White House, The.
From The Library Of Eleanor Roosevelt
Roosevelt, Eleanor, foreword. Lewis, Ethel. The White House: An Informal History of its Architecture, Interiors and Gardens. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1937.
8vo.; illustrated; blue cloth stamped in white; spine faded. In a specially made blue cloth slipcase.
First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed: To Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt whose cooperation has helped to make this book possible. Most gratefully Ethel Lewis November 15th, 1937.
Written and published during FDR and Eleanor’s tenure in the White House, Lewis’s book is a social history of the Executive Mansion and its occupants. There are chapters on “Buchanan, The Bachelor President,” and “White House Entertaining in the Eighties,” and “A Presidential Wedding in the White House,” as well as chapters about the construction and renovation of the house. Mrs. Roosevelt, however, addresses the political significance of the White House in her Foreword, in which she tells about her thoughts as she walks her dog around the White House grounds before retiring to bed. “When I reach the far side of the drive and look back at the stately White House with its beautiful portico lighted only by the lights from the windows, and yet shining out in its whiteness against the darkness, I get a sense of what this house symbolizes in its exterior beauty and dignity.” It was, for her, a symbol of the inextinguishable grace and spirit of American democracy in a difficult world.
Provenance: Eleanor Roosevelt; by descent to her son; acquired by Glenn Horowitz Bookseller from Irene Roosevelt Aitken, John’s widow.
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