Julia Ball

Julia Ball was born in Virginia around 1820.¹ Information about Ball’s work at the White House is limited to a single source at this time. In August 1850, Ball appeared on a financial document detailing wages owed to White House domestic workers compiled shortly after President Millard Fillmore took office. The list included staff names, as well as their position, salary, and race. Ball was recorded among Black staff (alongside Benjamin Quarles, William Williams, Charles Beal, Robert Blaxton, and Mary Ann Day) and identified as a “washwoman” earning $5 per month.² The staff list also mentioned a white laundress named Mary Riley, which suggests Ball likely worked alongside Riley (or under her supervision) to wash textiles used at the White House. 

Some of the other staff members on the list also worked for Fillmore’s predecessor, Zachary Taylor, but it is unclear if Ball did.³ It is also unclear how long Ball worked at the White House. There is no known evidence that she worked under President Franklin Pierce which would mean she stopped working there before Pierce’s Inauguration in March 1853. The 1863 D.C. city directory lists Julia Ball working as a washerwoman for an unspecified employer.⁴ Further information about Ball’s life is unknown at this time. 

Thank you to Michael Cohen and Amy Larrabee Cotz, editors of the Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore papers, for providing research assistance with this biography.