As Presidents Day arrives upon us, people across the country reflect upon the Commanders-in-Chief who have been leading the United States of America throughout the last 250 years. But few people consider the hard workers who help the president in almost every aspect of their day-to-day lives. While the president themselves often take center stage in the media, behind every administration is a group of professionals who can help shape the legacy of every Commander-In-Chief. One of these professionals who is chosen for this position becomes the White House Press Secretary. As of 2025, the current Press Secretary is Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person ever to serve as Press Secretary at 27 when she was sworn in. However, the United States Press Secretary hasn’t always been a staple of the presidential administration as it is now. For over 150 years, the United States President has never had someone to assist with news and media outlets. During the first presidency of Grover Cleveland in 1886, he married then 21-year-old Frances Folsom, and on their honeymoon to Deer Park, Maryland, they were swarmed by reporters, which led to many frustrations. President Cleveland relied on his private secretary, Daniel Lamont, a former editor of the Albany Argus, to keep reporters away from the President and First Lady. This controversy sparked public debate on the fine line between the public’s right to their president and the President’s right to privacy, along with the role the media plays in covering the nation’s most important public figure. By the late 20s, the United States was in some pretty hot water. The Great Depression crippled the global economy, and the world was still recovering from the Great War of the decade prior. At the center of the heat was President Herbert Hoover, who had been elected that year to continue the rapid economic growth of the Roaring Twenties into the next decade. Obviously, it didn’t pan out that way, and the President needed help to get out of this P.R. nightmare. So, in 1929, he created the role of the United States Press Secretary, an official job designed to keep good relations between the President and the press. With the formation of this position, more structured communication was developed, with press meetings becoming much more common. Although there have been only 17 presidents since the job of Press Secretary became official, there have actually been 36 Press Secretaries so far, with presidents such as Bill Clinton and Harry Truman having the most, with 5 each. This means that both Clinton and Truman have had twice the average number of press secretaries during their presidencies, with the average being 2.1 secretaries per president. The longest tenured press secretary was Mr. Stephen Early, who was Franklin Roosevelt’s press secretary for his entire term of 12 years and 25 days. The shortest tenured press secretary was Mr. Jerald terHorst, serving as Gerald Ford’s press secretary for only 31 days until resigning due to Ford’s presidential pardon of Richard Nixon after the Watergate Scandal, where officials associated with Nixon were caught planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. All in all, the United States Press Secretary has existed for almost a century now, and will most likely continue to exist for another century. From private secretaries protecting the president on his honeymoon, to trying to take the heat off the worst economic crisis in the history of the nation, to the modern day with the youngest press secretary sworn in, the United States Press Secretary is one of the most important positions in the White House, and carries the responsibility of how our commander-in-chief is looked at by the end of their term.