Throughout her time at the Digital Library of the White House Historical Association, Leslie Calderone ’11MS has discovered fascinating and unexpected morsels of history.
“Years ago, we had a long debate about Theodore Roosevelt’s taxidermied pet rooster,” she notes. “Do we tag it as taxidermy, or do we tag it as a pet? We tagged it as a pet.”
The Digital Library is a unique meditation on daily life at the White House, bridging the gap between the political and personal. Users can search the database to view images of diplomatic events, as well as weddings and holiday celebrations. And, of course, White House pets.
Deciding to Study Archives at Simmons
Calderone’s first taste of archival work was as a production intern at a magazine based in Washington, D.C. “Two projects were particularly interesting,” she recalls. “One was to organize the archive of the magazine’s back issues and make them accessible to readers. The other was to post a ‘photo of the day’ to the website, submitted by readers of the magazine. I selected the photos and stories to be featured and tied them to that time in American history.”
Originally planning to pursue a career in publishing, Calderone applied to the archives program at Simmons soon after learning about the field. For Calderone, Simmons was an obvious choice, given the highly ranked Archives program and its location, which offers a broad array of internship experiences for students. “Boston has so many great museums, libraries and archives. There are so many fantastic opportunities for archivists!” During her time at Simmons School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), she interned at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the Schlesinger Library.
Now, Calderone is the Director of the Digital Library for the White House Historical Association, a small non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of the White House. Her “small but mighty team” includes three full-time staff members (including Calderone) and interns from local graduate programs. “This affords all team members opportunities to try a lot of things,” she notes. “I’ve worked on grants, mobile apps, and digitization projects.”
When Calderone joined the organization as the Metadata Librarian in 2015, she was tasked with helping to acquire a new digital asset management (DAM) system and launching a brand new digital library. She and the Digital Library team made requests for proposals and scheduled demonstrations with potential vendors. Once the vendor was selected, the project amplified: “We developed a metadata schema and uploaded 3,000 assets, along with descriptive metadata of all the assets, over the course of that first year,” she says. Eight years later, they are still working with the system Calderone helped to put in place, though their holdings have grown from 3,000 to 30,000.
“Finding this new DAM system afforded us the opportunity to provide more accessibility to what we have,” she notes. “Registered users have free access to low-res downloads, which allows researchers, teachers, and students to use these images. We keep licensing of the high-res images to a minimum as well, to maintain accessibility. Our goal is to educate the public about the history of the White House, and access is a huge part of that.”
Once named Director of the Digital Library in 2019, Calderone’s role shifted to supervising the team, tackling administrative tasks, managing budgets, overseeing hiring, and making plans for the development and growth of the library holdings.
“As the Director, one of my more important and rewarding roles is being an advocate for the Digital Library staff,” says Calderone. “If a team member comes to me with an idea, I see it as part of my job to make it happen, to help that team member grow in their role. I’m excited to provide opportunities for people starting out in their careers and gaining experience.”
She still uses what she learned at Simmons in her work, today.
“I had to write a grant for a course [Establishing Archives and Manuscript Programs]. We covered scope, timeline, and budgets. I thought about that assignment in 2020, when I was writing a grant for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thanks to that course, I had the confidence and knowledge base to write a grant. Management courses offered valuable insight on what to expect when you are eventually able to take on a management position.” She is also thankful for the few elective courses she was able to take in photographic archives and oral history for inspiring her interest in these areas. “The breadth of the overall coursework has been especially helpful.”
The Digital Collection at the White House
Under Calderone’s direction, the Digital Library continues to grow. A current initiative is focused on digitizing the collections of former White House staff who spent their careers working in the Executive Mansion. This initiative started with the Henry Haller Collection, which debuted in 2020. “Haller was the White House Executive Chef for over two decades, from Lyndon B. Johnson through Ronald Reagan.” The Haller Collection, which was maintained by his wife, Carole Haller, includes menus, Christmas cards, photos, and programs.
“He had a remarkable career, overseeing state dinners, birthday parties, and weddings. We’re collecting more of these types of collections, of people who worked at the White House behind the scenes, because they are part of White House history. There are florists, calligraphers, plumbers, electricians, curators, butlers, maître d’s — so many people work there, and this is a great opportunity for us to showcase their perspective,” she says.
As for Calderone’s favorite image in the Digital Library? One came, immediately, to mind.
“There's a lovely series of photographs of First Lady Lady Bird Johnson,” she says. “She was attending the dedication of the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory in 1965 as part of her beautification tour. She’s wearing a brown and black suit and hat and lovely cat eyeglasses — it’s so quintessentially 1960s, and very reminiscent of my own grandmothers from that generation. Everyone has a photo of a woman in their family dressed like this, holding her pocketbook.”
