Harriet Lane

Harriet Lane
Lane c. 1860
Acting First Lady of the United States
In role March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861
President	James Buchanan
Preceded by	Jane Pierce
Succeeded by	Mary Todd Lincoln
Personal details
Born	Harriet Rebecca Lane (1830-05-09)May 9, 1830 Franklin County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	July 3, 1903(1903-07-03) (aged 73) Narragansett, Rhode Island, U.S.
Spouse	Henry Johnston
Children	2
Signature

Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston (May 9, 1830 – July 3, 1903) acted as

Lane is the only person to have served as First Lady to a bachelor president, Buchanan being the only U.S. president never to have married. She is among 11 women who have served as First Lady, but were not married to the president, with most of the other women being relatives of widowed presidents.^[citation needed]

Harriet Lane's family was from

As sectional tensions increased, she worked out seating arrangements for her weekly formal dinner parties with special care, to give dignitaries their proper precedence and still keep political foes apart. Her tact did not falter, but her task became impossible—as did her uncle's. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office and returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In the 1982 Siena College Research Institute survey asking historians to assess American first ladies, Lane and several other "acting" first ladies were included. The first ladies survey, which has been conducted periodically since, ranks first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. In the 1982 survey, out of 42 first ladies and acting first ladies, Lane was assessed as the 29th most highly regarded among historians. Acting first ladies such as Lane have been excluded from subsequent iterations of this survey.^[3]

During her time in England, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, then Prime Minister Palmerston's attorney general, proposed marriage to her; Queen Victoria was strongly in favor of this match, as it would keep Lane in England.^[4]

Lane considered the advantages of a number of bachelors. Her uncle cautioned Lane against "rushing precipitately into matrimonial connections" as his ward found her potential suitors "pleasant but dreadfully troublesome". Lane eventually married Baltimore banker Henry Elliott Johnston at the age of 36. They had two sons: James Buchanan Johnston (1866–1881) and Henry Elliot Johnston (1869–1882), but within the 18 years from 1867 to 1885, her uncle, her husband, and her children all died.^[5]

Harriet wrote her will in 1895 and lived another eight years, during which the country's general prosperity greatly increased the value of her estate. She added a codicil in 1899 directing that a school building be constructed on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral property and asked that it be called the Lane-Johnston Building "to the end that the family names of my husband and myself may be associated with the bequest made in loving memory of our sons." A codicil of 1903 increased her gift by one third but said that only half the total was to be spent on the building. The remainder was "specially to provide for the free maintenance, education and training of choirboys, primarily those in service of the Cathedral." This bequest founded the prestigious boys' school that today is called St. Albans School, which opened in October 1909.^[6]

At Harriet Lane Johnston's funeral, services were conducted by

Her birthplace, the Lane House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.^[7]

She dedicated $400,000 (equivalent to $14,000,000 in 2024) to establish the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland as a memorial to two sons who had died in childhood.^[8] In October 1912 the Harriet Lane Home officially opened. It was the first children's clinic in the United States that was associated with a medical school. Eventually treating over 60,000 children a year, the Harriet Lane Home became a pioneer treatment, teaching, and research clinic.

From 1930 to 1963

The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics continue to operate in countries throughout the world.

The pediatric medicine Harriet Lane Handbook series continues in print and online, with multiple titles. The original title (subtitled A Manual for Pediatric House Officers) is in its 22nd edition, published by Mosby.

She had an art collection based on European works which she left to the U.S. government. The Smithsonian Institution called her the "First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts" after her collection was accepted into public ownership.^[5]

The

The third cutter named for Harriet Lane is the USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903). The cutter was commissioned in May 1984, and as of 2021^[update], is still in active service.