Margaret Sullivan
Cite this Page
"Margaret Sullivan," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/777.
- Position
- Cook
- Years in President's House
- circa 1931 – 1933
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- Herbert Hoover
- Biography
- In 1931 and 1932, Margaret Sullivan appeared on First Lady Lou Hoover’s White House staff Christmas lists as a cook in the White House Kitchen.1 According to White House Cook Katherine Buckley, Margaret and her family were devastated by the Great Depression, writing: “Margaret Sullivan has lost all her earnings, $3,500.00 in the Straus Banking Bond Bank, New York City, and at this time is caring for her brother, his wife and three children.” Nonetheless, Sullivan was let go in 1933 by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.2 Mrs. Roosevelt reduced the size of the staff due to budgetary restrictions and relieved several White workers of their positions on the domestic staff, as they were paid more than their African-American counterparts. Biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook wrote that Roosevelt “explained that it was easier for white employees to find alternative jobs in Depression America.”3 Further details about her life before and after the White House are scarce.
- White House Employees, 1932, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, White House Christmas 1932, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; Xmas List 1931, Lou Henry Hoover Papers, Subject Files, White House Christmas 1931, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
- 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.
- Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: The Defining Years Vol. 2 (New York: Penguin Books, 1999, pg. 57-59.
- Birthplace
- Unclear from Context
- Unclear from Context