A Peek Inside The Home of the President and First Family

By Stuart Mitchner

This White House Book Scene features a remarkable first couple who bonded through books and reading, a shared interest that led to the creation of the first White House library. Equally remarkable is the rags to political riches back story of one of the most obscure American presidents, Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), whose personal history has a backwoods, born-in-a-log cabin, reading-by-candlelight charm that prefigures the story of Abraham Lincoln, who moved into the White House a decade later.

As Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz points out in the lead essay in Catherine M. Parisian’s The First White House Library (Penn State University Press 2010), Fillmore “had a greater appreciation for literature and letters than most presidents.” Having grown up in rural poverty, he “prized books and libraries as the chief vehicles of his own ambitions,” and his courtship of his “doted on” teacher Abigail Powers (1798-1853) was “nourished by books.” On his various business and political journeys as a self-made lawyer and member of Congress, Fillmore “made it a point to bring books back to his wife, carton loads at a time, as presents; and well before he became president in 1850, “he had accumulated an impressive library of his own.” During his brief time in office (1850-1853), the Fillmores entertained cultural celebrities of the day, including Washington Irving, the visiting English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, and the Swedish nightingale Jenny Lind.

Wilentz suggests that “Under Fillmore’s hand, the White House Library would be built on a firm bipartisan cornerstone, fit for whoever his successors would be.” Thanks “almost certainly” to Abigail Fillmore, it was located in the second-floor oval room rather than in the room directly below, where the floor had been covered with “soiled matting, splattered with tobacco juice” when the Fillmores moved in. More than a collection of books, the library was “the chief feature of a redesigned room,” with “three- and five-tiered mahogany bookcases” lining “the curved walls, interrupted by screens and an ample fireplace. Upholstered pieces of so-called cottage furniture — a popular, informal domestic style of the time — filled the room,” which, according to Wilentz, “became the Fillmore family room, for informal entertaining and amusement as well as reading. Mrs. Fillmore is said to have spent most of her days here, with her beloved books,” and with her own piano and her daughter Mary Abigail’s harp, “crucial instruments” in “any middle-class household of the day.”

First Lady of the Library

It’s no surprise to find that Abigail Fillmore herself is the subject of “First Lady of the Library,” an essay contributed by Elizabeth Lorelei Thacker-Estrada, who manages the Excelsior Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. In the Fillmores’ final days in the White House, already hobbled by an injury to her ankle and other health-related issues, the “literature-loving first lady” continued hosting various events. According to Washington Irving, “poor Mrs. Fillmore must have received her death warrant while standing by my side on the marble terrace of the Capitol, exposed to chilly wind and snow” while listening to the inaugural speech of her husband’s successor, Franklin Pierce. Although the first lady died of bronchial pneumonia less than a month after leaving the White House, “the library that she and her husband established remained as the heart of the Executive Mansion.”

Other essays in The First White House Library include Catherine Parisian’s “The White House Collection: The Mind of the Common Man,” which covers the history of the library and what became of it in later administrations; of particular interest is Parisian’s account of Fillmore’s relationship with booksellers, including Little and Brown, still a force in publishing today as Little, Brown and Company. Other essays include one by White House Curator William G. Allman describing the decorative scheme and the furnishings the Fillmores selected for the library room. The remainder of the book is a detailed catalogue of the first White House library.

“Designing Camelot”

If Abigail Fillmore helped set the standard for industrious first ladies, Jackie Kennedy famously carried on the tradition a century later, as described in Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration and Its Legacy (The White House Historical Association) by James Archer Abbott and Elaine Rice Bachmann. Reprinted in 2021, this illustrated chronicle of the restoration celebrates “the legacy of one of the most influential interior design projects in American history.” According to the publisher, “On February 23, 1961, the White House announced Mrs. Kennedy’s plan to locate and acquire the finest period furniture, with which the historical integrity of the Executive Mansion’s interiors would be restored. Thanks to the vision of the young first lady, … a committee was formed, a law was passed, donations were sought, a nonprofit partner was chartered, and an inalienable museum-quality collection that would belong to the nation was born.” The book includes first-person reflections, personal and public correspondence, and media accounts with detailed room-by-room analyses of the restoration, along with photographs and anecdotes about the people involved.

The Chief Usher’s Version

Described by Jackie Kennedy as “one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met,” chief usher J.B. West provides “an absorbing, one-of-a-kind history” in Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies (Open Road Paperback 2016), with Mary Lynn Kotz. West supervised the large permanent staff that provided support for six presidents and first ladies, including state dinners, weddings, and funerals, redecorating the facilities for each family, and tending to every special request.

Another longtime White House staffer, Betty Monkman, served more than 30 years in the Office of the Curator, retiring as chief curator in 2002. Her updated book Living White House (White House Historical Association paperback 2013) features an expanded text illustrated with hundreds of pictures of past and present White House families, children, and pets; workers and daily routines; important state occasions; and informal public celebrations.

She is the author of The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families and Treasures of the White House.

A Chef’s Story

In Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House (Knopf 2023), Alex Prud’homme, author of The French Chef in America, characterizes sharing a meal with the president as being “in the dining room where it happens.” According to Booklist, Prud’homme opens with “Thomas Jefferson’s pre-presidential dinner with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, a sumptuous repast of French cooking and wines that softened rivalries, yielding a compromise to restructure the nation’s debt and determine its capital city…. By the twenty-first century, food became a mainstream national obsession, and presidents had to acknowledge it. With much insight into human behavior, Prud’homme has confected an appealing, panoramic history of power dining.”

The Staff Speaks

Douglas Brinkley, editor of The Reagan Diaries, calls Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence (Harper paperback 2016) “one of those rare books that is both elegant portraiture and highly readable, important White House history. The anecdotes are fresh and the analysis cogent. The stories about Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and Obama are irresistible.” A CNN contributor who covered the Obama White House for Bloomberg News, Brower reveals the intimacy between the first family and the people who serve them, “as well as tension that has shaken the staff over the decades.” Today says The Residence is “Downton Abbey for the White House staff.”

Defining Moments

Published in June, The Hidden History of the White House: Power Struggles, Scandals, and Defining Moments by Corey Mead (William Morrow 2024) employs the style of the “American History Tellers” podcast, placing readers in the shoes of historical figures. Kirkus Reviews comments, “This accessible, well-researched, and generously illustrated book will appeal not only to history buffs, but to anyone interested in the colorful stories — and characters — associated with America’s most storied structure. Page-turning, illuminating reading.” An associate professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York, Mead is the author of three books, including Angelic Music: The Story of Benjamin Franklin’s Glass Armonica.
Architectural History

The White House: An Illustrated Architectural History (McFarland paperback 2020) by Patrick Phillips-Schrock “shows the evolution of the White House from palace to house to palace-fortress,” according to Reference & Research Book News. The publisher notes that “The white painted facade of James Hoban’s original structure has been added to and strengthened for more than 200 years, and its interior is a repository of some of America’s greatest treasures. Artists such as Benjamin Latrobe, Pierre-Antoine Bellange, the Herter Brothers, Louis Tiffany, Charles McKim, Lorenzo Winslow, Stephane Boudin, Edward Vason Jones, and a host of others fashioned interiors that welcomed and inspired visitors both foreign and domestic. This meticulous history, featuring more than 325 photographs, diagrams, and other illustrations, captures each stage of the White House’s architectural and decorative evolution.”

“The West Wing”

Although my wife and I came late to Aaron Sorkin’s hit television series The West Wing, which began its long run in September 1999, we feel that we know the White House inside and out after streaming a month’s worth of commercial-free viewing. Books like the ones mentioned here can take you inside, but words and images on paper can’t deliver the sense of “being there” provided by one of television’s most brilliantly crafted and choreographed ensemble productions. Several books about the series are still available online, the most recent being Claire Handscombe’s aptly titled anthology of quotes and essays, Walk With Us: How “The West Wing” Changed Our Lives (CH Books 2016). According to the publisher, “the show continues to have an impact that is arguably unique. If you live or work in DC, references to it are inescapable. People have walked down the aisle to the theme music. Or they’ve named children, pets, GPS systems, and even an iPhone app after the characters.”