Pride Exhibit Debuts on White House Ground Floor

The White House partnered with the Smithsonian Institution for an exhibit that displays information on LGBTQ+ history and features photos, documents, and memorabilia.

The exhibit is on the Ground Floor Corridor of the presidential residence. Descriptions of queer events include the Stonewall Rebellion and the AIDS epidemic, and LGBTQ+ figures like Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson are featured. There are also anecdotes about pre-Stonewall figures, including Rose Cleveland, the lesbian sister of 19th-century president Grover Cleveland.

"Rose Cleveland, President Grover Cleveland's sister, served in the role of White House hostess until his marriage in 1886," according to the exhibit. "For almost 30 years, Rose Cleveland maintained a romantic relationship with Evangeline Marrs Simpson Whipple. The women lived together in Italy from 1910, until Rose's death from the Spanish flu in 1918. Rose and Evangeline are buried side by side in Italy and their love letters, housed in the Whipple Collection in the Minnesota Historical Society, were published in 2019."

Alongside the exhibit, the ground floor corridor of the White House has been illuminated in rainbow colors -- for the first time ever -- to recognize Pride.