Podcast
America’s Irish Roots
Featuring Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States
Abraham Lincoln's White House
Gallery
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Peter Rothermel's The Republican Court in the Days of Lincoln, oil on canvas, painted in c.1867 to recall the ebullient spirit of Union in the recent Civil War.
White House Historical Association -
North Front of the White House at the time of Lincoln's inauguration. Iron fences and railings control public access to the grounds. The graveled walk, set in a flat-rolled lawn, encircles the Pierre Jean David dAngers statue of Thomas Jefferson, placed there by President James K. Polk in 1847 and since 1874 in Statuary Hall in the Capitol. To the right of the house barely can be seen the Conservatory, which was built atop the west terrace in the later 1850s and was filled with tubbed camellias and fruit trees.
Library of Congress -
Anthony Berger of Mathew Bradys Gallery photographed Lincoln in his White House office and Cabinet Room on April 26, 1864. The picture was set up by the painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter. The damage to Lincoln's face may have been caused when Tad locked the photographer out of the temporary darkroom in the house.
Keya Morgan -
The Lincoln Family, oil on canvas, 1865, by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, was widely published as an engraving and hung in many an American parlor through the balance of the nineteenth century. If it was posed, the sittings probably took place in the Soldiers Home. From left to right, Mrs. Lincoln, Willie (whom Carpenter added, for Willie died in 1862), Bob, Tad, and the president.
Collection of the New York Historical Society -
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper of April 6, 1861, included this illustration along with a scathing article about the office-seekers who gathered outside Lincoln's meeting rooms and aggressively sought employment.
White House Collection/White House Historical Association -
Favor-seekers were a fact of life in the nineteenth century White House, and in Lincoln's time those approved for appointments crowded into the East Hall outside his office to await their turn. Some wanted salaried government positions, others wanted their special requests granted. They paced and huddled on the oilcloth floor, used the numerous spittoons, and were a general nuisance, although their right to be there was staunchly defended by the president.
White House Historical Association -
President Lincoln's office and cabinet room on the second floor of the White House became the Lincoln Bedroom in the twentieth century. C. K. Stellwagen made a pen-and-ink sketch of it in October 1864. At the long cabinet table, the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed on January 1, 1863.
Western Reserve Historical Society -
Historical illustrator, Tom Freeman painted for the White House Historical Association in 1999 this representation of President Lincoln and companions departing the North Portico as night is falling and the gaslight rises from the great lamps mounted to the columns.
White House Historical Association -
Peter Rothermel's East Room painting uses some enlargement of the interiors true scale to allow portraits of the numerous guests. The picture is believed to be symbolic, not representational. Yet General Ulysses S. Grants presence at center suggests his triumphant appearance at the White House following the victory at Vicksburg in 1863. But the picture also evidences a reception at the time of Lincolns second inaugural in 1865. A detail that perhaps favors the Grant interpretation is the presence of the orator Edward Everett, seated on the left, who had died prior to the second inauguration; still, it would be odd at the earlier representation to have included Andrew Johnson so prominently, before he was vice president in Lincolns second term. Nearly all the celebrities of Lincolns era in the White House are represented, including the old military hero General Winfield Scott, seated because he was suffering from gout and his feet failed him.
White House Historical Assocition (White House Collection) -
A hand-colored wood engraving from Frank Leslies Illustrated Newspaper captures President Lincoln welcoming guests to a New Years reception at the White House on January 1, 1862.
WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION (WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION ) -
This invitation to dine at the White House with the President and Mrs. Lincoln on February 4, 1863 is a traditional presidential engraved invitation blank filled out in ink.
WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION (WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION ) -
The wax seal that secured the envelope is impressed with the presidential seal and was not only an ornament but assured on delivery, if intact, that the invitation had not been opened en route from the White House.
WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION (WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION ) -
The unfinished Washington Monument, seen to the right in a Civil War period photograph, was not the capital landmark that it is today. Simplified from the original 1836 design by Robert Mills, the Washington Monument was not to be totally completed inside and out for twenty-five more years, in 1888. In Lincolns presidency it remained the stub seen here, construction halted. Even had it been finished, it likely would have been eclipsed by the colossal new dome on the Capitol, completed during the war, that won Americans hearts as the symbol of Union.
Library of Congress -
Francis Bicknell Carpenters The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation Before the Cabinet was painted in oil at the White House in 1864. The artist used the State Dining Room for his studio studying firsthand every detail of the president's office and the individuals represented, to make his work accurate to history.
U.S. Senate Collection -
Lincoln also posed for artist Edward Dalton Marchant who spent nearly four months at the White House in 1863. The president is depicted seated beside a draped table, his arm resting on a document representing the Emancipation Proclamation.
COURTESY ABRAHAM LINCOLN FOUNDATION, UNION LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA -
The teenage sculptor Vinnie Ream was one of the several artists for whom Lincoln posed. She produced a bust that she later adapted into the full-length statue now in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
Library of Congress
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