Stewart McLaurin
Stewart McLaurin breathes life into the nation’s most iconic landmark, sharing delightful details and illuminating hidden depths. He is president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit White House Historical Association and host of The White House 1600 Sessions podcast.
Transcript
Stewart McLaurin:
What people forget is the White House is a living, breathing, changing place. So it wasn't like you go to the Book of Genesis and you say, in the beginning was Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden. That just wasn't that way. And so modernization is necessary and important and can still respect the historical character and the historical story.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. Today my guest is Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association. When I think about the White House, I often think about the symbol and forget that it's an actual house that has the same interior design decisions and furniture that every house has. But in this case, it all has historical implications, and today Stuart peels back the layers that most Americans never get to see on those decisions, starting with Jackie Kennedy's passionate vision and including Theodore Roosevelt's bold renovations. He takes us behind the scenes of the Executive Mansion and the iconic West Wing. Stuart presents the White House from a perspective you rarely get to see. Every room and renovation tradition and change tells another part of the story. It's my pleasure to share our conversation now.
Stewart, I think a good place to start just for everybody, myself included frankly, is to get a better understanding of what the White House Historical Association is.
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that was started in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Now the amazing thing is, she's 31 years old when her husband is elected president of the United States. But at that young age she had such a vision for what she wanted to do as First Lady, that what she put in place in those three short years of that presidency, is still what manages, overseas, governs conservation, preservation, and actually even the acquisition of new items into the White House collection. And a key part of that work was the creation of the White House Historical Association to be a private partner to the White House. So when you go onto the state floor and you see those beautiful rooms---Blue Room, Red Room, Green Rooms, State Dining Room, East Room---all of those beautiful, museum standard rooms are maintained by funding from a non-taxpayer source, the White House Historical Association. She also envisioned an education mission for our work, to teach American history through the prism of the White House and its history. Most recently we've opened a 33,000 square foot "The People's House: a White House Experience" at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's free, open to the public. It's an extraordinary resource to learn more about the White House and about American history.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Why did Jacqueline feel that this was necessary? How did she have that insight? What was missing before, where all of a sudden she goes, we need this support for the White House. We need to start documenting and making sure that this is being captured somewhere and getting support for the White House.
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, she had visited the White House 20 years earlier with her mother as a teenager, and she was really disappointed at what she saw. There was no materials that you get, like even a brochure or a book if you go to a great American museum. So she realized that she thought the White House should have the very best representation of American craftsmen, artisans, artists, and that's what she said about to do. And so she---putting us together gave a private funding source, but it also created like a friends group at an American museum to help advise her and maybe some of those people would even give of their own means. And prior to the Kennedys, any new president could come into the White House and they could replace any of the furnishings, any of the art. They could sell or auction or give away things and get something that they liked and there was no one to take care of it. And so new presidents would replace the old. And so over time, all of these rich and wonderful treasures, what we would call antiques today or Americana, had drifted away.
Ted Roosevelt V:
If a new president was coming into the White House and they were refurbishing it or making changes, how did they fund it before this, if there wasn't a friends group as you describe it?
Stewart McLaurin:
They would sell old things to have money to buy new things. Perhaps the most egregious example was a suite of French furniture that James Monroe brought into the White House in 1817 when he moved back in after the British fire. He of course had been our minister to France and was very fond of things French. He brought over a 53 piece suite of French furniture that was the centerpiece of the refurbished White House. Before the Lincoln presidency, not 40 years later, only one piece of that furniture remained in the White House collection. It had become worn and frayed, it was French--- American furniture was more preferred. Well, Mrs. Kennedy knew about that and has sought or sought then, and we've continued to seek, to return that Bellangé, the French cabinet maker, suite of furniture to the White House. Amazingly of the 53 pieces to this day, we've only been able to identify and return 13 pieces of that original suite, but the vast majority are lost to history.
Ted Roosevelt V:
So I know the Resolute Desk sits in the Oval Office now. There were other desks that sat in the Oval Office that got auctioned off and sold and never to be seen again? I mean, is that how it worked before?
Stewart McLaurin:
The Resolute Desk was actually a gift to the Hayes presidency in the 1870s from Queen Victoria. The HMS Resolute had been a ship, a British ship that had become icebound off the northwest coast of the United States. When it was able to be moved, it was transported back to the East Coast, refurbished and returned to the United Kingdom. And when it was eventually decommissioned, Queen Victoria had this desk made from its timbers and presented to President Hayes. And actually it's an item that Mrs. Kennedy found tucked away at the White House not being used as the President's desk, and it was literally dusted off and refurbished and has become one of several desks that presidents can choose from to use today. Most modern presidents choose to use the Resolute Desk, including the current president.
Ted Roosevelt V:
It's amazing. So we don't always talk a lot about Theodore Roosevelt on this podcast explicitly, but in this case there's quite a lot of synergies between Theodore Roosevelt and the White House. Can you talk a little bit about his influence on the White House a bit and the West Wing obviously as well?
Stewart McLaurin:
Significant. President Roosevelt really undertook a major relook. Perhaps the most "TR" feel of those was in the State Dining Room, where he had all of these taxidermied game heads in the State Dining Room. Now, interestingly enough, we're told, we know that none of those were his personally, which you would think these would be his trophies of his own, but they were not. They were acquired otherwise. But it was very much his persona that was in that State Dining Room, so he had a significant imprint on that space.
Two other things that I think are iconic in terms of Teddy Roosevelt and the White House itself. Prior to the Teddy Roosevelt presidency, because of the color of the building, it had been referred to descriptively as "The White House," but more officially was the "Executive Mansion" or "the President's house." So for a hundred years it existed: President's House, Executive Mansion. It wasn't until the Roosevelt presidency that it was officially named the White House and that iconic blue block letter stationary of "The White House" was introduced at that time and has since then been referred to as the White House.
Ted Roosevelt V:
How intentional was that, in changing it from "the Executive Mansion" to "the White House," because that name is much more open, feels more like the People's House than an executive mansion. Was that an intentional decision?
Stewart McLaurin:
I don't know, not being able to get into his head in that regard, but I think clearly it was being described as that all the time because when the Scottish stone masons carved the exterior stone of the White House, it's a gray, a naturally gray, soft sandstone from the Aquia Virginia quarry. The Scotts knew from their experience carving similar stone in Scotland that it needed to be whitewashed to seal it, but then when it was rebuilt after the British fire, additional stone was brought from the Seneca quarry in Maryland, which had more of a red hue to it. And so a white paint was then used in addition to the whitewash to seal the stone and then color it in this white color. I think the words "executive mansion," "the President's house" have really an imperial tone to them that was not very American, certainly I don't think in the ears of Teddy Roosevelt. And it's been since that time now for a hundred and almost 25 years that the house has been known as the White House.
Ted Roosevelt V:
One of the major changes of the White House under the Roosevelt administration was the addition of the West Wing.
Stewart McLaurin:
Imagine this, you have a rather rambunctious family of kids, which you're familiar with.
Ted Roosevelt V:
That might be understating it a bit.
Stewart McLaurin:
And that residence level just above the state floor of the White House---and this is not a big building. If you've not been into the White House, when I take guests there, typically one of the very first things they say if they're coming in for the first time is, "wow, I thought this was bigger. I thought it was going to be larger than it is," because in our mind's eye, it is this seat of the executive branch of government. It's this big building. It's comfortable for sure, but it is not on the scale of a Buckingham Palace in London or the Elysée Palace in Paris.
And Mrs. Roosevelt finally got to the point where: "ook, this floor is not big enough for our family." And so there had been some greenhouses and those were torn down and a building was constructed, which has evolved today to be what we call the West Wing, a separate building for the President and for his staff. Now, when President Roosevelt moved his office over there, it was not into an oval. It was into a regular office, squareish, rectangular type of room space, an office space. It wasn't until the Taft presidency that the oval was created there in what we call the West Wing today.
Ted Roosevelt V:
It's sort of hard to imagine because it's become so iconic, a president in the White House, not in the Oval Office. When these major renovations are happening, are these controversial renovations that are happening? Are there kind of traditionalists that feel like, oh, we can't do this. Everything needs to stay the same, or is there sort of an overwhelming sense of like, hey, this really needs to be updated?
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, anytime you do something in Washington, there's pushback. Every time there's opinion, someone else has a different opinion or multiple opinions. And so I think another interesting thing about what Mrs. Kennedy did was she created the White House Historical Association, at least for the interiors of the White House, to be that private partner number one for funding, so you don't have to go to the Congress every time you need money, but number two, it takes the politics out of it. So when a painting is important to have or another work of art or furniture, you don't have a congressman or a senator saying, "well, there's a wonderful artist from my district and for you to get the money to have a painting, we're going to have to have that artist do it." All of that is gone. All of that is taken away. Now, I also think it's interesting that what she did in 1961, no one thought was self-serving, no one thought was partisan, and over time what she knew that she and President Kennedy and the house needed in 1961, every presidency that followed would need to take care of that house. It's an old house. Things are happening to it all the time. Now, the government for sure takes care of the infrastructure, the building, the electricity, the plumbing, but everything you see when you go into the space is almost exclusively taken care of by private dollars.
Ted Roosevelt V:
One of the other things I noticed that you guys provide on your website is things like the menus from state dinners. And it's amazing how much you can learn about, say, Chinese diplomacy in the 1970s by looking not where you think you should be looking. It's sort of a sneaky end around to say, oh, you're looking at some sort of random fact, but in fact, you're really learning quite a bit about the geopolitical dynamics of the time.
Stewart McLaurin:
That's absolutely right. This is one of the reasons I love the presidential libraries across the country because they give you a snapshot not just into that president and their personality and the things they did, but that period of time in our history, and you get to learn the context of the world, the country, and the things they were dealing with, whether it was the economy or sports or fashion---so many different things that are part of those times and frame that presidency.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Stewart, I'm curious what led to this career path? Did you grow up as a child just sort of fascinated by the American presidency or is this something that evolved over time? Tell me about your career that led you here, because I can hear a lot of passion when you talk about it.
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, thank you, and I do really have a heart for history. I was fortunate enough to, in the fifth grade--- and you can actually see over my right shoulder, this is a picture of my fifth grade class trip to Washington, D.C.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Oh, that's so cool.
Stewart McLaurin:
And that's a grainy black and white photograph of us sitting on the lawn of the Capitol building. And I have very vivid memories of the Capitol, the White House, Mount Vernon, and it came alive in my little fifth grade brain into my mind's eye from seeing it, and experiencing and walking the halls that members of Congress walked, and being in the rooms where the president and his family worked. That I think kindled in me an initial interest in history and in place. I think it's important for everyone in America to not only have a sense of our country's history, American history, but know the history of their career path, of their community, of their state, of the things that impact them on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, our education system has left out a lot of historical context along the way. We forget that there are 250 years of this rich, difficult, challenging, beautiful, but also ugly history, and so it's falling on institutions like the White House Historical Association and the presidential libraries across the country. I'm so excited about what's going to be happening out in Medora with the Teddy Roosevelt Library. These are amazing outposts of civics, education and history, education for those who cannot come to Washington always,
Ted Roosevelt V:
I mean, I agree with everything you just said. One of the goals of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is to humanize, not to lionize Theodore Roosevelt, because we think it's so much more impactful for people to understand the human, not the person that's held up above as sort of out of reach and they were a demigod in some way that did nothing but amazing things. It really weakens and thins the story out in a way that makes it in my mind significantly less impactful.
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, it's a struggle because we do put our leaders on a pedestal and we do have expectations of them, which are often, if not always unrealistic. They are human beings. They have failings and frustrations, and they make bad decisions from time to time. I think our challenge in what we do is not to be perceived as partisan. Our role is exactly the same no matter who the president of the United States may be. I've been privileged to be here for almost 11 years, and I've had wonderful opportunities and relationships with the Obamas, the Trumps, the Bidens, and now, it will be the Trumps again, and they all love the house. They all love the history that it represents. They all felt privileged and honored and humbled to be there in the role that they have.
Ted Roosevelt V:
When we have a presidential administration transition, how much of a transition is it for you or is it relatively steady throughout because you have this baseline of the White House?
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, it's definitely a reset because you have different people, not just only in the person of that First Lady who's our primary point of contact. The Bidens came in, she had been Second Lady, so she had some familiarity--- really kind of a hit the ground running dynamic there. Already beginning to work with Mrs. Trump and her team---that won't be back to square one either. So it is different from presidency to presidency, them getting to know us, us getting to know them, finding out what their priorities and interests are, how we can align and support that according to our mission.
Ted Roosevelt V:
I'm remembering back when Mrs. Trump was in office before, and I don't know if the Rose Garden is sort of outside of your purview, but she made some changes to the Rose Garden that got I think some negative feedback in the press initially. The First Lady's trying to make changes and it becomes political for a variety of reasons. How do you stay above the fray in those instances?
Stewart McLaurin:
That's an excellent question and a challenging one because I know what Mrs. Trump did to restore the Rose Garden needed to be done.
There was severe drainage issues out of the Rose Garden that was causing water to pool against the West Wing itself, on the west end. There were some irrigation issues there. To read some of the criticism, it was as if she wanted to scrape away everything that Jackie Kennedy represented and had done when in fact, she brought in the very people who consulted and worked with Mrs. Kennedy. And if you go over to the Rose Garden today and the Bidens use it all the time, it is spectacular. It's more beautiful than it ever has been, and yet it still honors and holds the bones of what Mrs. Kennedy and what President Kennedy put in place. But what people forget is the White House is a living, breathing, changing place. Guess what? Mrs. Kennedy, when she put the Rose Garden in, in the 1960s, it had been somebody else's garden before that and somebody else's garden before that. So it wasn't like you go to the Book of Genesis and you say, in the beginning was Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden. It just wasn't that way.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Right.
Stewart McLaurin:
And so, modernization is necessary and important and can still respect the historical character and the historical story.
Ted Roosevelt V:
We think about the White House as a metaphor in some ways for American history. What is it that the White House brings to the American story that's unique and special that makes it so critical to be understood by the American public?
Stewart McLaurin:
I would say two things. In 2016, Michelle Obama was giving a speech at the Democratic Convention and she said, I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. We knew that, but we were inundated with requests for more information on that. So our historians and researchers have now spent eight years delving into, who are these people? What are their stories? What can we share about them? If you go on our website, there's a treasure trove of information about them that you can learn and follow. The other piece of that is that building itself has become such a symbol that when you say those three words, "the White House," that we use now thanks to Teddy Roosevelt, people around the world know what that represents: American freedom and democracy.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Most people certainly in the world, but even most Americans, don't get to go into the White House. What's a common misconception about this iconic place that you get to witness as a regular part of your experience there?
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, each time I do go in, I am still filled with that same sense of awe and inspiration as the first time I walked in there as a fifth grade kid. At the end of the day, it's a building and it houses people who come to work every single day. One of the greatest examples is a wonderful gentleman by the name of Dale Haney. Dale started in 1972 as a White House gardener. Today he's the superintendent of the White House grounds. Dale was standing on the South Lawn of the White House in 1974 when President and Mrs. Ford walked President and Mrs. Nixon to the helicopter, leaving the White House. And you see Dale, I see him all the time, and he's out there in the Rose Garden pruning bushes, and he's just as happy today as he was that first day. If a president has a pet, he's the one that takes care, walks the dog, takes care of the dog, the cat. He's just emblematic of those people that you don't see who work behind the scenes, who take care of that house and who take care of our presidents and first families.
Ted Roosevelt V:
The title of the podcast and people that listen, hopefully are trying to think about how to be a better good citizen. That's the goal of the podcast. What about the White House would you point to as a guidepost for them or an important thing for them to be thinking about as they're thinking about their role as citizens in this country?
Stewart McLaurin:
I think to learn American history through the prism of the White House is a very helpful thing. Almost everything that has taken place in our nation's history has some White House connection to it. Either the decision was made there or processed there, or it happened there. And so I think the resources that we provide through our website, white House history.org, for people to learn and to know and to understand the history and the context. It's not there just for whoever may run for president of the United States, but these are lessons that we can all learn from and appreciate no matter what we're doing. You pull one string and it leads to another string and another story, and there's just so much to learn and consequently, so much for us to tell.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Stewart, we ask everybody on this podcast a relatively simple question, but we think of it as a bit of a profound question, which is: what does it mean to be a good citizen?
Stewart McLaurin:
From my perspective, it means always learning, respecting, and growing and evolving. I think that we do a lot of the latter part, careening ahead forward, being fully confident of everything that we have in our own little noggin, but there's so much information out there that we may not have and that we may not be keeping at the forefront to give context to what we're doing. And to me, careening forward without being grounded in the history and the awareness of all who proceeded us and all that they did and all that they succeeded with and all that they failed from--- it's building a house on sinking sand, and that would be my mandate to myself. To be a good citizen is to strive forward, but to always be learning more about the past, to be better at what I do moving forward.
Ted Roosevelt V:
This has been a great conversation. It's been so interesting, and I really appreciate the work that you're doing and you can hear your passion for this. And candidly, it's really refreshing and a joy to hear.
Stewart McLaurin:
Well, thank you very much and thank you for the work that you do. I think it's noticeable, it's impactful, and it's making a difference. I see it happening, and I appreciate what you do.
Ted Roosevelt V:
Stewart, it was so much fun talking with you today. You had a wealth of knowledge and you really are a steward of the White House. Thank you for taking the time to share some of these details with me in the historical context. It really was fascinating. Listeners, you can hear more from Stewart on the 1600 Sessions podcast. Please check the link in our show notes and the next time you're in Washington, head to the People's House, a new cutting edge immersive experience, free and open to the public now. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.
