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What is the White House?

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White House, formerly Executive Mansion (1810–1901), the official role and residence of the president of the United States at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. in Washington, D.C. It is perhaps the near famous and hands recognizable firm in the earth, serving every bit both the home and workplace of the president and the headquarters of the president'due south chief staff members.

The White House and its landscaped grounds occupy 18 acres (7.2 hectares). Since the assistants 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's Palace" on early maps, the edifice was officially named the Executive Mansion in 1810 in order to avert connotations of royalty. Although the name "White House" was commonly used from about the same time (because the mansion's white-grayness sandstone assorted strikingly with the blood-red brick of nearby buildings), it did not become the official proper name of the building until 1901, when it was adopted by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09). The White Business firm is the oldest federal building in the nation'southward upper-case letter.

White Firm, drawing by James Hoban

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

Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore

The building's 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 the country's 3rd president (1801–09), using the pseudonymous initials "A.Z.," was amid those who submitted drawings, but Irish American builder James Hoban won the commission (and a $500 prize) with his plan for a Georgian mansion in the Palladian fashion. The structure was to have three floors and more than than 100 rooms and would be built in sandstone imported from quarries forth Aquia Creek in Virginia. The cornerstone was laid on Oct thirteen, 1792. Labourers, including local enslaved people, were housed in temporary huts built on the north side of the premises. They were joined by skilled stonemasons from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1793.

In 1800 the entire federal regime was relocated from Philadelphia to Washington. John Adams, the state's 2nd president (1797–1801), moved into the still unfinished presidential mansion on Nov 1 and the next night wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail Adams:

I Pray Heaven Bequeath the Best of Blessings on This House and All that shall futurity inhabit it. May none simply Honest and Wise Men ever 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 state of the residence. The first lady wrote,

In that location is not a single apartment finished. We have non the least contend, chiliad, or other convenience exterior. I use the great unfinished audience room [East Room] as a drying room for hanging upwards the clothes.

The White House in the 19th century

The mansion rapidly became a focal point of the new federal city and was symbolically linked to the U.s. Capitol by way of Pennsylvania Avenue. Post-obit his inauguration in March 1801, Jefferson became the second president to reside in the executive mansion. In keeping with his agog republicanism, he opened the house to public visitation each forenoon, a tradition that was continued (during peacetime) by all his successors. He personally drew up landscaping plans and had ii earthen mounds installed on the s lawn to remind him of his beloved Virginia Piedmont. Meanwhile, structure connected on the edifice's interior, which nevertheless lacked aplenty staircases and suffered from a persistently leaky roof. During Jefferson's tenure, the White Business firm was elegantly furnished in Louis Xvi fashion (known in America as Federal fashion).

White House plan

Plan of the principal story of the White Business firm in 1803, original drawing by Benjamin Latrobe, 1807.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

During the War of 1812 the edifice was burned by the British, and Pres. James Madison (1809–17) and his family were forced to abscond the city. The Madisons eventually moved into the nearby Octagon House, the Washington mansion of John Tayloe, a Virginia plantation owner. Reconstruction and expansion began under Hoban's direction, but the building was non set up for occupancy until 1817, during the administration of Pres. James Monroe (1817–25). Hoban's reconstruction included the add-on of east and west terraces on the main building's flanks; a semicircular south portico and a colonnaded northward portico were added in the 1820s.

The Taking of the Metropolis of Washington in America

The Taking of the City of Washington in America, woods engraving by G. Thompson, 1814. The piece of work depicts the night of August 24, 1814, when British troops marched into Washington, D.C., and gear up fire 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 building was not a "palace" from which the president ruled merely only a temporary part and residence from which he served the people he governed. The White House belonged to the people, not the president, and the president occupied it only for as long equally the people immune him to stay. The idea of a president refusing to leave the White House later 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 capital. As Jackson rode on horseback down Pennsylvania Artery to the White Firm, he was surrounded past a frenetic throng of 20,000 people, many of whom attempted to follow him into the mansion to get a better expect at their hero. A gimmicky, Margaret Bayer Smith, recounts what happened adjacent: "The halls were filled with a hell-raising rabble…scrambling for the refreshments designed for the cartoon room." While friends of the new president joined arms to protect him from the mob, "people's republic of china and glass to the amount of several 1000 dollars were cleaved 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 as soon as possible." During his administration Jackson spent more than than $50,000 refurbishing the residence, including $ten,000 on decorations for the East Room and more than $4,000 on a sterling silver dinner and dessert set up busy with an American hawkeye.

In 1842 the visit to the United States of the English novelist Charles Dickens brought an official invitation to the White House. After 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 virtually ii dozen people, he was shocked and appalled to see many of them spitting on the rug. Dickens subsequently wrote, "I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have loftier wages." Until the Civil War, however, well-nigh White House servants were enslaved people. Moreover, the wages of all White House employees—as well as the expenses for running the White Firm, including staging official functions—were paid for by the president. Not until 1909 did Congress provide appropriations to pay White Business firm servants.

Dickens was non the only foreign visitor to exist disappointed with the White House. On a trip to Washington merely earlier the Civil War, Aleksandr Borisovich Lakier, a Russian nobleman, wrote that "the home of the president…is barely visible behind the trees." The White House, he said, was "sufficient for a private family and non at all befitting 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 electrical 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 5 weeks grieving for her hubby, many White House holdings were looted. Responding to charges that she had stolen government property when she left the White Firm, 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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