Johanna Coughlin
- Position
- Laundress
- Years in President's House
- circa 1889 – 1891
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- Benjamin Harrison
- Biography
Johanna Coughlin was born around 1842 in Ireland. In 1870, she immigrated to the United States and settled in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a servant.1 By 1889, she was listed on the government register as a laundress in the War Department; however, it seems that she was probably assigned to the White House because the following year, she was mentioned in newspapers as a laundress for the Harrisons.2 Her duties would have included hauling and boiling water on the large fireplace, scrubbing pieces by hand, hanging them to dry, and then pressing and folding clean items. In 1891, the White House laundry facilities underwent a renovation and a new steam dryer was introduced, modernizing the process for drying presidential linens and likely altering some of Coughlin’s duties.3
She was still included on the federal register as a laundress in 1891.4 In the first decade of the 1900s, Coughlin appears in D.C. city directories with the occupation “washing” but her place of work is undocumented.5 She died on February 23, 1916 and was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C.6
- Johanna Coughlin in the 1880 United States Federal Census, Year: 1880; Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia; Roll: 123; Page: 199b; Enumeration District: 053, Ancestry.com. Census data differs regarding birthdate but her grave lists her age at death as 74, placing her birth around 1842. See “Johanna Coughlin,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/197003006/johanna-coughlin; Johannah Coughlin in the 1910 United States Federal Census, Year: 1910; Census Place: Precinct 4, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T624_151; Page: 4a; Enumeration District: 0068; FHL microfilm: 1374164.
- Official Register of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), pg. 388; “The First Lady: Servants of the White House,” The Salt Lake Herald (Utah), June 1, 1890, pg. 13.
- “Personal and Impersonal,” Fulton Daily Sun-Gazette (Missouri), November 17, 1890, pg. 2; “White House Repairs,” The Stark County Democrat (Ohio), July 30, 1891, pg. 1.
- Official Register of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891), pg. 427.
- Boyd’s District of Columbia Directory (Washington, D.C., 1905), 341.
- “Johanna Coughlin,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/197003006/johanna-coughlin; “Died,” The Washington Herald, February 24, 1916, pg. 11.
- Birthplace
- Ireland
- Mount Olivet Cemetery