My daughter came home from school today and told me that the President lived in the White House. She wanted to know why it was called that. So we trotted off into my office to pull up the web page on the White House and to read about it. Let me preface this whole story with the caveat that when all was said and done, she wanted to know why the President got to live there and I told her it was pretty simple – the house was built to be a home for the President – whomever he or she may be – and that the White House was every bit as much a symbol for our country as the flag and the Statue of Liberty. Yes, we had to go and look those up too.
So for now, let’s have a little fun with our history and see how much you know about the White House and it’s history:
Our Founding Fathers
Plans for a nation’s capitol began around 1789 after the War for Independence had been fought and won. At the time, none could seem to agree on where it should be located. Northerners wanted it in the North and Southerners wanted it in the South. They reached a compromise by creating a capitol city from scratch rather than moving it into an existing one. The states of Maryland and Virginia donated the land for it and on July 12, 1790 President George Washington signed an Act of Congress that declared:
…the first Monday in December 1800 the federal government would move to a new Federal District not exceeding ten miles square … on the river Potomac.
Until then, the city of Philadelphia would serve as a temporary capital until then.
The Engineer
George Washington hired an engineer by the name of Pierre L’Enfant (a friend of Thomas Jefferson) to lay out the new city. Washington also appointed three federal district commissioners to oversee the work on the new capital. It was these three men that decided in committee to name the new Federal District: Washington. For his part, the President referred to it as the Federal District for the rest of his life – embarrassed at the honor they did to him.
The Plans
Considering that the concept of a president was so new, no one was certain what the house of the President should even look like. They’d all previously held fealty to Kings and Kings lived in palaces; that still didn’t give them an indication of what a Presidential palace is like. Since the committee and the government couldn’t decide, Thomas Jefferson put an ad in the newspaper offering $500 to the architect that could come up with the best design for the President’s house. This may sound like a very odd way to get a design for the President’s house, Jefferson believed it was the best way to get a design that would be chosen on merit and not on nepotism.
The architect chosen was a man named James Hoban. Hoban was an Irish immigrant whose credentials included the State Capitol of South Carolina. His designs were very elaborate, but at the time George Washington thought it was too small. Since Hoban’s design would already cost about $400,000, the committee politely ignored Washington’s request to make it larger.
Considering that $400,000 in the 1700s would be millions and millions of dollars today, the government now had the problem of coming up with the money to pay for the building of the design. Washington suggested that they should sell parcels of land in the new capital to raise the money, but remember – there really wasn’t a city there yet. It was all being built from scratch and much the area was low lying wetlands and swampland.
So the planners began to cut corners and they cut back on the elaborate design including eliminating a planned third floor as well as the large columned overhangs on the front and back and marble fireplaces were cancelled in favor of wood. So the great Presidential “palace” would be a very large wooden house with offices in it.
Unfortunately, President Washington didn’t even live to see it finished. He left office in 1797 and died in 1799. When John Adams arrived in the new city in 1800, the House was still unfinished. The area was still littered with tents for the workman and labor. The house was only habitable by having fires in every room and the first lady Abigail Adams had to hang the laundry to dry in the unfinished East Room. The Adams only occupied the White House for 4 months, Adams lost the next election that year to Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson didn’t care for the unfinished building very much and elected to stay as often as he could at his own estate of Monticello. However, he did make the White House as comfortable as possible and by the time he left in 1809, it was mostly finished and a far more comfortable home for the incoming soon to be incoming president.
However, the White House burned down in 1814 when British soldiers sacked the city.
Who says families can’t have fun studying history together – of course, since most of my family is British – my daughter’s next question was why did we burn down the White House? Somehow, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to win this one.
*Come back tomorrow for more information on the history of the White House.
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