Available for Pre-Order Today: New Issue of White House History Quarterly, “Every President Has Walked These Grounds”

Apr 27, 2022
Washington, D.C. —

Today the White House Historical Association released a new issue of its award-winning magazine, White House History Quarterly, titled, “Every President Has Walked These Grounds.”

On November 21, 1800, First Lady Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her daughter describing the White House landscape: ‘It is a beautiful spot, capable of every improvement, and, the more I view it, the more I am delighted with it.’ The grounds surrounding the house were in fact yet to be landscaped and remained a muddy construction site. With this issue of the Quarterly, we offer a glimpse at a few of the many ways First Lady Adams’ inspiring vision for the White House grounds has been fulfilled.

More than 100 photos in this issue offer readers a glimpse of historic trees, the Kitchen and Rose Gardens, annual events, wildlife, and seasonal landscapes.

In this issue:

• Dale Haney, Superintendent of White House Grounds, talks about his career caring for the White House grounds including 500 trees, 5,000 shrubs, thousands of annual flowers, a productive kitchen garden, and acres of manicured lawns.
• Heath Hardage Lee, author, independent historian, and curator, takes us back to 1972 to share the story of a fleeting transformation, when the Rose Garden was filled with thousands of white flowers for the June wedding of Tricia Nixon to Edward Cox.
• Elizabeth Hope Cushing, landscape historian, details the story of the Olmsted Plan created by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. in 1935 for the President of the United States on Improvements and Policy of Maintenance for the Executive Mansion Grounds. The plan includes the preservation of historic trees, the placement of new trees, and the privacy the landscape affords the first family.
• Christy Bowe, photojournalist and member of the White House press pool, has documented history unfolding during five presidencies. With the president’s garden among the most beautiful of the backdrops in her portfolio, she shares an album of her work with the Quarterly.
• Arthur Chadwick, co-founder of Chadwick & Son Orchids Inc., details the collection of hybrid orchids named for the first ladies.
• Matthew Costello, White House Historical Association historian, tells the story of a legendary oak tree planted by President Theodore Roosevelt on the White House Grounds in 1904. The sapling, reputed to be descended from a venerable tree near George Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon, soon perished, but was not forgotten.
• Katherine Malone-France, Chief Preservation Officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, takes us back to a spring day in 1973 when First Lady Pat Nixon visited the historic Stephen Decatur House Garden on Lafayette Square. Like the President’s House, its garden continues to provide a stage for gatherings of many kinds, and it welcomes brides each spring.

This 104-page issue of White House History Quarterly retails for $9.95. To subscribe or purchase a single issue, visit shop.whitehousehistory.org.

To request an advance copy of White House History Quarterly #65, or to interview the individuals listed above, please contact [email protected].

Read more about the White House gardens and grounds.

About White House History Quarterly

White House History Quarterly, published by the White House Historical Association since 1983, is now in its sixty fourth issue. The Quarterly strives to present the broadest view of this personal American subject—the White House—featuring memoir, biography, history, and cultural context as it opens the doors of “America’s House” to America. Issues are thematic, shaped to tell a story from a particular angle, and the themes—from music, theater, fashion, art, entertaining, flowers and gardens, kitchens and cooking, presidential journeys and travel, memoir, and presidential kin and presidential sites—suggest the broad scope of the content. With editorial offices in Washington, D.C., at the Association’s row house facing Lafayette Park across from the White House, White House History Quarterly is published four times each year. One, two, or three-year subscriptions, single copies, and bound collections of back issues are available.