Photo courtesy of the White House Historical Association
President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade in 1977.
With the recent passing of President Jimmy Carter at age 100 and the upcoming inauguration for President-elect Donald Trump, presidential history is front and center in the nation’s capital.
Presidential inaugurations are the subject of the 75th issue of the White House History Quarterly, an award-winning journal of the White House Historical Association. It has its roots in Alexandria, where founding editor William Seale lived and where the current editor, Marcia Anderson, resides.
Photo courtesy of White House Historical Association
Marcia Anderson, editor of White House History Quarterly
“I lived in Alexandria since 1970, my family moved to Mount Vernon when I was about 10,” Anderson said. “I went to Mount Vernon High School and grew up learning about American history and the history of the area. I studied art history at William and Mary.”
Anderson began working at the White House Historical Association in 1998, after working for the Smithsonian and then the American Institute of Art Conservators, managing their magazine.
“When I came to the (White House Historical Association), I was the first person hired to do publishing in-house,” she noted. The association was created in 1961, founded in part to help share first lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s vision to share the history of the White House with the American people.
The association printed a White House guidebook and has continued to print a new edition with each new presidency.
“That was the first project I worked on in addition to the quarterly here,” Anderson said. The association also publishes books on White House architecture, gardens and decorative arts.
“The White House History Quarterly is a big part of that publishing program, as we do thematic issues on different aspects of life,” Anderson said.
The latest issue hot off the press takes a look at how presidential inaugural traditions were established, what’s been continued, presidents who have made changes to traditions, and a behind-the-scenes look at getting the White House ready for a new family during the inauguration, she noted.
“Gary Walters, the chief usher for more than 30 years, he experienced a lot of transitions,” Anderson said. “He describes the ‘organized chaos’ of moving one family out and another in simultaneously, in a small window of about four hours.”
“That’s one of the nice things we can do with our magazine is get first-person perspectives from people who have worked at the White House,” she said. “They share their stories after they leave the White House. We’ve had chefs write for us, photographers, curators. We had a clock winder tell his story.”
“For a lot of people, their White House career lasts 10 to 50 years,” she noted. “The Quarterly is a great place for them to share that first-person perspective that they have.”
One of her favorite issues is from a few years ago, when she interviewed Dale Haney, superintendent of the White House grounds, who marked 50 years of working at the White House in 2022. One of his lasting impressions: Establishing the spring and fall garden tours, she said.
“One of the great things we can do to tell a story with both words and photos or illustrations, is to commission new photography when something hasn’t been photographed,” she said. “The challenging thing can be for articles that are on topics that occurred before photography. In those cases, we commission some amazing artwork, where modern artists can use historical information and recreate an event like the burning of the White House or a wedding. We commissioned a painting of James Monroe’s daughter’s wedding. “
For the current issue of the magazine, President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter are captured in a photograph walking down Pennsylvania Avenue Jan. 20, 1977, in the Inaugural Parade.
Carter was the president to exit a motorcade and walk the whole way, from the Capitol to the White House, a mile and a half, Anderson said.
“I went online and watched. [CBS News anchor] Walter Cronkite narrating the parade as it was happening. There’s a great film of the Carters getting out of the car. You see the footage of them walking the mile and a half. The crowd is running down alongside the Carters, waving. In addition to that, it’s a great example of a new tradition being started. Most presidents have walked since Carter’s time.”
The photo of the Carters, on the cover of the 75th issue of the magazine “illustrated the theme of the issue and also highlighted the first president to live to be 100,” Anderson said.
Also read: The Presidents Who Found Respite in Virginia
The issue is full of fascinating stories about presidential inaugurations. “There’s always an oath of office, a swearing-in, quite a few happened after the death or resignation [of a president], not all have had the parades or balls. We talk about the different locations where the oath of office has been taken, the tradition of doing the swearing-in at the Capitol. It evolved. It was not set out by the Constitution. One of our articles talks about the decision FDR made during WWII, during the end of his life, to hold a scaled-down inauguration in the backyard at the White House. He stayed home and had a very small event. The presidents can make choices. A lot of what is done is a cherished tradition.”
Photo courtesy of the White House Historical Association
Alexandria resident, the late William Seale, founding editor, White House History Quarterly
The founding editor of the magazine, William Seale, was a pioneer in the study of White House history. Before Mrs. Kennedy, there wasn’t a lot published about the White House, Anderson said.
Seale was one of the first historians to tell that story. He wrote the book, “The President’s House,” a springboard for future studies of White House history. Seale, who passed away in 2019, also wrote a guidebook on Alexandria history and was very active with the American Horticultural Society at River Farm.
This 116-page issue of White House History Quarterly retails for $12.95. To purchase a single issue, visit shop.whitehousehistory.org.
