Margaret Brown Klapthor

author

Margaret Brown Klapthor

1922–1994

A Smithsonian curator and White House historian, she helped turn the stories of America’s first ladies into vivid public history. Her work blended scholarship with a gift for making presidential history feel personal and immediate.

2 Audiobooks

White House China of the Lincoln Administration in the Museum of History and Technology

White House China of the Lincoln Administration in the Museum of History and Technology

by Margaret Brown Klapthor

Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, Paper No. 47 [Smithsonian Institution]

Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, Paper No. 47 [Smithsonian Institution]

by Margaret Brown Klapthor

About the author

Born in Henderson, Kentucky, in 1922, Margaret Brown Klapthor studied at the University of Maryland and soon began what became a long career at the Smithsonian Institution. She joined the museum in the 1940s and became closely associated with the First Ladies collection, helping preserve and interpret one of the Smithsonian’s best-known holdings.

Klapthor built a reputation as an expert on the history of the White House and on the lives of presidents’ families. She later served as chairman of the Division of Political History at the National Museum of American History, and her writing brought that knowledge to a broad audience through books on first ladies, White House furnishings, and presidential traditions.

Remembered for connecting material culture with the human side of political history, she made subjects like gowns, china, and domestic life central to understanding the presidency. Her work still stands as an inviting doorway into the history of the White House and the women who shaped it.