8 Historical Sites That Honor America’s First Ladies

The First Ladies National Historic Site, located in Canton, Ohio, is the only attraction in the U.S. dedicated to first ladies. “The lives of first ladies mirror the nation’s political and social growth, offering insight into periods of national tragedy, political change, societal shift and personal challenge,” site manager Megan Parde says. “Although the role is unofficial and undefined, it has adapted to the expectations placed on women throughout American history.”

Established in 2000, the First Ladies National Historic Site includes the childhood home of First Lady Ida Saxton McKinley. She and William McKinley also lived there for many years. The separate visitor center features exhibits exploring the lives and legacies of America’s first ladies over the past 250 years, Parde says. Displayed artifacts include a calling card case with mother-of-pearl inlay belonging to Louisa Adams and a pair of Mary Jane shoes that Florence Harding wore.

Known as the “Torrey Mansion,” Abigail Smith Adams’ birthplace was built in 1685 for Reverend Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, Massachusetts. In 1738, Reverend William Smith purchased the home, where his daughter Abigail was born on November 11, 1744. She lived there until marrying John Adams when she was 20.

After changing hands multiple times and falling into disrepair, Torrey Mansion faced demolition in 1947. To prevent this, The Abigail Adams Historical Society formed to save the house. Later that year, the building was moved to a new location in Weymouth, and a multiyear restoration began. Further upgrades took place from 2012 to 2013.

Located in her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, the Mary Todd Lincoln House celebrates the educated woman interested in politics who eventually went on to marry the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. “The family home of Mary Todd Lincoln, the museum explores the first lady’s entire life from childhood to widowhood,” says Gwen Thompson, the site’s executive director.

Opened to the public in 1977, it was the first home in the country to be preserved as a museum honoring a first lady. The house had been built between 1803 and 1806 to serve as an inn, before the Todd family purchased it in 1832. Today, it’s filled with original artifacts from the family. “From their educational opportunities and personal ambitions to their roles as household managers and mothers, learning about the first ladies gives us a fuller understanding about the experiences of women in the past,” Thompson says.

Part of the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, White Haven was the St. Louis plantation that served as Julia Dent Grant’s childhood home. As an adult, Julia described White Haven, which was built between 1812 and 1816 and sat on 862 acres, as “really the showplace of the county, having very fine orchards of peaches, apples, apricots, nectarines, plums, cherries, grapes and all of the then rare small fruits.”

White Haven was also the first home she shared with Ulysses S. Grant, whom she married in 1848. They had met at the plantation five years earlier, when Ulysses was stationed at a military barracks 5 miles away. After he resigned from the military, the couple lived there again from 1854 to 1859. Prior to the Civil War, each of the owners of White Haven—including the Dent and Grant families—enslaved African laborers there.

Although they never lived at the plantation full time again, the couple owned the property until a few months before Ulysses’ death in 1885. A century later, efforts were underway to preserve White Haven. In October 1989, President George H.W. Bush signed legislation designating White Haven a National Historic Site. A visitor center was added in 2005, followed by a museum two years later.

On August 28, 1831, Lucy Webb Hayes was born in the four-room Federal vernacular house in Chillicothe, Ohio, that now serves as the Lucy Hayes Heritage Center. The home was built around 1825, and her parents, Dr. James Webb and Maria Cook Webb, started renting it the following year. Hayes graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati in 1850 then married Rutherford B. Hayes two years later.

In 1883, the house was moved from East Fourth Street to its current location at 90 W. Sixth Street. Eventually, the property fell into disrepair, but the Chillicothe Restoration Foundation saved it from demolition in 1968 and opened it to the public. Five years later, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of Chillicothe’s Old Residential District. Today, the house contains five displays of Hayes memorabilia, and the parlor and bedroom are furnished with antiques.

Known as the “secret president” for assisting her husband, Woodrow Wilson, after he suffered a stroke and was too ill to govern, Edith Bolling Wilson was born in downtown Wytheville, Virginia, on October 15, 1872, in a two-story brick building. From 1866 to 1899, the Bolling family resided on the second floor of the building that was constructed in the mid-19th century.

The ground floor of what’s known as the Bolling Building has housed various businesses including a bank, a general store, a restaurant, a barber shop and a dance studio. The building may have also served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War. Since the Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum opened in 2008, it has been welcoming visitors who come to see artifacts belonging to the Bolling and Wilson families—including furniture, letters, memorabilia and photos—as well as the Bolling family’s unrestored home.

The cornerstone of the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site is a stone cottage completed in 1926 with design input from Franklin D. Roosevelt, who opted to incorporate Dutch vernacular traditions of the Hudson Valley. However, it was Eleanor Roosevelt and two of her friends, Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook, who financed the cottage at the Hyde Park, New York, estate known as Val-Kill.

Originally, the cottage was going to serve as both a residence and a small furniture workshop. Before the home was complete, however, the trio decided to build a separate furniture factory. In 1936, when the business closed, Eleanor had the factory converted into the main residence on the property. Val-Kill became Eleanor’s primary residence after Franklin’s death in 1945, where she surrounded herself with family and friends and hosted national and world leaders, activists, students and local youth.

On June 22, 1980—less than a year after her death—the birthplace of Mamie Doud Eisenhower in Boone, Iowa, was dedicated as a historic site. “Visiting the Mamie Doud Eisenhower Birthplace and Museum, you’ll see the house where she was born in 1896 and family furniture from that time period, [including] two parlor chairs that Mamie brought so there would be something in the house that had belonged to her,” says Don Lester, a retired teacher and board member of the Mamie Doud Eisenhower Birthplace Foundation.

The house, which was built in the 1880s, contains numerous artifacts relating to Mamie and her husband Dwight D. Eisenhower’s legacy, including some of her dresses and jewelry. “In the carriage house, there is the 1962 Valiant that Mamie drove in Gettysburg, [Pennsylvania], and the 1948 Chrysler Windsor that Mamie and Ike gave to Mamie’s Uncle Joel and Aunt Carolyn for a Christmas present,” Lester notes.