behind the scenes in the lincoln white house

Shortly after moving in, Mary Todd undertook the task of renovating the building.

was largely underdeveloped at the time, consisting exclusively of buildings under two stories and with only one paved street to speak of: Pennsylvania Avenue. Contemporaries compared the American icon to a mediocre hotel, describing it as hot, humid, and foul-smelling. When the Lincolns arrived at the White House, it was less than luxurious. Although certain features of the building have remained the same, its elegant character is a more recent addition. Through his work, Conroy pieces together contemporary photographs, engravings, and diary entries to present his readers with a vision of the White House that is familiar, yet strange. “Now that I am semi-retired from the law and no longer need it to make a living, I have had the time and the opportunity to pursue that goal, and the good fortune to reach it.” “Several turns in the road brought me to law school instead of graduate school, but I never abandoned the ambition to write history, my first love,” he explains. “I don’t think of Lincoln’s White House as an especially profound contribution to Civil War scholarship as opposed to what I hope is an interesting and occasionally insightful behind-the-scenes look at the White House itself, its professional staff, its servants, its open door policy…, its security, and its day-to-day life,” explains Conroy.Ĭonroy’s interest in Lincoln began at the age of 12 during the Civil War Centennial when he read The Day Lincoln was Shot by Jim Bishop and began to entertain the idea of writing his own book about the president. This is Conroy’s second book about Lincoln, but his first to be awarded this honor.

The Gilder Lehrman Institution and Gettysburg College award this prize annually to an outstanding historical work on Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War soldier.

Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute sponsored a lecture Thursday by James Conroy, a recipient of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, about his winning book Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime. James Conroy speaks at the Gilder-Lehrman lecture in Bowen Auditorium

Behind the scenes in the lincoln white house