Jane Bell
Cite this Page
"Jane Bell," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/549.
- Position
- Laundress
- Years in President's House
- circa 1895
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- Black or African American
- Presidency
- Grover Cleveland Second Term
- Biography
- Jane Bell, head laundress at the White House during Grover Cleveland’s second term (1893-1897), was born in Virginia.1 Most of what we know about her comes from an 1895 Washington Post article about her daughter Mary’s wedding. It reads: “Mrs. Bell, who has washed the skirts and ironed the dresses of the first lady of the land; who has starched the shirt waists of [President Harrison’s grandson] Baby McKee and the bibs of the Cleveland babies, made ready the trousseau of the bride.”2 This suggests that she was on staff during the Harrison years, but documentation is scarce. Jane Bell appeared in the 1895 government register as a laundress employed by the War Department, which tells us that she was assigned to the White House; the register also lists her assistant laundress, Eliza Parker.3 By 1897, Eliza Parker had been promoted to head laundress with a new assistant named Alice Brooks, suggesting Jane Bell had left White House service.4
- Details about her early life are unclear because several women named Jane Bell worked as washerwomen in D.C. at this time.
- “Filial Love the Stronger: Daughter of the White House Laundress Still a Maid,” The Washington Post, April 25, 1895, pg. 2. The article initially introduces her as “Mrs. James Bell” but this is a typo.
- Official Register of the United States (Government Printing Office, 1895), pg. 443.
- Official Register of the United States (Government Printing Office, 1897), pg. 470.
- Birthplace
- Virginia, USA
- Unclear from Context
- Related Workers
- Eliza ParkerHousekeeping and Laundry, circa 1895 – 1897
- Alice BrooksHousekeeping and Laundry, circa 1897