. Caldwell. One of the most legendary of these New York businesses is the focus of Kayli Reneé Rideout’s article “A Tiffany White House Interlude.” Rideout explores President Arthur’s commission of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Associated Artists to decorate the White House in 1881. Their once-celebrated decor of the State Floors would last for barely twenty years before succumbing to inevitable changes in taste. Yet interest in Tiffany’s longlost jewel-toned glass screen, which once transformed the White House Entrance Hall, has never faded.
American people to put into writing my recollections of the great men whose service is the glory of my life,” he explained. His granddaughter Melinda Dart shares IE’s story with the Quarterly and describes how she preserved it.
Witnessed by only about six hundred people, the East Room funeral of President Abraham Lincoln is one of the most riveting events in all of White House history. Yet there is no photographic record. With documentary accounts and renderings by period artists as his starting point, David Ramsey has used twenty-first-century computer technology to create a collection of views depicting the canopied catafalque in the darkened East Room, draped in mourning, as only the funeral attendees would have seen it.
For Alan DeValerio, working at the White House was a dream fulfilled. He takes us back to the early 1980s to share his memories of the dinners and events he experienced in the role of contract butler.
Reminding us that America’s first ladies have long been connected to New York, author Joy Ferro recounts the story of future first lady Nancy Reagan who, in the late 1940s, pursued her early dreams on the stage while living at the Barbizon, a safe and respectable residential hotel for women on the Upper East Side.
Music lover John Chuldenko brings to light a little-known White House collection that holds special memories for two former White House residents, his uncles Chip and Jeff Carter, President Carter’s sons. Inspired by their stories of records played on a turntable in the Solarium, Chuldenko began a quest to find the collection. His persistence resulted in a rare opportunity to explore the record albums and play a few of his favorites, an experience he shares with the Quarterly.
Author Margaret Strolle takes us to a display on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman to study a letter written by Jacqueline Kennedy, one of many first ladies who turned to New York for fashion. Determined that every detail of her look be perfect, she requested a personal shopper to select hats and gloves to complete her wardrobe.
The White House holds a collection of approximately five hundred works of art and sixty thousand objects, only a fraction of which can be in use or on display at any given time. Although many are stored off-site, there is a modest space within the White House itself where objects such as the bill-signing table and lectern used by the president can be quickly retrieved. Associate Curator of Collections Donna Hayashi Smith takes us on a tour of this small but state-ofthe-art collections storage area where precious objects are hung, boxed, shelved, studied, and kept safe from harm when off of public view.
With his article “Before the White House: New York’s Capital Legacy,” presidential historian Thomas J. Balcerski takes us back to the New York that President Washington knew and traces the legacy of the sites where he was inaugurated,served, and lived.
“After traveling far and wide in life, James Monroe continued his odyssey in death,” explains historian Scott Harris with his article, which traces a series of temporary entombments that ultimately took the fifth president’s remains from New York to Virginia.
One of many young Filipino men who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in the early twentieth century, Irineo Esperancilla (“IE”) would ultimately be assigned to serve as a “special steward attached to the persons” of four U.S. presidents. From 1930 to 1955, during years of war and peace, he served the presidents at the White House, on retreats, and aboard ships that took him around the world, carefully recording his experiences in an unpublished typescript. “I know that I did not have any part in history, but . . . it is my duty toward the
Millions of Official White House Ornaments are hung on American Christmas trees each holiday season. Produced by the White House Historical Association since 1981, the ornaments honor a different president or historic event each year. Susan Ford Bales shares her personal perspective on the stories behind the design of the 2023 ornament that honors her father, President Gerald R. Ford.
For our presidential sites feature in this issue, historian Dean Kotlowski takes us to the Waldorf-Astoria, which has welcomed the presidents and first ladies at political and social events for nearly a century. His article “Herbert Hoover, Apt. 31A, and U.S. Presidents at the WaldorfAstoria” recounts the retirement of President Hoover, who was comfortable there for more than twenty years.
For our Presidential Sites feature, we experience an early version of presidential travel behind the scenes. When a jovial President William Howard Taft roared into Manassas in his White steamer automobile to speak at the 1911 Peace Jubilee, the assembled Civil War veterans were unaware of the harrowing adventure he had survived on Virginia’s muddy and flooded roads during his journey from the White House. Scott Harris retraces his route.
The two centuries of the entwined history we have begun to explore with this issue is made up of at least as many stories, both large and small, as the number of blocks and miles Matt Green has walked. So we devote a few of the final pages of this issue to a photographic sampling of those smaller, fleeting, and “only in New York.” moments—an inspiration to continue exploring.
We open this issue with a special presidential behind-thescenes memory of the White House. With a moment recalled through a poem, “A Reflection of Beauty in Washington,” President Jimmy Carter shares an unexpected sighting during a late night star-gazing excursion to the White House roof.
4 FOREWORD marcia mallet anderson
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QUARTERLY
marcia mallet anderson editor, WHITE HOUSE HISTORY
