So often in life when we’re close to someone we know well or even closely follow the life of a public person, it is easy to assume we know how they will continue to conduct their life. And, the truth… Read More ›
Franklin D. Roosevelt
What Happened to a Little Boy Who Defied the President?
In the course of his often stressful, unpredictable days, President Obama welcomes the chance to meet many young children, who come with questions and blunt remarks known to amuse and delight him, to which he usually responds with some optimistic… Read More ›
Chaplin, Streisand, Sinatra & More: The Inaugural Gala That Was
For half a century, it was a quadrennial display of the performing arts, a time capsule of the nation’s pop culture, a snapshot too of the varied entertainment tastes of the President about to assume office. It was called the… Read More ›
Christmas at the White House: First Families at Home for the Holiday, Part 4
This is the fourth and final article in the series Christmas at the White House. You can find the previous three at the links at the end of this article. If contemporary observers expect a “theme” each succeeding year of… Read More ›
Obama Rescues Campaign Tradition: Vote for President…with the Best Music
In the eleventh hour President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign for a second term seems to have unwittingly saved the grand tradition of campaign music from oblivion. At Obama rallies in Virginia, Ohio and Iowa this week and last, Bruce Springsteen… Read More ›
White House Halloweens: Jackie Kennedy, FDR, Reagan, Hillary & More in Costume
(Photo Gallery of Presidential Families in Costumes follow below this essay) Halloween has been celebrated in the United States at parties for well over a century, but not until the 1950s did it go entirely mainstream with mass-produced costumes for… Read More ›
FDR’s Four-Times Happy Campaign Song & A Home Movie Showing Him Paralyzed
It didn’t start out as his – but like so much else, Franklin Roosevelt claimed it for himself because he saw its value of association. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, his wife’s first cousin, loved telling the story of a couple in… Read More ›
The Engineered Beat of Herbert Hoover’s 1928 Campaign Song
Having won the presidency in 1920 and overcome a post-war economic depression, to then survive the Teapot Dome and other Harding Administration scandals to win the presidency again in 1924, the Republicans went for a third try in 1928, nominating a man… Read More ›
Mae West Nude, Getting Naked, Fighting Father Time…and Living
In her later years, Mae West spoke out against nudity in feature films – not on a moral basis but because she felt it didn’t allow the imagination to wander. “Never drop the seventh veil,” she once said about actors… Read More ›
Eleanor Roosevelt’s Mysteriously Missing Grandfather & was she part-Italian?
Despite her being born forty-five years before Jacqueline Kennedy, there is a similar pattern in the story of Eleanor Roosevelt‘s Irish immigrant heritage. It illustrates less the shame of humble origin than how the power of incredible wealth can lead people… Read More ›
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