First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives [Hardcover]

Bonnie Angelo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2005

What is it like to be America's First Family? This wonderfully engaging and anecdotal book by Bonnie Angelo, author of the acclaimed First Mothers, tells the story of the wives, children, extended families, and pets as well as the presidents who have lived in the White House. This unique book provides a lively look at how presidential families learned to cope with the demands and grandeur imposed on them and worked to create a home in a beloved but often stifling national monument. Over the years the White House has become a living force, shaping and warping the families it shelters. Its residents quickly learn that in return for its many perks and four-star service, the White House makes its own demands on them -- while it enhances their status, it curtails their lives and imposes unwanted duties. Jacqueline Kennedy was not the only member of a new First Family who thought, "I felt as if I had just turned into a piece of public property." Angelo probes two hundred years of American history to tell the story of real life within the White House walls. As a longtime correspondent for Time magazine, she witnessed and reported about much that has happened in the White House over the last four decades. In this book Angelo chronicles exhilarating moments and dark days in the lives of the First Families and the nation, with behind-the-headline accounts of the stirrings of love, the joyful weddings, the tragic deaths of children and spouses, the squabbles of marriage, the glittering evenings and glaring mistakes all occurring within the same historic rooms. Through it all, the families constantly struggle to keep their lives private from the public domain. Here are the uniquepleasures and pains of a vast array of characters, from activist wives Hillary Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt to reluctant occupants Bess Truman and Jacqueline Kennedy to those who embraced their new address and status such as Mary Todd Lincoln, Dolley Madison, and the rollicking sons of Theodore Roosevelt. Written by an inimitable storyteller, First Families is an unforgettable human portrait of presidents and their families during their White House years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran Time correspondent Angelo (First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents) makes the lives of those who either loved or loathed their sojourns in the White House as irresistible as a gossip column. Although some of her stories are well known—such as Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt's distant relationship and Nancy Reagan's devotion to her husband—Angelo has gleaned fresh nuggets from history as well as her personal contacts from a long journalistic career. Andrew Jackson, for example, gave an eight-year-old slave as a christening gift to a relative named after his deceased, beloved wife. President Taft was so fat he got stuck in the presidential bathtub. Lemonade Lucy Hayes banned alcohol at state dinners, but she was undermined by rum punch hidden in platters of oranges. 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. Angelo does, however, ramble, with loosely organized subjects rather than a chronological narrative, and doesn't anchor less familiar figures, like the families of presidents Polk and Pierce, in historical context. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The acclaimed author of First Mothers (2000) returns to the White House to provide an intimate glimpse into the daily lives of extended presidential families. Focusing on how 43 diverse family units managed to transform a national monument into a family home, Time correspondent and former White House reporter Angelo opts for a subject arrangement rather than a chronological one. Various chapters center on entering and exiting the White House, growing up in the public eye, dealing with the media, entertaining on a grand scale, conducting a courtship or a love affair in a fishbowl, enduring family trials and tragedies, and suffering the slings and arrows of public and private contempt. Stretching back and forth through time, she 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. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1ST edition (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060563567
• ISBN-13: 978-0060563561
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,952,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story You Don't Think About Very Much, September 21, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives (Hardcover)

Living a life in a family is difficult enough. Imagine having an argument with your spouse while the TV cameras are on. Imagine your kids report card being broadcast all over the world, worse imagine that you're that kid and it's your report card. Imagine being a kid, particularly a young one and hearing what the other side is saying about your dad. Imagine trying to go to grow up and have a relationship with someone of the other sex. Imagine being a girl, do you think anyone would ever get up the courage to ask you out? On the other hand, with the secret service around you wouldn't have to worry much about date rape. But you probably didn't get to try smoking pot.

Ms. Angelo is a long time correspondent for Time magazine. Her first book was First Mothers, on the mothers of the presidents. Here she has expanded to the people closest to the presidents.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very interesting book!!!!!!, February 6, 2006

By 

Rebecca Ann Richardson "r_richardson75" (Joplin, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives (Hardcover)

I just finished this book last night, and it is wonderful. Not only is it filled with intimate facts about all of the First Families, but it very interesting. It makes you realize that they were real people and did they're duties even if they despised them.

I couldn't put this book down! I am reading constantly, and this is one book that was so good I didn't want it to end! I would recommend this to anyone, 5 stars~

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice but not thrilling, October 21, 2005

By 

Mary W. Burkett "Aspiring Writer" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives (Hardcover)

A lot of the antecdotes in this book have been published elsewhere but the insights on how each of the more modern presidential families view the White House were interesting. In all, I would have borrowed this book from the library rather than purchase it. A nice read but not a book I will take off the shelf from time to time to review or share with others.