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/node/26164.