Johnston, Harriet Lane

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Harriet Lane Johnston
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Female
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    2
    Family
    Elliott Tole Lane (father), Jane Buchanan (mother), Edward Y. Buchanan (uncle), James Buchanan (uncle), Henry Elliot Johnston (husband, 1866)
    Other Education
    Academy of the Visitation Convent, District of Columbia
    Occupation
    Other
    Other Occupation
    Philanthropist
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Government
    Buchanan Administration (1857-61)
    Children in 1860
    0
    Residence in 1860
    Marital status in 1860
    Single

    Harriet Lane Johnston (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Buchanan was elected president of the United States in 1856, and Harriet Lane became the first lady upon his inauguration. At age twenty-six, she added youth and grace to the White House and the capital cultural scene. She tried to imitate the standards she had experienced in Europe. Artists were always welcomed at the White House, and Harriet encouraged and supported their efforts to establish a national gallery of art. The president greeted a number of distinguished visitors to Washington, including Edward Albert, prince of Wales, in 1860. Harriet entertained him with dinners, receptions, dances, tours to patriotic sites, such as George Washington's tomb and home, and an excursion aboard the cutter Harriet Lane, named in honor of the president's niece. Many years later, when the prince became Edward VII, he invited Harriet to his coronation.
    Mary K. Dains, "Johnston, Harriet Lane," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-01368.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Johnston, Harriet Lane," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/26164.