A Photo of Nancy Pelosi, Rediscovered Decades Later
In 1963, the politician Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. submitted a photo to appear with The New York Times’s announcement of his daughter’s engagement.
When the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., a prominent politician in Baltimore, got engaged in 1963, the family sent her photo to The New York Times to accompany an engagement announcement in the Society pages. That 23-year-old woman, Nancy D’Alesandro, would become better known in the decades that followed by her married name: Nancy Pelosi. Both Ms. Pelosi and her father, Mr. D’Alesandro, a Democrat who served as the mayor of Baltimore from 1947 to 1959, have files in the Morgue, The Times’s repository of newspaper articles, photographs and other archival materials. When searching for Mr. D’Alesandro’s photo file, the caretaker of the Morgue found a file for Nancy D’Alesandro. That’s where the engagement photo was stored. The photo was published on June 1, 1963, above an announcement with the headline “Miss D’Alesandro Is Future Bride of Paul F. Pelosi.” Mr. Pelosi, per the announcement, was a graduate of Georgetown University and worked for the First National City Bank of New York (now Citibank). Ms. D’Alesandro, the announcement said, was a graduate of Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C.
I always picture Nancy Pelosi as the elderly matriarch of the House of Representatives. It's fascinating for me to see her as a young woman, with a circa 1963 bouffant hairdo.
It's interesting that this photo was initially lost because it was filed under "Nancy D'Alessandro." No one back in 1963 probably could have pictured young Nancy becoming the first woman Speaker of the House, a position she would hold for a total of 8 years (from 2007-2011, and from 2019-2023). Nancy has also been viewed by many as one of the most formidable Speakers in American history.
