White House Historical Association

Nora T. Mannix

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"Nora T. Mannix," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/747.
Position
Maid
Years in President's House
1928 – 1933
Legal Status
Free Person
Gender
Female
Race/Ethnicity
White
Presidencies
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Biography
Nora Mannix was born in Ireland around 1895, and immigrated to the United States in 1920.1 In 1928, she began working as a maid on the White House Second Floor and lived onsite.2 Nora remained in the role until 1933, and used her wages to support “her brother and five children” back in Ireland.3 White House Maid Lillian Rogers Parks wrote in her memoir It Was Fun Working at the White House: “…a lot of our help were leaving with the Hoovers…Annie and Nora, the two Irish maids…”4 When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt moved into the White House, she reduced the size of the staff and replaced many of the white domestic workers with African Americans as a budgetary measure– much to the dismay of the longtime staff. According to biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook, Roosevelt “explained that it was easier for white employees to find alternative jobs in Depression America.” This included Nora, who was “devastated” to be let go.5 Little else is known about Nora Mannix’s life at this time, although Parks wrote that “Everyone let go was helped to find another job somewhere in government or in the city of Washington.”6
  1.  Nora T. Mannix in the United States Federal Census, Year: 1930; Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia; Page: 15A; Enumeration District: 0066; FHL microfilm: 2340028, Ancestry.com.
  2. Ellen A. Riley to Lou Henry Hoover, January 1929, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, Servants and Aides General 1929-1933, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
  3. Katherine Buckley to Eleanor Roosevelt, January 30, 1933, Letter in Vincent Carmody, Kathy White House: From William Street to the White House (Ireland: Poundlane Publications, 2023), pg. 44.
  4. Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: The Defining Years Vol. 2 (New York: Penguin Books, 1999, pg. 57-59; Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances S. Leighton, It Was Fun Working at the White House (New York: Fleet Press, 1969), 101; Alonzo Fields, My 21 Years in the White House (New York: Conrad-McCann, Inc., 1960), pg. 43. (4) Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1981), 33.
Birthplace
Ireland
Unclear from Context
Related Workers
Annie Fulton
Valets, Lady's Maids, and First Family Attendants, Kitchen, Dining Room, Pantry, and Storeroom, 1925 – 1933
Lillian Rogers Parks
Housekeeping and Laundry, 1929 – 1960
Sarah O'Kane
Kitchen, Dining Room, Pantry, and Storeroom, circa 1930 – 1931