Upstairs on the White Home: My Life with the First Women

On this New York Instances bestseller, the White Home chief usher for almost three many years gives a behind-the-scenes have a look at America’s first households.

 J. B. West, chief usher of the White Home, directed the operations and upkeep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—and coordinated its every day life—on the request of the president and his household. He directed state capabilities; deliberate events, weddings and funerals, gardens and playgrounds, and intensive renovations; and, with a big workers, supervised each exercise within the presidential dwelling. For twenty-eight years, first as assistant to the chief usher, then as chief usher, he witnessed nationwide crises and triumphs, and interacted every day with six consecutive presidents and first girls, in addition to their mother and father, youngsters and grandchildren, and houseguests—together with buddies, kinfolk, and heads of state.

 

J. B. West, whom Jackie Kennedy referred to as “some of the extraordinary males I’ve ever met,” gives an absorbing, one-of-a-kind historical past of life among the many first girls. Alive with anecdotes starting from Eleanor Roosevelt’s fascinating political methods to Jackie Kennedy’s tragic loss and the non-public struggles of Pat Nixon,
Upstairs on the White Home is a wealthy account of a slice of American historical past that often stays behind closed doorways.