Solar White House

I've added pics of the 2003 Swimming Pool cabana renovation, which added a solar collector. And I added a couple of pics of the solar panels that Carter added to the roof of the West Wing and which were recently re-added.

Backstairs at the White House

I just finished watching Backstairs at the White House, the terrific 1979 mini-series based on the autobiography of Lillian Rogers. Lillian and her mother Maggie worked at the WH from the Taft administration thru the Eisenhowers. We see each first family in private moments, almost exclusively in the west end of the second floor. It's like every presidential anecdote from the period brought to life--Taft's tub, Wilson's wives, Harding's scandals, Coolidge's terseness (altho we don't get the "you lose" anecdote), Hoover's aloofness, Roosevelt's relaxedness, Truman's familiarity, and Ike's regimentation. The drama focuses almost entirely on family drama, and the compressed nature of the story-telling makes it seem like White House occupants drop like flies.

The series obviously didn't have a very big budget (my first jolt was seeing the real, modern WH south face--complete with Truman Balcony--as Maggie goes to work in 1909). Aside from a couple of apartments the Rogerses lived in, we only see a few WH second floor rooms, a bit of the third floor, and part of the kitchen and housekeeper's office. The decor changes appropriately, altho I can't vouch for the exact correctness of the furnishings. The pre-Truman layout seems accurate enough, altho the elevator lobby seems backwards and never changes (the creators may have been mixing up the kitchen elevator with the Family Elevator). The post-Truman mansion looks pretty much exactly like the pre-Truman mansion, tho, which is quite wrong, especially on the third floor.

I've added several images that help flesh out the spaces shown for the time period (which is woefully underrepresented with real archival photos). These consist of the West Sitting Hall, Master Bedroom, Master Dressing Room, Central Hall, Private Dining Room (as the Coolidge boys' room) Elevator Hall, Kitchen, and Kitchen Pantry (as servant's dining room, which may be historically inaccurate).

Also: John Anderton sent me a scan of a nice letter and card from Betty Ford in response to his letter of encouragement back when she was recovering from breast cancer surgery. I've added it to the Master Bedroom page, since I figure that was where she probably wrote it while she was recuperating. Thanks, John!

Postcards in glorious fake color

I just got a packet of vintage color White House postcards delivered from Walt's Postcards. I've photographed them and added most of them. So far I've added Truman's China Room, a better image of Taft's Blue Room, and Taft's West Wing.

With the West Wing photo, I'm starting to wonder if the one below it (labeled c1910 from the LOC) isn't really c1904--pre-Taft expansion. I'll look for corroboration from Seale.

I've also got something fairly astonishing. It's a picture of the Red Room, pre-McKim makeover, arrayed in green and labeled "East Room"! I believe the postcard is German, and at first I figured it was a fanciful hand-tinting job. But I've just noticed that another pic from the same era is labeled "Green Parlor" by the LOC, which I had always assumed was a simple mix-up. Now I wonder if that room was indeed done in green prior to TR's renovation. I haven't read such a thing, but I've been meaning to read more about that era. Can anyone help me out?

I also have a couple of exteriors that I think I'll reshoot.

So long, Jerry

President Gerald Ford has passed away. Surviving to 93, the longest-lived president, he had been hospitalized several times in the last year or so. While his administration was brief and not without controversy, he was a decent man who closed the book on Watergate and Vietnam. Best wishes to his family.

I've changed the front page to an image of him in the West Sitting Hall. I've also created a gallery of front pages.

Thank you Santa!

I got Blogger working again after agreeing to move my account to the new Blogger (even tho I don't get access to the new version yet, for some reason). Somewhere in that process, when I encountered a hitch, I changed settings and when the hitch cleared, my settings were still wrong. None of the forums or help or support were of any use. But with a little luck, catlike reflexes, and a nearly criminally devious mind, I have prevailed... with help, of course, from Santa.

Happy Holidays

Just a cheerful holiday thought for those who enjoy the site. It really never occurred to me when I started WHM that I would get such enthusiastic suggestions and additions. In regular life, I'm a communications and training consultant, so I normally design and develop materials about custom corporate software tools. I'm used to having a small team of collaboraters and also incorporating the opinions of expert reviewers, so I have little ego about being corrected or told that my layout or navigation could be better. I want the WHM to be the best place online for information about the history and heritage of America's mansion. Please continue to comment and make suggestions!

And thanks to everyone who has sent me questions, answers, opinions, suggestions, and additions. And a very happy holiday wish!

PS--I've posted a link on the Overview page to a 2006 White House holiday tour video on YouTube. It's not Martin Scorsese, but it's not Ewe Boll either.

Blogger not working

Having trouble posting since I tried to switch to the new version of Blogger. I've contacted the helpdesk, but I'm sure they're swamped.

UPDATE: This was the message I was trying to post for two days and kept getting a 530 (FTP password) error.

They're spying on Nicolas Cage!!

Pete sent a link to a New York Times article showing off the nearly-completed Situation Room. Great pic of the conference room, but check out the video feed of Nick Cage on the right! They're monitoring his movements! I always figured that guy was a national security threat. Serves him right for stealing the Declaration of Independence.

Update: WaPo article - no pics.

TR renovation

I've posted a page for the TR renovation. I'm still not satisfied with the structure of these pages, tho. I've linked to the major renovations from the Residence page but also from the East Wing and West Wing pages, where they are also relevant, and it seems a little circular.

Family residence in color

Snapped several more photos of photos from Seale's The White House, which I believe are public domain via government photographers. Some of these are clearly color versions of photos available from the HABS project and Truman Library (I always suspected that the HABS photos were shot in color and archived in black and white for some arcane reason). The pics include Truman and Bush 1 second floor Central Hall and Yellow Oval Room; the modern Closet Hall window view, and the Bush 1 Red Room.

I also did a bit of cleanup of the third floor on some sloppy HABS pics that I hadn't cropped.

Holiday miscellany

I created a Truman Reconstruction page and revised the Residence Overview.

After watching the HGTV White House Christmas special, I revisited the East Wing and changed some of the text for the Lobby. I finally created a page for the East Colonnade.

And I added a few other pics here and there, including the Truman-era Carpenters' Shop at the bottom of the Basement page.

Nerd pride

I'm rather proud--in a way that only readers of this blog can appreciate--of a little addition to the Oval Office page, a picture of Bill Clinton's rug that I digitally warped to appear flat from overhead and partially reconstructed. I found a nice source pic of a repro on display at the Clinton Birthplace.

This is the rug that Laura told The Scotsman was "loud," but I would say it's my third favorite, after the rugs of Reagan and Bush 2.

The new curtains

Got a note from visitor Lee pointing out the new curtains around the White House and directing me to some pics of the Library, Vermeil Room, and East Room on Flickr. Good find, Lee! I've posted them and am trying to get permission to keep them from the owner, but I can't find an e-mail address. (Mail me, Amber!)

PS-- Dennis is still reporting issues with the Blogger comment system. But I don't get any problem even when logged out and commenting as a regular user. Anybody else having trouble? I'll check the Blogger help.

Tourist pics

I posted a couple more tourist pics of the public rooms: a 2001 Christmas pic of the Blue Room and one of the Vermeil Room. At the same time, I fixed the credits of these and other tourist photos to link to the site where they came from and, if I hadn't already tried to contact them, sent a note requesting official permission to use them.

I think I'll add a spot on the About page requesting folks to send links to their WH tourist photos. I'm afraid I might get 300 pictures of "Tiffany" and "Josh" posing in front of Christmas trees, tho.

Barney reveals the briefing room

"Barney's Holiday Extravaganza" is available now on the White House website. In it, Barney has a run around the EEOB, ground and state floors of the Residence, the West Wing, and--briefly--the East Wing. Among other places, he visits the Press Briefing Room, which we see is still in quite a state of disarray. They seem to be opening up the windows on one side to full length. I think that's a shot of the basement where there are no windows. It'd be nice to have a look at those "Press Briefing Room Renovation" plans Barney's looking at....

The 1960s

Got around to setting up my camera and got out my Kennedy-Johnson books and shot a number of photos of photos from the era, including the Kennedy Press Briefing Room swimming pool mural, the Johnson Yellow Oval Room, Kennedy and Johnson Family Dining Room, Johnson and 1890 West Sitting Hall, Luci's wedding reception in the East Room, and the Diplomatic Reception Room. I have several more I'll do later.

Update: Added the Kennedy Library, Queen's Bedroom, Treaty Room, and the Oval Office with Boudin's red rug and LBJ's desk and the Cabinet Room.

Update: Added JFK, Jr in the President's Secretary's Office, the replanting of the Rose Garden, the Kennedys playing in the South Fountain (!), and Caroline's kindergarten class in the Sun Room, the third floor Central Hall, and the Family Theater.

Miscellany

I added several miscellaneous photos here and there, including a couple in the Blue Room of the Kennedy and Taft eras, a different view of TR's Green Room, the 1922 East Wing exterior, and W in the Press Briefing Room.

A couple of days ago, I added a few others, particularly images of artwork in the State Dining Room and Palm Room.

UPDATE: Dennis commented on the Ike pic, which has always bothered me, so I reprocessed it to fix the fade (and straightened it) and posted the new version (old version here).

TV West Wing

Made some changes to the TV West Wing page to include some of the most relevant parts of Pete's review of season 1 and not include the Amazon ad link. Then I added a link to this page from Wikipedia's page on the TV show.

I wanted to be sure the page WP links to is as relevant and non-spammy as possible. The WHM get quite a bit of traffic from Wikipedia's White House pages (I put links on several of the room pages, most of which I started in the first place), so I figured I might get a bit more traffic from WW fans.

New front page

Just changed the front page image to one of the White House at Christmastime, complete with snow. Permission to use it was graciously given by Keith Stanley of kestan.com, where you can even get a print of the image. Thanks, Keith!

History

While making some other, minor changes, I accidentally uploaded new Overview and Residence pages where I had started to break out the various stages of White House history. I'll continue breaking out the history in more detail, with pages on the 1902 and 1952 renovations and construction and expansion of the wings. However, the structure isn't working out quite as I intended (we discussed in an earlier post how it would be nice to have detail on each of the major renovations), so these pages will continue to shift.

Capturing WH video clips

When I first starting creating WHM, I tried to pull the official White House video clips on pages like Life in the West Wing to archive them in a more-or-less permanent place. But because of the way they are encoded (RealMedia) and hosted (some non-gov site), I couldn't even figure out how to link to them from WHM, much less save them and host them myself (I'm pretty sure they're government-created and therefore public domain). Before this administration retires to points west, I'd like to capture them so they're available in the future. Anyone who can figure out how to download (as opposed to just view) the clips, I'd like to hear it.

TV West Wing page

Using a new, more accurate layout by Pete and screen caps from the DVDs, I've created a page just for The West Wing's version of the West Wing. However, this now creates a weird situation where Pete's detailed reviews of TWW by season are on the Movies & TV page and the floor plan and photos are on another page. I hesitate to put the detailed reviews on the new page with the floor plan and photos because I'm afraid they're going to end up quite lengthy once Pete has reviewed a few more seasons.

I'm hoping for some comments that will help solve this dilemma. What would WH enthusiasts prefer and what would TWW enthusiasts prefer?

New museum look

I've made changes to the WHM site to make it similar to the blog template. It has the a green-gray textured background instead of parchment textured background, and the main pages have a white center section with scalloped edges instead of being transparent to the parchment background. The room pages have only the background colored.

One Observatory Circle

I was chatting with a friend today about a funny web site, and something about it triggered me to think of another web site to create. I checked domain names and found that domains related to the vice-president's residence were--to my surprise--available, so I registered:

• Oneobservatorycircle.com
  
• Oneobservatorycircle.org
• 1observatorycircle.com
  

I had thought about creating a page or two about the residence of the vice-president--or, as I will now frequently call it, 1OC (official | Wikipedia)--but it had never occurred to me that the actual domain names would be available. The obvious thing now would be to create a site similar to White House Museum, altho there isn't nearly as much information available about it, nor history (nor interest, for that matter).

I also considered making a satirical web site like Whitehouse.net, that would satirize the vice-president by pretending to be his home page and blog ("Friday: Still missing Rummy,") but that would take a lot of time and acerbic wit, both of which I need to conserve for Tysto.com [warning: political opinion].

Second and third floor halls

Added a couple of Clinton-era pics from the Echoes from the White House DVD. That video had surprisingly few good broad shots of the rooms, but a couple were quite interesting, including one of the second floor central hall, third floor central hall (finally, in color!), solarium (also color! eww...).

PBR Photographer identified

I got a note from Jeffrey James Bryan Carpenter requesting credit for the terrific photos that illustrate the Press Briefing Room. I don't recall where those pictures came from, so I never knew who to credit. If any other visitors find uncredited photos of theirs that I've used to illustrate the White House, please contact me. I'm very happy to give credit and link the credit to any page you like or to remove them from the site.

New section suggestion

Visitor Dennis has suggested that I create some pages to illustrate the various eras, where the relevant pictures for each era would be gathered. So, for example, there would be a page for Theodore Roosevelt that talks about the McKim renovation and includes the pics of the State Floor rooms and wings of that period.

This meshes well with an idea I'd been kicking around to create a page or pages that describe the changes made by each president. Some presidents (like Carter) didn't really do anything to the WH, of course, so I think it makes more sense to do it for each major renovation.

New blog template

I've changed the blog template to something more stately. The change might be temporary. I'm looking for one where I can easily incorporate a picture of the White House or Oval Office.

Update: I think I've settled on this green-gray version. I figured out how to put an image behind the text (the seal from Bush 2's OO carpet), and I made it match the gray-green background color.

Happy oldest day to Jerry Ford

On Sunday, President Ford became the oldest living person to have been president of the United States: 93 years and 121 days. Ford's impact on the White House was mainly the installation of an outdoor swimming pool and redecorating the Oval Office with decor that lasted thru Carter and into Reagan's second term.

A Navy man and a football player in his youth, the president was fit and competitive thru his White House years; his motto was simply "WIN." Surviving two assassination attempts while president and a devastating wolf attack that many thought would prove fatal, Ford moved to Springfield, USA, across the street from Homer Simpson in the former Bush residence.

Before and after his White House years, he was, by all accounts, an admirable and decent man. Best wishes, Mr. President.

New old pics and Clinton era

Found some more good old-timey photos in the Library of Congress, including some of the Blue Room, State Dining Room, North Portico, and an interesting one of workers digging a trench for steam pipes from the EEOB to White House in 1923. I also added the famous picture of the Harrison children in their goat-drawn cart on the south lawn.

I also added a couple of Clinton-era pics that fill out that period for the Roosevelt Room, Green Room, Yellow Oval Room, and East Sitting Hall, provided by Pete.

New menu navigation

I've completed the conversion to the new menu navigation system. Now, all pages have menus that drop from the existing buttons. With this, you can get to any floor in the Residence, East Wing, or West Wing immediately.

You may need to refresh some pages to get the new functionality.

Marine Corps Museum

The US Marine Corps Museum was dedicated today. This is a good model for a real museum of White House history (PowerPoint), I think. I sent a note to the architects asking if they knew of any such effort and including links.

My Congressional representative, Chris Chocola, was defeated on Tuesday and replaced by Joe Donnelly. He doesn't take office until January, so I'll plan on sending him my proposal in the next couple of months.

New navigation and menus

I've posted new pages for the West Wing and East Wing, breaking out the floors separately from the overview as for the Residence. This is preparation for implementing new menus for each section, as on the test page.

Update: I've begun converting the pages to the new menu navigation. So far, all the "top level" pages are converted (intro and floor plans).

Update: All done.

New pics

I kind of hoped that the mid-term elections would prompt the president to host some events that would provide good photos of the Residence (like the YOR or the Treaty Room), but the only interesting thing I've seen so far is one of GWB in the President's Dining Room with Congressional leaders. I did find a couple of neat ones on the Time website, however, including one of the Family Dining Room being prepared for the Karzai-Musharraf dinner and one of a butler in the Cross Hall.

Blog upgrade

I upgraded the weblog to Blogger beta in hopes of finding a smoother interface, but so far it's kind of awkward and confusing. Please let me know if things are displaying differently or if comments are disabled for anonymous users or anything.

Update: I re-enabled anonymous posting and added the search bar (searches this blog only). Thanks for the comments!

New front page

Changed the front page for the month to one of the Red Room in 1904, a hand-tinted photo by the wonderful Francis Benjamin Johnston.

This will last until early December, when I'll replace it with a nice, colorful photo showing the White House at Christmastime. I don't have one prepared yet, so anyone who has a good one, feel free to send me a link to it.

Also changed the Residence second floor back to showing the kitchen spiral staircase extending up into the family kitchen, based on information from a knowledgeable sourse.

Oval Office & the Resolute

I created a separate page for the Resolute desk to get its history off the Oval Office page and so I had space to add some trivia about Truman's "The Buck Stops Here" motto and Kennedy's distress-call coconut. I can't think of anything else that is particularly famous or interesting that has been displayed on the president's desk, but suggestions are welcome.

More artifacts

Did another search of the LOC and came across a few more pictures I'd overlooked before, including terrific ones of Alice Roosevelt's bedroom, McKinley's Blue Room, pre-FDR West Wing, and Wilson's ridiculous sheep.

More menu experiments

I found what I think is a better menu method for enhancing navigation and experimented with it on a new test page. This keeps my buttons and just adds drop-down menus from them, which looks good and is very slick. I haven't created separate pages for the wings, so those links go to the Residence right now. It will be a bit easier to implement this code than it would have been to implement the other.

I found the code here.

West Wing and other bits

Got some new information about the layout of the West Wing ground floor and made a couple of minor changes (Homeland Security Council office now occupies the old Barber Shop, for example).

Also, I added a couple of pics of the South Portico, Private Dining Room, Beauty Salon, and third floor Promenade, for which I created a new page.

Thanks to Pete, in both cases!

Menu experiment

I started experimenting with a new navigation menu I found. I'd like to convert to new, more dynamic navigation to better enable users to get to the floor they want in the part of the mansion they want (I'd create separate pages for each floor of the East and West Wings.

Here is my experiment page, not quite laid out right. The code to do this would be a pain to add to every page, so I'm looking for something that I might be able to do in a streamlined way (with a couple of carefully-constructed find-and-replace functions).

West Wing second floor

I added a page for the second floor of the West Wing, similar to the one for the East Wing. I've hesitated up till now because:

• There's not much there other than ordinary working offices
• The furnishings and occupants of those offices change pretty frequently
• I don't have many good contemporary photos
• I don't have any historical photos
  

However, it's interesting to see the general look of it at least. The photos were provided (like most of the contemporary photos and layout of the West Wing) by Pete Sharkey from a White House video of some sort. Thanks Pete!

Bathrooms!

I did a little digging on the Truman Library site for second floor Residence bathrooms and discovered a couple of good images that I added. I also discovered that I had the tub picture in the wrong room, but they're very, very similar. Changes affect the Kitchen, East Bedroom, Master Dressing Room, and Living Room Bath.

Miscellaneous pics

Added half a dozen more pictures from those sent by Pete Sharkey, including LBJ in the Cabinet Room, listening to heart-wrenching tapes from his son-in-law in Vietnam; Hillary redecorating the Blue Room; Mamie in a storage room and the laundry in the basement; and the White House draped in black crepe (for, I think, Harding; Pete thinks Lincoln); and the mysterious Secret Service Office (or, at least, the "lounge" part of it) on the West Wing ground floor.

Update: The black crepe was for Garfield.

The Kennedy Second Floor

Went thru CS Anthony's The Kennedy White House and pulled some pictures of the second floor. This helped catch a mistake in the children's bedrooms (Jr & Caroline) and clarify the sad story in West's book about the room that is today the Beauty Salon a.k.a. Cosmetology Room. Also got a great pic of the president's bedroom, the Kennedy elevator (at last, in color!), and the West Sitting Hall, which I didn't even realize I didn't have from the Kennedy era.

Hot Boudin!

John A sent this pic from the Autumn cover of Louisiana Life featuring "Hot Boudin!"--a spicy Cajun sausage. We're sure that Jackie Kennedy would have got a laugh at the expense of Stephane Boudin, the French interior designer who helped her remake the White House.

New front page

Changed the front page image again, this time to an 1893 image of the north entrance with the Tiffany window, a rather stately welcome, I think. I guess I'll make a point of changing the front page image once a month, since I'm sure I have good images to support it. I wish I had more seasonal images, tho.

The President's House and the Kennedys and Johnsons in it

Some terrific gifts arrived today from John A that I want to acknowledge:

• The two volume set of The President's House by William Seale, a monumental work on the mansion thru history
• The Kennedy White House, by Carl S Anthony, with many candid photos of the family
  
• Nov 66 National Geo with "The Living White House," a wonderful summary of the house's history with great photos
• The 1964 The White House: an Historic Guide, from the WHHA, with fantastic formal photos of the Kennedy renovation

So, if you were thinking "hmm, maybe for Christmas I'll get Derek that November 1966 issue of National Geographic because I know how much he likes the White House and the naked Nuba women of Sudan...." Too late! You'll have to get me socks.

Thanks, John. Not only has documenting the White House been a rewarding pastime, but even more enjoyable is being able to share it with others.

Hubert Humphrey revisited

In the comments of the Humphrey funeral post, visitor Patsyq asked for information about the services, specifically, the choir and music:

I hope someone reading this can help me.... I know it is off-topic but concerns HHH's funeral. I have been unable to find (by googling) a program for his 1978 funeral, to include the names of the choirs and the music played.

Can someone help? Thank you.

I passed the question along to Jack M, who dug up the quote from Time that settled where the picture was taken, but I also did some digging of my own. I found a quote from a minister about how President Carter supposedly* went to Nixon, who was sitting in the back, and asked him to sit up front with the first family.

* My grandfather was a Baptist evangelist, so I know that you can't trust even a minister's apocryphal stories.

I also found a link to an NBC news report (with proto-news-babe Jessica Savitch) where some additional info is provided. Anyone who might have stumbled across choir or music info about the HHH services might respond to help Patsyq out. She has her own blog called NOLA-girl.

Books and videos

Cracked open my new copy of WHHA's History 1 this weekend and added a couple of historical pics from it (TR's 2nd floor Central Hall and Blue (Lincoln) Bedroom) and a couple of current ones from the White House site (Family Dining Room, WW Colonnade). I also got the videos I ordered: Nat'l Geo's Inside the White House, Backstairs at the White House, Echoes from the White House, and Brick. A double viewing of Brick revealed that it is a clever, tense murder mystery in the film noir style set in a modern high school and has nothing to do with the White House. Imagine my disappointment.

Added a couple new reviews from Pete S. I'll post the movie page officially soon.

Ike on parade

Took another look at the Eisenhower Library photo repository and found a handful of photos to add to help fill out the 1950s White House. He's playing cards in the Treaty Room, looking over a space capsule in the Roosevelt Room, sitting quietly in the OO, and appearing on TV in the Library. I'd love to have a picture of his Trophy Room (YOR) or other family rooms, but these remain elusive.

FDR and ER

Went back thru the UMD NARA archive of Roosevelt photos more thoroly and found several photos of the FDR-era rooms that I had overlooked before. I put one in ER's Sitting Room (the Master Bedroom), one in the WW Colonnade, one in the President's Dining Room, and a couple in the Yellow Oval Room.

Presidents' bathubs

I've added a page just for the Living Room Bath to accommodate all the info I've gathered about the presidential bath, including the story of LBJ's ridiculous shower, and a nice quote from the 1952 Plumbing News that describes the Truman bathroom. This corrects the mistake I'd made by including the LBJ story in the bath sections of the Master Dressing Room page. Meanwhile, on the Master Dressing Room page, I added a picture of the Taft bathtub to illustrate the old story about Taft getting stuck in a small tub.

However, I'm a little uncertain that the quote from the Plumbing News was actually referring to the president's bathroom (Living Room Bath) rather than the Master Bath.

Books and photos

This past weekend, I got the WHHA's White House History books I ordered: Kennedy 2 and Collection 1. I pulled a pic of Caroline K's bedroom from the first, but didn't even open the other. I've also ordered some videos, but not movies to review for the work-in-progress movie page. The ones I've ordered are historical documentaries and docu-dramas.

I've also quietly added a few other pics here and there (Nixon gals in the ESH, for example), but otherwise, I've been working on my other Web site (specifically, a new page of my photos and some other stuff).

UPDATE: Fixed the ref to Caroline's bedroom. She had the east; Junior had the west.

A return to the second floor

I'm about a third of the way thru America's First Families (which, it occurs to me, without the subtitle, could be a book about Eskimos), and twice Carl S Anthony refers to two back staircase on the west end second floor of the Residence. Previously, I had dismissed a similar reference as referring to the back staircase on the east end of the house that leads up to the Music Room, but Anthony is clear.

That leaves me wondering if maybe Margaret Truman's bathroom was completely removed or drastically reduced to a tiny lavatory to allow the kitchen spiral staircase to be extended into the second floor during the Kennedy renovation that changed her bedroom into a kitchen. This is what I had thought after exploring the kitchen elevator, but later I wasn't sure enough to keep the change.

Anybody?

Where the heck is this?

Welcome to the first installment of "Where the heck is this?" the fastest-growing White House trivia game on the Web. Today's mystery: this photo was taken of three presidents at the time of the state (vice-state? semi-state? cum laude?) funeral for Hubert Humphrey in 1978, but where the heck was the picture taken? It's driving me nuts. The combination of doors, arch transom, fireplace, and table is baffling.

Feel free to reply as a comment to this post. Nobody is using the comments feature for some reason.

UPDATE: The comment mystery is solved at least. I had user validation turned on.

SOLVED: Jack M writes: I located the Time Magazine from Jan. 30, 1978 with another picture and article by Hugh Sidey, the late Presidential Historian. It reads in part......

Almost with eagerness, Carter, Ford and Nixon followed Baker into an anteroom for a historic picture of the three. In a few minutes it was time for these people to take their places beneath the Capitol dome to honor Hubert Humphrey. Not since Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy came together in Bonham, Texas at the funeral of Sam Rayburn in 1961 has such a gathering occurred.

Second floor and West Wing

A few minor adds to the second floor and West Wing and its patio.

Pete S suggested creating a page for reviews of movies that feature the White House prominently, meant to evaluate the accuracy of the portrayal. He has done The American President. Once we've got a couple more (feel free to volunteer!), I'll post it.

UPDATE: Actually, if you're reading this weblog, you're probably interested enough that I might as well let you see it in the draft stage.

Groundskeeping

Did some maintenance on the grounds pages....

• Made a single medium-sized Grounds page, instead of a small version and large version and included colored areas for the new pages
  
• Added a page for the Childrens' Garden
• Added a page for the Oval Office Patio
• Added some pics to the Kennedy Garden page
• Added a 1992 HABS pic to the Putting Green page
  

Directions...

As the site grows, I’m trying to decide how best to present information without it becoming overwhelming. The White House site divides their room coverage into “Life in the Red Room” and “Red Room Art and Furnishings” and so on. But this seems kind of awkward to me, especially since pieces get moved around from one administration to the next. The White House site is mainly concerned with the rooms as they are today, with smatterings of history to make it interesting, whereas I want to allow people to see how the White House has changed over the decades. Still, the old Cabinet table with locking drawers currently in the Treaty Room is perfectly worthy of a bit of attention on its own, let alone the Lincoln bed and Resolute desk.

As a corporate training consultant, I’m also considering how to turn the site into more of a structured educational experience, with teaching aids and quizzes or whatever, so teachers can use it directly in their history lessons.

Quiet weekend

Just a few photo and text additions here and there, including the Sit Room and the Diplomatic Reception Room.

Treaty Room and West Wing

Got a nice pic in the mail from visitor Barry of the Bush 2 Treaty Room. This really helps bring the second floor up to date. Also added a pic of President Nixon and darling daughter in the Rose Garden the day of his resignation.

I created a page for the corridor outside the Oval Office. I also added a few more pics sent by Pete: JFK's bedroom, WW mess corridor, Blue Room 1995 pic, Avenue in the Rain painting.

Nixon's last day

Got a note from a Nixon presidential materials technician that my (free!) CD-ROM of photos of Nixon's last days is being shipped. Her note directed me to a UV Miller Center page where a selection of the photos is available. Wow! Some great images of the West Wing showing staff in their offices, including the President's Secretary's Office, the President's Dining Room, the Press Secretary's Office, and more. There were even some of Nixon's last lunch being prepared in the second floor Family Kitchen.

Second floor mysteries

Having created a page for the Family Elevator already, I went looking today for more pics to illustrate it. I found some in the LOC's HABS collection. But a close look at one pic revealed something I hadn't noticed before. According to the elevator floor display, there is a second mezzanine level I didn't know about. It can't be very big (the first mezzanine isn't) so it probably just includes the elevator lobby and a room over the Beauty Salon. There must also be a (probably unconnected) mez level over the Family Kitchen, since it clearly has a much lower ceiling than the Private Dining Room.

The Truman Library archives weren't any help with the elevator, but I found a nice pic of the East Sitting Hall looking west that I somehow overlooked before.

Also, I finally made a change to the second floor layout that I've been mulling over. My original source for the second floor layout had doorways to the Central Hall for the East Bedroom and West Bedroom. But pictures of the hall suggested that there are bookcases that block this. Since I could see a door on the bedroom side in the East Bedroom pics, I figured maybe it was just disguised on the hall side, but a more careful examination of the layout made me realize that there must just be another little closet there instead. However, this seems like bad design architecturally. If it were my house, I probably would have combined the little closets into one nice walk-in closet and put the bathroom door on the bedroom wall.

Ancient relics

Made another pass thru the Library of Congress archives to clean up some source citations by adding links to the source files and found several more pre-1930 photos that I wanted to use, including some of the Red Room, Green Room, and Kitchen. One I found for the Living Room (when it was the state bedroom) was confusing. I already had a photo from 1893, but now I have two different photos from 1893. Anyone with some insight would have my gratitude. Do I have the dates wrong or are these before-and-after photos of the Harrison-Cleveland transition?

UPDATE: Visitor Dennis has suggested that the Harrison photos (you can see "Harrison" on a pillow) are probably earlier than 1893 and the new photo probably is post-Cleveland redecoration of 1893 (the LOC says 1893, so I'll stick with that).

Upstairs at the White House

I finished JB West's Upstairs at the White House over the weekend and I'm just amazed. It's such a well-written account, personal and nostalgic but very balanced and easy to read. My discussions with other WH enthusiasts find that one thought Mrs. Kennedy was West's favorite and that one thought Mrs. Eisenhower was his favorite, while I thought Mrs. Truman was his favorite. I suppose it was ghost-written, but that's some pretty tricky writing.

Favorite moments:

• The Trumans going from being the "three musketeers" to "the lovebirds" when Margaret moved out
• Ike demanding that the White House police shoot any squirrels that come near his putting green, and the Secret Service explaining why this was a bad idea
  
• Stripping out the new nursery before Jackie Kennedy returned after her infant's death so she wouldn't have to see it
• The miscue that caused staff to nearly break in on a state dinner to move the furniture
• LBJ wandering around the mansion, turning off lights
  
• LBJ demanding a high-pressure shower system that made the plumbers marvel "I don't see how the man can stand it"
  

The surprise was how tight the White House budget always was, even for the Kennedys. I knew how tight it was in the early years (Mrs. Lincoln getting grief about her shopping sprees, for example), but it was a surprise to find that, for example, the Navy was brought in to run the West Wing cafeteria mainly as a way of avoiding the extra cost on the WH books.

More miscellany

Between yesterday and today, I made a few more additions here and there:

• Added the Barber Shop to the West Wing (just a pic; no page yet)
  
• Created a page for the Putting Green (the link is there on the Grounds page, but there's no color on it yet, so consider it an Easter egg for the time being)
  
• Added the Johnsons moving in to the West Sitting Hall page
  
• Added a color pic Jerry Ford with Liberty to the Swimming Pool page
• Added an 1882 etching of the north face to the Residence page
• Added Amy Carter and Ronald Reagan to the West Bedroom page
• Added another FDR-era pic to the Yellow Oval Room
• Added a pic of Betty Ford in the Master Bedroom that nicely matched the one of Lady Bird Johnson
  

Miscellany

Made a few miscellaneous additions, including:

• Created a page for the north hall on the ground floor
• Created a page for the family elevator
• Added a pic of the Kennedy's first Family Kitchen on the second floor
• Added a new pic of the Visitors Foyer
  

West Wing Colonnade

Added a page for the West Wing Colonnade. This will be a good place to put historical pics of the old conservatories, but for now it just goes back to the 20s.

Added a couple of images for historical interest: Nixon playing the state piano in the East Room and, in the Queen's Bedroom, a cable from FDR to Churchill on his coming to the White House immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Bits and pieces

Added Truman post-renovation color(!) pics to the Red Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room, and Lincoln Bedroom from the 1952 Report of the Commission for the Renovation of the Executive Mansion. I already had good color pics of the East Room and Green room from that time, and those were the only other color plates in the book. Added a few Johnson pics from the UT - Johnson Library site, including President's Study. Added a Clinton-era pic of the Family Kitchen.

Added a page for the First Lady's Offices in the East Wing, accessible by clicking anywhere on the second floor. I don't have anything to say about the first lady's offices, and I'm not entirely certain that all three pics I've included are actually taken in the East Wing offices, but something is better than nothing here, I think.

Added a few tidbits of historical anecdotes to some of the rooms (Living Room, Press Briefing Room, State Dining Room) to liven them up, per the suggestion of visitor James.

New front page

Got tired of the dull black and white photo of the swimming pool on the front page and replaced it with a cheery yellow pic of Betty Ford in the Solarium.

Also added the Kennedy Yellow Oval Room, LBJ taking a meeting in bed, JFK lying in state in the East Room, and a page for FDR's third floor Diet Kitchen.

Visitor James suggested that I add more historical anecdotes, which sounds like a good idea. I'll add some bits I've gleaned from JB West's book and elsewhere.

Third floor gala reopening

Arrived home to find the 1952 Report of the Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion waiting for me, as ordered thru Amazon's used book function. This terrific book (thanks to John for the tip!) contains color photos from 1952 of the state floor rooms and the Lincoln Bedroom (which I'll photograph and add) and an appendix with all four floors of the Residence laid out!

I spent the night redrawing the third floor plan based on that layout. It allowed me to identify the location of a few more pictures from the Truman library (such as the Cedar Room), as well as some great shots of W in the Workout Room (provided by Pete). I still need to do a bit more work cleaning up the 1992 HABS photos and creating a couple new pages, including one for the Diet Kitchen.

Second floor fill

After reading the terrific chapters on the Truman-era White House in JB West's book, Upstairs at the White House, I did a little bit of cleanup on the second floor and went back into the Truman archives to fill in a few little holes here and there.


Also added a pic of JFK and one of Tom Ridge in the Mess Hall.

West Wing additions

Made some more additions to the West Wing, namely adding a page for the ground floor Mess Hall and hotspots for a couple of corridors and the lobby, as well as redoing the second floor layout based on Pete's improved version, complete with labels for the more important offices.

Made a few other futzy text additions here and there, including the Family Theater, Map Room, Vermeil Room. But it's time to go to bed; I just nodded off and typed about 3,000 letter "k"s.

East Wing and West Wing tweaks

Redid the West Wing ground floor with a revised layout from Pete that better illustrates the relationship between the Situation Room and the Swimming Pool cabana above it (and connected to it by a staircase). I also added a page for the Sit Room.

Also, I filled in some of the mystery space in the East Wing with the help of the (sketchy) layout in the appendix of Designing Camelot. While I was doing that, I came across new pictures of the Family Theater showing that it was redecorated in 2004, which I wasn't aware of.

Second floor revisited

I've uploaded a new version of the family residence second floor based on a close look at a Truman-era floor plan sent by visitor John. This made me believe that the Kitchen's spiral staircase does not go up into the second floor, altho the elevator definitely does. Instead a small bathroom first installed by TR and later rebuilt by Truman to be more practical is probably still there, just made smaller.

I also made some minor additions elsewhere, including the Oval Office, Red Room, Blue Room, Press Corps Offices, Basement, Bowling Alley, and Residence pages.

West Wing ground floor and more

Visitor Pete sent a floor plan for the ground floor of the West Wing. I don’t have words to describe how great this is. I have to make one up: fanblastular (noun form: fanblastulence). I used it to create a floor plan to match the others I've done and posted that. In the coming days, I'll create pages for the Lobby, Photo Office, Navy Mess, and Situation Room. I also linked to Pete's incredible 3D Oval Office model. Once again, my thanks to Pete!

I also added a few photos in various places, including the Cabinet Room and Yellow Oval Room and improved several others (from higher quality sources or by reprocessing for color and brightness). And I also separated the questions & answers into a new page and updated the site map.

I've gotten a number of e-mails from regular visitors that I haven't had time to respond to yet, but I will. By chance, both John and Pete sent me scans of the same West Wing Lobby pic. Thanks guys!

Second floor layout

Just posted a revised layout of the Residence second floor. By reviewing the floorplans at the back of Designing Camelot, I found that my source layout, even with changes I'd made from my own research, didn't quite have the east end right. The closets are arranged rather differently and most of the walls are not the full thickness of the outer walls like they are on the first floor. This has the happy result of doubling my confidence that the kitchen elevator and spiral stairs both go all the way to the second floor at the west end. DC also has a partial third floor layout, so my half-completed redrawing of the third floor will now be better informed also.

Also, last night, I added a few of those new Truman West Wing photos I found on the UMD NARA site, including the old West Wing Lobby, the President's Secretary's Office (with a good view of the doors to the OO and the Rose Garden), and the OO before Truman changed the decor, finally giving a really good look at the Roosevelt window treatments (I liked them so much I did a close-up). Unfortunately, no pics of the old bowling alley or the pre-1952 elevators.

Speaking of close-ups, a while back I did a close-up of the TR trophies in the State Dining Room. Since the LOC and UMD NARA sites offer very hi-res images, I may do more of these in the future. Sometimes even a hi-res photo can be of very low quality (over- or underexposed), but sometimes the focus and tone are so clean that it allows us a peek into the room that the subject and photographer never intended.

Hoover, Truman, and Camelot

Added the rest of the Hoover pics. Visitor Dennis corrected my placement of a couple of images already as he graciously has in the past. They were actually Hoover-era Lincoln Bedroom photos, of which I already had one, but they're good photos and nicely document the era. Getting help getting these details right is very gratifying. The mistakes and shoulder-shrugging I've found in the official archive sites attests to how tricky it can be.

I re-searched the Roosevelt and Ike files and still came up with nothing. For the heck of it, even tho I already have a million Truman pics, I looked at the Truman archive and found a half million more good images. What the heck were Roosevelt's photographers taking pictures of? German u-boats?

However, much more important, after reviewing the floor plans in the back of Designing Camelot (one of the books I just got), I find I have a couple of details about the second floor wrong and a clearer view of what the third floor should look like. Sooo, I'll be redrawing them again soon.

Nixon and Hoover(!)

I would never have imagined a year ago that I would get excited about finding 17 pages of an unpublished manuscript by Lou Hoover. But after adding several photos from the UMD NARA site from the Nixon era, I looked again at the Hoover papers and discovered Mrs. Hoover's unpublished partial history of the White House, complete with contemporary pictures! I find Mrs. Hoover's style to be so charming (if ideosynchratic) that I added a couple of quotes directly from the pages. But the real treasures are the high-resolution images of the pages featuring photos of rooms from about 1930.

Also-- added a page for the WW Lobby. Pictures of this space are scarce, but Pete Sharkey's 3D recreation provides a great view (thanks again, Pete!). When his project is further along, I'll start linking to all his 3D White House models on Google.

Kennedy and GHW Bush years

Finished poring over the Carter pictures at UMD's NARA site and processing some for inclusion in the site (and linking back to the page with hi-res versions). Then I moved on to Kennedy. Unfortunately, it appears that there aren't nearly as many images in the pre-Carter collections on that site (oddly, the Kennedy pics are better preserved; not nearly as dingy altho with lots more dust). I found several good ones from the Kennedy era and moved on to George HW Bush. The Bush Library site has a good selection of large photos that I've already studied, so I didn't find many good ones that I didn't already have. Nothing from Hoover or FDR, unfortunately. I still have the Nixon and Reagan pictures to go thru.

Open note to UMD: the purpose of thumbnail images is to display many images on the same page. Putting each thumbnail on a separate page defeats the purpose, you dopes.

Carter photorama

Stumbled across the motherload of high-res archival photos from the Carter years. These seem to be some sort of demo done by the University of Maryland for the National Archives. It's a very clunky interface, glacially slow, and often a crapshoot (click on a Menachem Begin visit, get Amy Carter posing with her cat Misty Malarkey Ying Yang) but far better than what the actual NARA site offers. Unfortunately, I had downloaded and processed about ten images from NARA's Carter collection before finding this site, so there was a lot of rework.

The collection explicitly states what I already knew: that the Carters didn't bother to have many photos taken in the residence. On the other hand, there's a million shots of the president eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with various guests. Just going by the photos, the guy should have outweighed Taft.

Photos of photos

I added some new photos that I got out of one of the books I just bought. They nicely update the Blue Room, Family Dining Room, Lincoln Sitting Room, and Treaty Room. I also found a picture of McKinley's secretary (chief of staff) in his office in what is today the Queen's Bedroom. That room really needed more pre-Truman pics. And I cleaned up some of the Kitchen and pantry pics and captions.

I also created a page for the West Wing Lobby and posted it but didn't link to it from the floor plan so I could check with Pete first. I used two of his 3D recreation pic and wanted to check with him first, since the whole West Wing recreation isn't finished and published yet.

Note: I fixed the archive links. You'd link Blogger would be easier to use than this. The settings are not very clear.

Pantry pictures

I'm continuing to add some of the terrific photos sent to me by visitors, especially Pete S. These have nicely filled in the Chief Usher's Office, the West Wing Lobby, the modern Butler's Pantry, and a few other holes.

Also, When I got home from traveling Friday night, I found that the books I'd ordered had arrived. Previously I had done nearly all my research online and had bought the White House Historical Association's The White House - An Historical Guide as my only actual book. Now I have The White House - It's Historic Furnishings & First Families, West's Upstairs at the White House, and also Designing Camelot - The Kennedy White House Restoration.

West Wing redux

With a lot of help from visitor Pete (who is creating a phenomenal 3-D White House in Google Sketchup), I redid the West Wing with the much more accurate floor plan he found and added several pictures he culled from a DVD put out by the White House. The result is a major improvement, I think.

I'm still flummoxed by the layout of the Press Corps Offices, tho. I couldn't make heads or tails of the video they showed at the last White House Correspondents dinner and the new pics by Julie Mason haven't nearly as much as I'd hoped. Oh well... maybe we'll get a tour when the renovation is complete.

Mail call!

Got a ton of e-mail from several visitors who are White House fans, including some with attachments of terrific new photos. I've added some already and will do more in the next couple of days. One attachment is a much, much better floorplan of the West Wing first floor (thanks, Pete!), so I'll be redrawing the map ASAP.

New pics from 2006

I added a number of new photos that I managed to dig up on the White House site. These are all recent and of good quality (tho mostly smaller than my standard 600 pixels wide, so I had to blow them up). They really help illustrate the West Wing a bit better (like the Chief of Staff's office) and a couple of rooms in the second floor of the Residence. In fact, until I found a photo, I didn't even know that the Bushes had changed the wall coverings in the Private Dining Room again (the Clintons covered the Revolutionary War wallpaper).

I also added a few TR-era pics to the Kitchen and resequenced all the pages so the most recent photos come first and the oldest photos are at the bottom of the page.

New front page - Ford hospitalized

This week, I changed the front page picture from the 1962 Kennedy Blue Room to the 1948 FDR swimming pool under the Press Briefing Room, given that that room is in the news lately.

Also, former President Gerald Ford went into the hospital again today, the third time in a year. He turned 93 in July. As an honorary member of the White House Museum board of directors, he and his family have our best wishes.

External vs internal links

I spent most of last evening making some finicky changes to the White House Museum front pages to make them look nicer. This includes changes to the CSS file that allow me to make internal links blue and external links red, which seemed like a value to readers. However, it also means that I need to republish all the pages now, which is a bit of a chore, given the way I've structured the site.

However, since a lot of the pages are getting rather long, I think I'll reorder the photos so that you go back in time as you scroll down. I suspect most people are interested in the White House as it is and was in the recent past, rather than as it was in 1873. Then, republishing all the pages at once will be more worth it.

Note to self: finished special project for GRF.

Residence expansion

I've posted dozens of new photos in the past couple of days and created a number of new pages to flesh out the third floor of the Residence and the pre-Truman second floor. It took some noodling to figure out which room was which, since the Truman Library archives don't have them clearly labeled, and I may have made some mistakes. I've learned that I can't always even trust the Library of Congress on rooms or dates, so it's a pretty tricky puzzle. It actually helps a lot to draw a schematic of the room from the photo, with the doors and windows and fireplace, and then to try to fit it to the floor plan just like a puzzle piece. But even then, some rooms, like the Master Dressing Room and the Queen's Sitting Room, have identical layouts.

Press Briefing Room closes

On Wednesday, the White House Press Briefing Room closed for renovations with a little ceremony and today White House staff began breaking it down. I found some nice snapshots from Wednesday, but it surprises me that real photographers don't seem to have bothered to capture the Press Corps Offices over years.

Visits to the White House Museum spiked on Wednesday from people searching for "press briefing room." It's nice to see the site rising high in Google searches for those kinds of terms.

Encouraging words & newfound treasures

Got another terrific feedback note that included a little help on the Treaty Room and West Sitting Hall. I started linking the photo credit to the source image, partly to help prove that the West Sitting Hall photo was actually mislabeled by the Truman Library archives. Also, I found a fantastic resource in the Library of Congress by searching for "HABS" (Historical American Buildings Survey): Theodore Roosevelt-era hand-tinted super-high res versions of the same pics I'd been using to illustrate the TR era. Awesome. Some of those puppies are 130 MB TIFF files 7700 pixels across. Weirdly, altho these pics are labeled with a 1904 copyright by the original printer, the image of the Entrance Hall includes a portrait of TR, which seems odd to have while TR was still president. But the one of the President's Office (rectangular version before the construction of the Oval Office) includes a calendar that is clearly May starting on a Sunday, which would definitely make it 1904.

Museum proposal

Last week, I called the offices of Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Congressman Chris Chocola (R-IN 2nd) to ask about sending them my proposal for a real museum of the White House (you can find the link at right). The congressman's local head of staff took my call immediately and requested the proposal by e-mail. The senator's staff suggested I mail it physically to a local staff member. I got it professionally printed and spiral bound to look important, and today I sent it off.

I contacted the mayor's office in South Bend several weeks ago and had a nice conversation with a member of his staff who had served on museum boards before. He was open to the idea but warned me that the city couldn't bear the cost. I sent him the proposal by e-mail then, and copied him on the note to the congressman's office.

And just now I called the local office of Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN). His local office head answered and was very helpful with suggestions of adding history and civics classes to the idea, which might also garner Department of Education funding. I sent her the proposal by e-mail also.

In all cases, the people I talked to were polite and helpful and took the proposal seriously. I'm hoping that their bosses take it the same way and I get some responses one way or the other.

Welcome to the Oval Office

Welcome to the Oval Office, the weblog for the White House Museum at whitehousemuseum.org. I've set this up to encourage visitors to comment on aspects of the museum and suggest improvements, corrections, or additions.

I've never used blog software before, so I'll be experimenting here at first, so bear with me.

=D=
^^^ this is how I sign my messages. It doesn't mean anything; it's just a way of dressing up my initial.

Up and blogging

First