Status Updates From Where Is the White House?

The president has to pay for the First Family’s food, their parties, and dry cleaning, too. Many presidents are surprised and a little upset when they get their first monthly bill.

At state dinners, every plate has a handwritten menu resting on it, in beautiful handwriting called calligraphy. Guests are allowed to take their menus home as a souvenir.

Today, the White House has twenty-eight fireplaces, three elevators, a movie theater, and a bowling alley. On the Ground Floor, there’s a flower shop, a doctor’s office, and even a chocolate shop.

In fact, the first presidents had to go outside to an out house to use the toilet! Thomas Jefferson installed two toilets indoors, but not everyone could use them. The servants had to use the outhouse.

Thomas Jefferson thought the East Room was too grand and fancy. So he let his secretary, a man named Meriwether Lewis, live there. Teddy Roosevelt used to hold boxing matches in the East Room. He would set up a boxing ring and invite people to fight him. In one match, a young soldier punched Roosevelt and accidentally blinded him in his left eye.

Several presidents’ daughters have gotten married in the East Room. And President Ford’s daughter Susan had her high-school prom there in 1975!

She added valuable antiques and made the main floor of the house look like a museum. Famous paintings were hung on the walls. Jackie Kennedy said that the White House wasn’t just a house for the president’s family. It was also a national treasure.

There was no electric lighting in the White House until 1891. Benjamin Harrison was president at the time. Before that, the only lights in the White House came from candles or gas lamps.

President Andrew Jackson had a huge party when he was elected in 1829. He invited the public to come. Mobs of poorly dressed people swarmed into the White House. They stood on chairs with their muddy boots and pushed and shoved to get a look at the president. Thousands of dollars’ worth of china were broken. The White House was a mess! Andrew Jackson had to climb out a window to escape the mob.

For several years, there was an open market right in front of the White House. People even held horse races in the front yard!

George Washington died in 1799, a year before the house was completed. The father of our country is the only president who never got a chance to live in the White House.

For more than two hundred years, slavery was allowed in America. Twelve of our presidents owned slaves, eight of them while in office.

Congress asked Pennsylvania to protect them from the mob. The governor of Pennsylvania refused to help. He thought the angry men were in the right!
That made the men in Congress think twice about where the capital should be. They decided it should not be in any of the thirteen states. It should be separate, on a special piece of land.