The height differences between all the US presidents and first ladies

John and Abigail Adams were married in 1764, and the couple lived on a small farm in Braintree, while John commuted to Boston to work as a lawyer. During their marriage, they had two daughters and three sons, including John Quincy Adams, who would follow in his father’s footsteps and become the sixth US president.

Dolley Madison, then Dolley Todd, was a young widow when she caught the eye of then-Rep. James Madison of Virginia, who was then 17 years her senior. The pair married in September 1794 and were together for more than 40 years until Madison’s death in 1836.

The younger Adams married Louisa Adams on July 26, 1797 at the Church of All Hallows in London. Two days after their union, John Quincy Adams sent a letter addressed to his father and former US president John Adams and mother and former first lady Abigail Adams back in the states announcing their marriage.

I have now the happiness of presenting to you another daughter,” he wrote in the letter, per the Massachusetts Historical Society. “My recommendation of her to your kindness and affection I know will be unnecessary.”

He continued: “My sentiment of her merit, will not at this moment especially boast its impartiality, but if there be as I believe an inseparable chain of connection which binds together all the domestic virtues, I have the strongest pledge that she, who has in an amiable and respectable family, adorned the characters of a daughter and Sister, will prove an equal ornament to that of a wife.”

Martin Van Buren was also a widower, and his daughter-in-law Angelica Singleton Van Buren oversaw the duties of first lady.

Tyler’s first wife, Letitia, died from a stroke while in the White House. He married his second wife, Julia, while still serving as president.

Margaret was 31 when she met 26-year-old Zachary Taylor in 1809 when he was a lieutenant in the army, and the couple wed just a year later on June 21, 1810.

Serving as First Lady from 1849 to 1850 before her husband’s death, Margaret was one of the most elusive in the role with no portrait being made during her lifetime, according to Britannica.

Franklin and Jane Pierce had an unusually long courtship by societal standards at the time before they were married in 1834. Jane Pierce had a distaste for Washington and the political scene, despite her husband’s service as a US senator, prompting his decision to retire in 1842.

Franklin Pierce went on to serve in the Mexican-American war, and upon his return home, they lived a quiet life in Concord, New Hampshire, before the Democratic Party named Franklin their presidential candidate in 1852.

Their son, Benjamin, wrote to his mother in a letter: “I hope he won’t be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either.”

Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln were married for nearly 20 years by the time of his inauguration on March 4, 1861.

The iconic US president acknowledged the couple’s large height difference, describing them as “the long and the short of it” — he was 6 feet 4 inches; she was 5 feet 2 inches.

Ulysses S. and Julia Grant were married in 1844, and the Grant family moved into the White House in 1869 to begin what Julia described as “the happiest period” in her life.

James and Lucretia Garfield had a five-year-long courtship from December 1853 to when they were married in November 1858. They had nicknames for each other, with Lucretia calling her husband “Jim,” and James calling his wife, “Crete.”

Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland’s two terms were split apart by the presidency of Benjamin Harrison.

He married Frances during his first term, and she took over the duties of White House hostess from his sister, Rose Cleveland.

William and Ida McKinley married on January 25, 1871, in Canton, Ohio. The couple had two daughters — Kate, who died shortly before her fifth birthday, and Ida, who died at four months old.

The loss of their children coupled with the difficult pregnancy with their second daughter took a toll on Ida, whose poor health impacted her involvement in her husband’s political career.

A year before she met her future husband, whom she referred to as “that adorable Will Taft,” Helen “Nellie” Herron Taft visited the White House as guests of then President Rutherford B. Hayes and First Lady Lucy Hayes, who were close friends with her parents.

Helen and William Howard Taft married in 1886, and he described his wife as a “self-contained, independent, and of unusual application,” calling her a “treasure.”

Warren G. Harding was Florence’s second husband. The pair married in 1891, and throughout the course of their marriage and Warren’s political career, Florence was at her husband’s side supporting him.

“I have only one real hobby — my husband,” she once said.

Herbert and Lou Hoover married on February 10, 1899, the day before the couple left for China where Herbert investigated the conditions in Chinese mines under contract with the country’s government.

Harry and Bess Truman were married in June 1919, and Bess joined her husband’s office staff as a secretary when he was elected to the Senate in 1934.

After Harry Truman assumed the presidency following FDR’s death, he said his wife was “not especially interested” in the “formalities and pomp or the artificiality which, as we had learned… inevitably surround the family of the President,” according to the White House.

John F. and Jackie Kennedy were married on September 12, 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island, with more than 800 guests in attendance.

Richard Nixon met Pat, whose maiden name was Thelma Catherine Ryan, when they were cast in the same play at a Little Theater Group. The couple married on June 21, 1940.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were family friends before they were married in 1946, first meeting as early as when Rosalynn was a newborn. The couple have been married for nearly 80 years as of 2023.

George H.W. and Barbara Bush met at a Christmas dance in Greenwich, Connecticut, when they were just teenagers. They were married for more than 70 years.

“I thought he was the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on,” Barbara said of her husband. “I couldn’t even breathe when he was in the room.”

George W. and Laura Bush met when they were both 31 years old in 1977, and three months later, they were married. The pair share twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, who were born in 1981.

Melania Trump is Donald’s third wife and the former president’s longest relationship — they started dating in 1998 and later married in 2005.

Joe and Jill Biden first met in 1975 after being introduced by the president’s brother. At the time, Joe, a widower whose wife and daughter died in 1972, was a 33-year-old US senator, and Jill, a 24-year-old college senior, filed for divorce from her first husband the year prior.

“I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts; he came to the door, and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, ‘God, this is never going to work, not in a million years,'” Jill Biden told Vogue.

“He was nine years older than I am! But we went out to see ‘A Man and a Woman’ at the movie theater in Philadelphia, and we really hit it off,” she continued. “When we came home … he shook my hand good night … I went upstairs and called my mother at 1 a.m. and said, ‘Mom, I finally met a gentleman.'”

Correction: September 4, 2024 — An earlier version of this story included an infographic that misstated the height of Ulysses S. Grant. He was 5’8″, not 6’0″.