"Carl Anthony opens the door to the world's most famous residence to reveal life as it was actually lived there. He takes readers into the heart of loyalties and estrangements, and the emotional pressures politics brings to bear upon the forty White House families, from their arrivals to their "notices to vacate." Readers will enjoy an unprecedented tour of the previously unseen private rooms as used and decorated by each family. Revealed too are the personal proclivities of the presidents and how their families both sustained them through public crises and were used to political advantage. They'll get a firsthand look at the preparations for White House weddings and other occasions; meet the parents and children of the presidents - as well as an assortment of eccentric relatives - and discover the patterns of working, resting, and relaxing that shaped family life."--BOOK JACKET.

A deeply revealing look at presidential family members through history: “Full of sparkling anecdotes . . . [written] with humor and humanity.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch What is it like when the White House is home? In this book, Time correspondent and author of First Mothers Bonnie Angelo tells the real-life stories of how presidents and their wives, children, and extended families lived day-to-day in an imposing national monument while attempting to keep their private lives out of the public domain. First Families chronicles exhilarating moments as well as dark days at the nation’s most famous address, with behind-the-headlines accounts of picture-book weddings, love affairs, rollicking children, domestic squabbles, and tragic deaths. From activist wives Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton to reluctant occupants Bess Truman and Jacqueline Kennedy, to those such as Mary Todd Lincoln, Dolley Madison, and madcap debutante Alice Roosevelt, who embraced their new address and status, here is an unforgettable human portrait of our First Families and how they coped, stumbled, or thrived in the national spotlight. Includes photographs “A sweeping panorama of family life on Pennsylvania Avenue . . . revealing and intimate.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Makes the lives of those who either loved or loathed their sojourns in the White House as irresistible as a gossip column . . . Angelo is particularly skilled at describing the difficulties White House children, including Lyndon Johnson’s daughters and Amy Carter, had adjusting to life in a fish bowl.” —Publishers Weekly “Covers more than 200 years of American history, popular culture, and presidential trivia. Relying heavily on the recollections and memoirs of presidential family members, White House staff, and D.C. journalists, this chatty slice of Americana is chock-full of fun First Family facts.” —Booklist

Published to coincide with the bicentennial of the White House, this lavishly illustrated, delightfully accessible book describes the everyday lives of America's "royal families" in the White House, from John and Abigail Adams in 1800 to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Index. 300 photos.

They were America's longest lasting dynasty, the closest thing to a royal family our nation has ever known. The Adamses played a leading role in America's affairs for nearly two centuries -- from John, the self-taught lawyer who rose to the highest office in the government he helped to create; to John Quincy, the child prodigy who followed his father to the White House and fought slavery in Congress; to Charles Francis, the Civil War diplomat; to Henry, the brilliant scholar and journalist. Indeed, the history of the Adams family can be read as the history of America itself. For when the Adamses "looked at their past, they saw the nation's," writes author Richard Brookhiser. "When they looked at the nation's past, they saw themselves." America's First Dynasty charts the family's travels through American history along with an impressive cast of characters, among them George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt. Brookhiser also details the darker side of the Adams experience, from the specters of alcoholism and suicide to the crushing burden of performance passed on from father to son. Yet by putting a human face on this legendary family, Brookhiser succeeds in creating an impassioned, heroic family portrait that the American public is not likely to forget.

No one likes to believe that America has its own aristocracy, but the families described in this narrative share how these American families climbed the social ladder and their resulting legacies. Approached from a historical lens, learn about the great and influential families, their rise and sometimes their fall, including the following families:Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Ford, Getty, Hearst, Morgan, Astor, Coors, Adams, Kennedy, Nampeyo, Wyeth, Carter, and Barrymore.

Biographical sketches of the children of the presidents from the time of George Washington to the present.

Historical and contemporary perspectives on families -- Pathways to family formation -- Union dissolution and repartnering -- Adult and child well-being in families -- Family policy issues : domestic and international perspectives

To most people living in the West, the Louisiana Purchase made little difference: the United States was just another imperial overlord to be assessed and manipulated. This was not, as Empires, Nations, and Families makes clear, virgin wilderness discovered by virtuous Anglo entrepreneurs. Rather, the United States was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires. This book documents the broad family associations that crossed national and ethnic lines and that, along with the river systems of the trans-Mississippi West, formed the basis for a global trade in furs that had operated for hundreds of years before the land became part of the United States. ø Empires, Nations, and Families shows how the world of river and maritime trade effectively shifted political power away from military and diplomatic circles into the hands of local people. Tracing family stories from the Canadian North to the Spanish and Mexican borderlands and from the Pacific Coast to the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Anne F. Hyde?s narrative moves from the earliest years of the Indian trade to the Mexican War and the gold rush era. Her work reveals how, in the 1850s, immigrants to these newest regions of the United States violently wrested control from Native and other powers, and how conquest and competing demands for land and resources brought about a volatile frontier culture?not at all the peace and prosperity that the new power had promised.