A Quote About What the White House Represents

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White House, formerly Executive Mansion (1810–1901), the official office and residence of the president of the United States at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. in Washington, D.C. Information technology is maybe the most famous and easily recognizable house in the globe, serving equally both the dwelling house and workplace of the president and the headquarters of the president's principal staff members.

The White Business firm and its landscaped grounds occupy 18 acres (7.ii hectares). Since the administration of George Washington (1789–97), who occupied presidential residences in New York and Philadelphia, every American president has resided at the White House. Originally called the "President'southward Palace" on early maps, the edifice was officially named the Executive Mansion in 1810 in social club to avoid connotations of royalty. Although the proper name "White Business firm" was commonly used from virtually the same time (because the mansion's white-gray sandstone contrasted strikingly with the ruddy brick of nearby buildings), it did non become the official name of the edifice until 1901, when it was adopted by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09). The White House is the oldest federal building in the nation'southward capital.

White Business firm, drawing by James Hoban

Drawing of the elevation of the White House past James Hoban, 1792; in the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore

The building'due south history begins in 1792, when a public competition was held to choose a design for a presidential residence in the new capital city of Washington. Thomas Jefferson, later on the state's third president (1801–09), using the pseudonymous initials "A.Z.," was amid those who submitted drawings, just Irish American architect James Hoban won the committee (and a $500 prize) with his plan for a Georgian mansion in the Palladian way. The structure was to accept iii floors and more than 100 rooms and would be built in sandstone imported from quarries along Aquia Creek in Virginia. The cornerstone was laid on October 13, 1792. Labourers, including local enslaved people, were housed in temporary huts built on the north side of the premises. They were joined past skilled stonemasons from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1793.

In 1800 the unabridged federal government was relocated from Philadelphia to Washington. John Adams, the country'south second president (1797–1801), moved into the yet unfinished presidential mansion on Nov ane and the adjacent night wrote in a letter to his married woman, Abigail Adams:

I Pray Heaven Bestow the Best of Blessings on This House and All that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none just Honest and Wise Men e'er rule under this Roof.

At the insistence of Pres. Franklin Roosevelt (1933–45), the quotation was inscribed on the fireplace of the State Dining Room immediately beneath the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, by George Healy.

When Abigail Adams finally arrived in Washington several days later, she was disappointed with the inadequate land of the residence. The first lady wrote,

At that place is not a single apartment finished. We have not the least contend, chiliad, or other convenience outside. I utilise the bully unfinished audience room [East Room] equally a drying room for hanging upwardly the dress.

The White House in the 19th century

The mansion speedily became a focal point of the new federal metropolis and was symbolically linked to the Us Capitol by way of Pennsylvania Avenue. Following his inauguration in March 1801, Jefferson became the second president to reside in the executive mansion. In keeping with his ardent republicanism, he opened the business firm to public visitation each morning, a tradition that was connected (during peacetime) by all his successors. He personally drew upwardly landscaping plans and had two earthen mounds installed on the due south backyard to remind him of his love Virginia Piedmont. Meanwhile, structure continued on the building'due south interior, which even so lacked aplenty staircases and suffered from a persistently leaky roof. During Jefferson'southward tenure, the White Business firm was elegantly furnished in Louis Sixteen style (known in America equally Federal style).

White House plan

Programme of the principal story of the White House in 1803, original cartoon by Benjamin Latrobe, 1807.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

During the State of war of 1812 the building was burned past the British, and Pres. James Madison (1809–17) and his family unit were forced to flee the city. The Madisons eventually moved into the nearby Octagon Firm, the Washington mansion of John Tayloe, a Virginia plantation possessor. Reconstruction and expansion began nether Hoban's direction, but the building was not ready for occupancy until 1817, during the assistants of Pres. James Monroe (1817–25). Hoban's reconstruction included the addition of east and west terraces on the main building's flanks; a semicircular southward portico and a colonnaded north portico were added in the 1820s.

The Taking of the City of Washington in America

The Taking of the City of Washington in America, wood engraving by G. Thompson, 1814. The work depicts the nighttime of August 24, 1814, when British troops marched into Washington, D.C., and gear up burn to federal buildings, including the Capitol and the Executive Mansion (now known every bit the White House).

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-USZ62-1939)

During the 19th century the White House became a symbol of American democracy. In the minds of most Americans, the edifice was not a "palace" from which the president ruled but but a temporary office and residence from which he served the people he governed. The White House belonged to the people, non the president, and the president occupied it only for equally long as the people immune him to stay. The idea of a president refusing to leave the White House after losing an election or an impeachment trial was unthinkable.

The inauguration of Andrew Jackson (1829–37), the "people's president," attracted thousands of well-wishers to the nation's upper-case letter. As Jackson rode on horseback downward Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, he was surrounded past a frenetic throng of 20,000 people, many of whom attempted to follow him into the mansion to go a better wait at their hero. A contemporary, Margaret Bayer Smith, recounts what happened next: "The halls were filled with a disorderly rabble…scrambling for the refreshments designed for the drawing room." While friends of the new president joined arms to protect him from the mob, "china and glass to the amount of several thousand dollars were broken in the struggle to get at the ices and cakes, though dial and other drinkables had been carried out in tubs and buckets to the people." Said Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, "I was glad to escape from the scene equally presently as possible." During his administration Jackson spent more than than $50,000 refurbishing the residence, including $10,000 on decorations for the East Room and more than $four,000 on a sterling silver dinner and dessert ready busy with an American eagle.

In 1842 the visit to the United States of the English language novelist Charles Dickens brought an official invitation to the White House. Subsequently his calls at the White House door went unanswered, Dickens let himself in and walked through the mansion from room to room on the lower and upper floors. Finally coming upon a room filled with nearly ii dozen people, he was shocked and appalled to see many of them spitting on the carpet. Dickens later wrote, "I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages." Until the Ceremonious War, however, most White House servants were enslaved people. Moreover, the wages of all White House employees—as well as the expenses for running the White House, including staging official functions—were paid for by the president. Not until 1909 did Congress provide appropriations to pay White House servants.

Dickens was non the only foreign visitor to exist disappointed with the White House. On a trip to Washington just before the Civil War, Aleksandr Borisovich Lakier, a Russian nobleman, wrote that "the home of the president…is barely visible behind the trees." The White Business firm, he said, was "sufficient for a individual family and not at all conforming to the expectations of a European." Subsequent changes to the building in the 19th century were relatively minor. The interior was redecorated during various presidential administrations and modern conveniences were regularly added, including a refrigerator in 1845, gas lighting in 1849, and electric lighting in 1891.

The White House was the scene of mourning subsequently the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln (1861–65). While Mary Todd Lincoln lay in her room for five weeks grieving for her husband, many White Firm holdings were looted. Responding to charges that she had stolen government belongings when she left the White House, she angrily inventoried all the items she had taken with her, including gifts of quilts and waxworks from well-wishers.

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Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/White-House-Washington-DC

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