Real life at the White House
Subtitle: two hundred years of daily life at America's most famous residence
By: John Whitcomb and Claire Whitcomb
Contributors: Whitcomb, Claire
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 511
ISBN-13: 9780415923200
Subjects: Buildings, structures; Social life and customs; Presidents; Wei es Haus; White House history; Alltag; Geschichte 1790-2001; White House; White House (Washington, D.C.); Biography; History
Description: Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the White House with this richly illustrated new book on America's, if not the world's, most famous residence. Abigail Adams dried her wash in the unfinished East Room. Benjamin Harrison left the lights burning all night because he feared being shocked by the newly installed electric switches. LBJ waged an obsessive battle with the water pressure in the shower, demanding shower heads on all sides. His successor, Richard Nixon, promptly had them removed. The White House has not always been the ideal home, and as each president moved in, he transformed the house in small and large ways to fit his family's needs. Real Life at the White House celebrates two centuries of domestic life in this historic abode. In forty-two chapters - one for each administration - this stylish sourcebook takes us on an intimate tour of the daily life of each president and his family, bringing into view everything from china patterns to built-in closets (a luxury added during the Truman renovation), from plumbing to telephones (Coolidge refused to use the phone for business) from architectural structure to state dinners and family meals. Filled with hundreds of anecdotes, photographs, and presidential quotes from Washington (who never lived there but oversaw the first plans) to Clinton, this thoroughly engaging book captures the texture of presidential life while documenting the very human history of a house.--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 471-496) and index.
Table of contents: title: George Washington; title: John Adams; title: Thomas Jefferson; title: James Madison; title: James Monroe; title: John Quincy Adams; title: Andrew Jackson; title: Martin Van Buren; title: William Henry Harrison; title: John Tyler; title: James Knox Polk; title: Zachary Taylor; title: Millard Fillmore; title: Franklin Pierce; title: James Buchanan; title: Abraham Lincoln; title: Andrew Johnson; title: Ulysses S. Grant; title: Rutherford B. Hayes; title: James Garfield; title: Chester A. Arthur; title: Grover Cleveland; title: Benjamin Harrison; title: William McKinley; title: Theodore Roosevelt; title: William Howard Taft; title: Woodrow Wilson; title: Warren G. Harding; title: Calvin Coolidge; title: Herbert Hoover; title: Franklin D. Roosevelt; title: Harry S. Truman; title: Dwight D. Eisenhower; title: John F. Kennedy; title: Lyndon B. Johnson; title: Richard M. Nixon; title: Gerald R. Ford; title: Jimmy Carter; title: Ronald Reagan; title: George H. W. Bush; title: William Clinton