Black History : Blacks Serving In the White House

[Clyde C Coger Jr]

Simply amazing sister cherryblossom, how much do we owe you for gathering this information;but whatever you charge, it wouldn't be enough, thanks a million ... This Thread is better than the movie: The Butler, for real.

 

[cherryblossom]

http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_exhibits/working_whitehouse/c2_19th-century.html

Jerry Smith, North Portico, c. 1889

Jerry Smith started working at the White House during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in the late 1860s, and served as butler, cook, doorman, and footman until his retirement some 35 years later. He was often seen with his signature feather duster. Shortly before dying at age 69 in 1904, Smith was visited at his home by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston | Library of Congress

 

[Clyde C Coger Jr]

http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_exhibits/working_whitehouse/c2_19th-century.html

Jerry Smith, North Portico, c. 1889

Jerry Smith started working at the White House during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in the late 1860s, and served as butler, cook, doorman, and footman until his retirement some 35 years later. He was often seen with his signature feather duster. Shortly before dying at age 69 in 1904, Smith was visited at his home by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston | Library of Congress

Notice the hat Jerry is wearing, looks like a current day African hat.


The White House staff, like that of many elite Washington households, was racially and ethnically mixed. Because managerial roles were usually assigned to white employees, tensions sometimes developed between white stewards and African American house workers.

 

[cherryblossom]

Clyde Coger

...
The White House staff, like that of many elite Washington households, was racially and ethnically mixed. Because managerial roles were usually assigned to white employees, tensions sometimes developed between white stewards and African American house workers.

White House doormen, 1889-93.

In the 1890s, when this photograph was taken at the North Portico, White House doorkeepers were responsible not only for meeting the arrival of carts and carriages, but also for directing maids and footmen. Many doorkeepers were former police officers.

Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston | Library of Congress
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_exhibits/working_whitehouse/c2_19th-century_b.html

 

[cherryblossom]

Preston Bruce, c. 1970.

Preston Bruce, the son of a sharecropper and barber from South Carolina, served as a White House doorman from 1953 to 1976. Expert at smoothly facilitating the seating process at state dinners, Bruce designed the “Bruce Table,” featuring a slanted top at just the right height for arranging and distributing guests’ place cards.

Courtesy Preston Bruce, Jr., and Elaine Bruce Pryor


http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_exhibits/working_whitehouse/c3_20th-century_c.html