I'm Julie Andrews and it is my great pleasure to bring you Jane Austen Stories, the new show from the Noiser Podcast Network.
I'll be reading Pride and Prejudice.
We'll walk grand estates and take tea with well-dressed gentlewomen.
But in this tranquil corner of England, not everything is quite as it appears.
Listen to Jane Austen stories wherever you get your podcasts.
It is the 24th of August, 1814.
Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States of America, is on fire.
An enslaved African-American man stands at an upstairs window in the White House, the presidential mansion looking out over the city.
Born on the estate of President James Madison and his wife Dolly.
He has become a valued servant and now works as a valet.
But the house in which he serves the Madisons is almost empty.
The room behind him is strewn with belongings left behind by the president in his hurry to escape.
Standing frozen to the spot.
The young man gazes down the length of Pennsylvania Avenue to where the Capitol Building, the seat of the United States Congress, stands proudly on a slight hill.
It is a blaze, an incandescent beacon lighting up the night sky for miles around.
Dark plumes of smoke spiral upwards, blotting out the moon and stars on what had promised to be a beautiful summer's night.
As he watches several of the capital's windows shatter in the heat, sending glinting shards of glass in all directions.
And now, those responsible for the destruction are heading towards the White House.
Towards him.
A small group of British soldiers in their distinctive red uniforms are drawing closer to the White House.
The officers mounted on high-spirited horses.
The beast's glossy coats are illuminated by the fiery glow of the capital behind them.
The valet takes one final glance out of the window before running out of the room and down the stairs.
He reaches the ground floor just as the immense front door swings open.
The soldiers pour through barely noticing him as they split up and immediately begin to ransack the rooms.
From his hidden vantage point in the hallway, he watches in horror as soldiers tear curtains from the windows, throw cushions off of chairs and sofas and rummage through drawers.
Suddenly, a shout from the dining room draws the intruder's attention.
Someone has found the meal laid out earlier for Dolly Madison and her guests before they had understood the gravity of the threat posed by the British and fled to the port of Georgetown.
Careful to remain out of sight, the valet follows as the soldiers head eagerly towards the food.
The Redcoats raucously help themselves to the wine and array of fine dishes on the table.
They offer toasts.
Shouts of to the Prince Regent and down with Madison, interspersed with hails of coarse laughter.
Once they have eaten their fill, the real reason the British have come to the White House becomes apparent.
The officers instruct their men to bring all the fabric and wooden furniture they can find into the resplendent oval drawing room.
Crimson sofas, bed frames, sturdy writing tables and gilded chairs upholstered in luxurious velvet are all added to the pile.
The officer in charge steps forward to set the bonfire alight and the mountain of fabric catches quickly, sending a shower of sparks into the air.
As the soldiers nearest to the fire recoil from the sudden burst of heat, the valet slips quietly back into the hallway and out of the front door.
Sprinting away, he glances over his shoulder.
Smoke is already billowing out of the windows of the grand building.
On a clear night like this, who knows how long the fire might burn for.
The White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC is perhaps the most recognizable home in the world.
Built soon after the Americans won their independence from Britain in the Revolutionary War at the end of the 18th century, it has been altered and expanded throughout its life, especially after being set aflame by the British in 1812.
But from its inception it was designed to be both the home of the sitting president and his family and the seat of the executive branch of the federal government.
To this day, it stands as an enduring symbol of American democracy.
In the more than two centuries since its construction, it has been the stage upon which various seismic moments in the history of America and across the globe have played out.
So how did this iconic building come to exist?
What monumental events have occurred within its walls?
And how does the White House itself reflect America's ever-changing role in the world?
I'm John Hopkins from the Noisa Podcast Network.
This is a short history of the White House.
In the 17th century, Britain establishes colonies throughout the Americas, from what is now Canada down to the Caribbean.
Beginning as a series of small settlements, the colonization continues until the 1770s.
By then, the settlers number 25 million, up from a tenth of that at the start of the century, and the 26 million square miles of territory across which they live are organized into 13 colonies.
But despite the value the colonists add to the British economy, they have no representation in the British Parliament.
Already tiring of being governed from abroad, things reach ahead when a series of harsh laws and taxes are imposed from London.
In 1776, the colonies declare their independence from Britain and for the next few years, the Americans, with significant help from the French, fight for their freedoms.
Eventually, following a defeat at Yorktown, the British surrender in October 1781.
The Treaty of Paris formally ending the conflict and setting the boundaries of the new United States is signed on 3 September 1783.
Now that they have gained their independence, the Americans must begin the hard work of setting up a government.
In 1787, a constitutional convention is held in Philadelphia to decide on the principles and structure of the federal government.
Delegates are sent from each state, as the colonies are now called.
Heading the meeting is George Washington, a former soldier and politician who served as commander-in-chief of the army during the Revolutionary War.
After months of negotiation, a newly drafted constitution is signed in September.
It is decided that, while each state will continue to make many of its own decisions, a federal government overseeing all of them will split into three branches.
The judicial branch includes the Supreme Court as well as various lower courts.
In the legislative branch, known as Congress, are the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The executive branch is headed by a president, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
In 1789, a presidential election sees Washington chosen by those entitled to vote as the first president of the United States of America.
Shortly after his election, George Washington begins to make plans for a new federal capital.
A site is chosen on the Potomac River, and Maryland and Virginia cede 100 square miles of territory, which includes the port towns of Georgetown and Alexandria.
A little later.
This will be officially named the District of Columbia, and it is the site on which the new capital city will be constructed.
But for now, in September 1791, the capital is simply named Washington, in honor of the president who chose its locations.
Kate Anderson Brower is author of The Residence, Inside the Private World of the White House.
He positioned it in Washington, D.C., because in part it's close to his home, Mount Vernon.
And Washington is built on a swamp, so it's an unusual place to build a capital.
But the Potomac River and its coastal being on the East Coast, between other major cities and close enough to Philadelphia and New York.
At the time it was a strategic kind of midpoint between the Northeast and then the southern cities.
For his presidential palace.
He personally chooses a spot on a slight rise to give it a view over the entire city.
His plan, though, isn't just for one building, but the whole of the capital.
So George Washington wanted Washington, D.C. to be like a Paris or a London city.
But it really did not have the same innate beauty and it didn't have the long history, of course, of these other cities.
It was designed to really rival the beautiful capitals in Europe.
And you do see a lot of the architecture in Washington is neoclassical.
It harkens back to some European Parisian architecture.
In 1792, a competition is held to find an architect to build the presidential residence.
Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States and who will go on to be the country's third president, even submits his own design, albeit under a pseudonym.
So President George Washington and his then Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, commissioned the White House and there was a contest, and the Irish born architect, James Hoban, was the one who won this competition.
And the White House is designed originally to look like this 18th century Georgian mansion in Dublin that was home to Ireland's parliament.
Hoban's design is for a three-story mansion, although in the end Washington asks him to scale it down to two floors.
It is in the Palladian style, which draws from the classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome and is characterized by its symmetry and proportions.
The cornerstone of the building is laid on 13 October 1792.
Over the next few years, construction involves a variety of workers.
A huge number of enslaved people are drafted in, as well as free African Americans and indentured servants.
Temporary huts are built to house them as they dig the foundations and clear the whole area of trees.
Later, skilled stonemasons are brought in from Scotland and Ireland to build the house using sandstone quarried from nearby Virginia.
Enslaved people are also used for this skilled craftwork, and they will continue to staff the White House until the Civil War in the middle of the next century.
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The ground floor includes various reception areas, while the first floor comprises living quarters for the President and his family, as well as office space.
Several well-known features of the building, such as the east and west wings, do not yet exist.
And though it is already distinctively whitewashed at this stage, it is not commonly known as the White House, but as the President's Palace.
In 1800 the federal government relocates from Philadelphia and the building's first resident arrives.
But it is not George Washington, whose term as president ended in 1797.
The first president to move into the White House was John Adams with his wife, Abigail Adams.
And Abigail complained about the house being unfinished.
There were only six habitable rooms when they moved in.
They had to walk up, basically a plank in the mud, to get to the front door of the White House, because the front steps hadn't yet been installed.
So you know, if you put yourself in 1800, when the Adamses moved in, the White House was nothing like it is today.
Despite this unpromising start, John Adams is so moved by the building and what it represents that he writes to his wife I pray heaven bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it.
May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
Decades later, President Franklin D Roosevelt will have these words inscribed above the fireplace in the State Dining Room.
Soon, the Capitol building, the seat of the United States Congress, is also built in Washington DC, and the two buildings are linked by Pennsylvania Avenue.
After he takes the presidential reins in 1801, Thomas Jefferson begins the tradition of opening the White House to the public in the morning, a custom that continues to this day.
But even now, work continues.
The roof leaks and needs mending, and there is a lack of sufficient staircases.
And then disaster strikes.
Peace between britain and the newly independent america was always uneasy.
Sources of tension include british support for indigenous groups opposing american expansion westwards, as well as england's attempts to restrict trade during the napoleonic wars.
In 1812, the united states declares war on the united kingdom After two years of conflict.
American troops are defeated at the Battle of Bladensburg, just a few miles from Washington.
President Madison flees as the victorious British eager for revenge for the Americans' raising of their colony of York, modern-day Toronto, turn their attention to the nation's capital.
The British burned the house to the ground.
There were bonfires in the Library of Congress.
I mean, they burned the Capitol almost to the ground as well.
And if it were not for this storm that blew in, it was about 100 degrees that day.
And there was a summer storm, which happens frequently here in Washington.
And it blew in.
And fortunately, the rain put out a lot of those fires and the British retreated.
But it was a near demolition of these important parts of Washington DC that were really just constructed a few years before.
Knowing what's coming.
Dolly Madison frantically removes precious items and government papers from the building and remembers a famous portrait of the man who commissioned her home too.
As the White House was burning.
There's a famous story about First Lady Dolly Madison insisting on staying in the house so that this portrait of George Washington could be saved.
She did not save it herself, as was previously reported.
She directed her staff to save it.
But it is important that Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington was really salvaged.
But nothing can save the building itself, which is reduced within a few short hours to a charred shell.
Peace between the two nations is eventually agreed the next year and the Americans begin the arduous process of rebuilding their federal capital city.
The White House is reconstructed and enlarged over the next several years.
It is whitewashed to cover the marks left on the exterior by the fire, and terraces are added porticos covered entrances or porches supported by columns are also adjoined to the north and south of the building in the 1820s.
The burning itself is a trauma that will linger for this young nation, but there is perhaps a silver lining to the calamity.
The destruction of the white house was particularly traumatic.
President Madison asked James Hoban to rebuild the mansion.
It was already a national icon.
And every president since then has done something to make the White House really uniquely his own.
But if you look at just the timing of 1814, I mean, 1776 was not that long before.
So it was traumatic for the country, but I think it also helps the country kind of renew a sense of patriotism and purpose in what the United States.
It's symbolism, fortified by devastation and renewal.
The White House occupies a place in the American imagination.
It is not just the president's home, but a seat of government and thus a building in which every citizen has a stake.
A few years later, some citizens make themselves a little too much at home.
It is a bright spring day in March 1829.
On Pennsylvania Avenue, an enormous crowd has turned out for the presidential inauguration.
As President Andrew Jackson processes down the street on a magnificent white horse, they cheer for the man nicknamed the People's President.
But in the White House itself, which has been opened to all for the occasion, the crowd is becoming a problem.
A writer and political commentator named Margaret Bayard Smith is pressed against a wall in the drawing room with a view to the hallway.
Many of the thousands of people who have come to see Jackson sworn in as president have invited themselves to the White House for refreshments.
Hundreds are packed into the room, with even more in the hallways beyond.
And they keep coming.
Margaret takes notes, watching in astonishment as a man climbs through the large window to her left, clearly tired of waiting to get in through the front door.
The crowd is concentrated around the table in the middle of the room, laid out with dainty cakes and delicate glasses of wine and lemonade.
As dozens scrabble for the refreshments, glasses and crockery are knocked over and sent crashing to the floor.
Across the room there's even a man climbing onto a crimson brocade sofa, trampling mud over the exquisitely embroidered cushions.
Suddenly, Margaret's attention is caught by a disturbance in the doorway.
Craning her head over the densely packed bodies in front of her, she catches sight of the president himself, Andrew Jackson.
The crowd surges towards him, everyone seemingly trying to shake his hand and offer their congratulations.
But as more and more people mob him, he is in danger of being crushed by the onslaught of well-wishers.
Except now, to Margaret's relief, a group of aides shove their way through the crowd towards him.
Joining hands, they form a human shield, straining their arms as they attempt to hold back the horde.
All at once, the attention of the assembled throng turns towards a steward in the hall.
Standing just inside the front door, he calls loudly that further refreshments will be served on the lawn.
To demonstrate, he uncorks a bottle of liquor in his hand and pours it into a metal basin at his feet, followed by another, before dragging the tub outside.
A huge cheer goes up from the crowd and, as one body, they spill into the hall and out onto the grass chasing the promise of more alcohol.
Margaret turns her attention back to the president in time to see one of his aides gesturing towards a window.
Another takes Jackson by the arm and helps him swing a leg over the sill before he drops out of sight, away from the danger posed by the very people who came to celebrate his victory.
Fortunately, despite the overzealousness of the guests, President Jackson is unharmed.
Once the mess has been cleared away, Jackson continues to smarten up the house over the course of his tenure.
He spends $50,000 on refurbishments, about $1.7 million in today's money.
One of the objects he purchases is a silver dining set decorated with American eagles.
Yet these improvements do not satisfy a number of 19th century European visitors.
One of those to pen a scathing description of the building is the renowned English novelist, Charles Dickens.
During his 1842 tour of America, Dickens receives an invitation from the President to visit the White House.
But on the day of his appointment he rings the front bell two or three times without receiving an answer.
Entering instead through a back door.
He wanders around upstairs until a servant shows him to a waiting room.
There, he is disgusted to find several men spitting tobacco juice on the carpet.
The house itself seems worn and drab.
His eventual meeting with President Tyler is no more successful with the two men sitting awkwardly in virtual silence near a hot stove.
Dickens' verdict is harsh.
The building is more like a gentleman's clubhouse than a presidential mansion.
It is into this slightly dilapidated White House that Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary and their children move in March 1861.
There is by now central heating and gas lighting, and they enjoy running water throughout their private rooms.
Even so, Mary immediately sets to work redecorating, far exceeding the budget allocated by Congress for the renovation.
But the house she inhabits is still very different to the one we can see today.
Modern presidents famously work from the Oval Office in the West Wing, and the second story of the central part of the White House is exclusively a domestic space.
But in the 19th century the East and West Wings are yet to be built and living and working space in the building is much less clearly demarcated.
Theodore Roosevelt moved his office from the second floor of the residence into the West Wing.
And then Taft added to the Oval Office, and it was completed in 1909.
So really we're talking about the center of the White House, which is the Oval Office, not really being completed until more than 100 years after the White House was constructed.
So when you think of famous American presidents like Abraham Lincoln, They were working out of the second floor of the White House.
They were working out of an office upstairs.
The room in which Lincoln chooses to work is now known as the Lincoln Bedroom, but the president does not sleep there.
For most of his presidency, it is the room from which he directs the course of the American Civil War, which erupts shortly after he is elected.
The conflict fought between the Confederacy of mostly southern states and the Union of Northern States over the issue of slavery lasts four years and claims hundreds of thousands of lives.
Lincoln is not the first president to fight a war from the White House.
From 1846 to 1848, James Polk directed the course of the Mexican-American War from the building.
But the Civil War is a struggle over the fate of America as a nation.
From his office overlooking the South Lawn, Lincoln makes life or death decisions as commander-in-chief and pens such speeches as the famous Gettysburg Address.
And it is in this room that he crafts one of the most impactful orders ever issued by an American president the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation declaring every enslaved person in the Confederate States to be free.
The next year, the total abolition of slavery in the United States will be enshrined in law as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Ultimately, the Union and Lincoln are victorious.
But in 1865, shortly after he is re-elected and the war is won, he is assassinated in a theater by a Confederate sympathizer.
Afterwards, the White House is transformed from a command station into a place of deep mourning.
His body is wrapped in a flag, placed in a coffin and escorted by Union soldiers back to the presidential mansion where he lies in state for several days.
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In the aftermath of the Civil War, America is once again a flourishing democracy.
The Industrial Revolution is in full swing and the United States is at the heart of technological development and innovation.
This is epitomized by the changes made to the White House itself in these years.
In 1866, President Andrew Johnson has a telegraph room installed.
In 1877, Rutherford B Hayes invites Scottish engineer Alexander Graham Bell to the White House to display his new invention, the telephone.
The president is so impressed that he immediately orders one to be installed in the telegraph room.
Fascinated by new technology, Hayes also welcomes Thomas Edison, who demonstrates his phonograph.
Accordingly, Hayes becomes the first president to have his voice recorded.
A few decades later, Theodore Roosevelt takes the helm.
Though the name has been used colloquially since the beginning, it is under his presidency that the building becomes widely known as the White House, rather than the President's Palace, the Executive Mansion or any of the many other names it has had over the years.
It also now undergoes significant renovation.
In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt hired this famous architecture firm, McKin, Mead & White, based in New York.
And they renovated the house.
Roosevelt had a third story outfitted with guest rooms.
And they tore down a huge series of glass conservatories that were used to grow fruit and flowers on the grounds of the White House, which are really fascinating to see.
And that became space for what we know as the West Wing.
The president's office and those of his growing staff moves into the newly constructed West Wing, which retains its administrative purpose to this day.
But Roosevelt and his wife have six young children, and so the entire second floor is given over to the family.
They share their tenancy with an impressive menagerie of pets, including a badger, a pig, assorted birds and reptiles, even a small bear.
When one son Archie, is sick in bed, his beloved pony Algonquin is brought up to his bedroom in the White House elevator.
It is a reminder of how tightly connected politics and family can become in the White House.
And in a few years' time, a close family member of one particular president will become as close to the center of power as it is possible to be.
It is the evening of October 2, 1919.
An attractive middle-aged woman with tightly curled dark hair hurries down a corridor on the second floor of the White House.
Edith Wilson is the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson.
Her husband went up for a bath an hour ago, and she has not seen him since.
Given his recent precarious health, there is always the chance that something awful has happened.
Her pace quickens, her footsteps muffled by the thick rugs on the floor as she pushes open the door of the bathroom next to their bedroom in the southwest corner of the house.
She is not prepared for the sight that greets her.
Her husband is lying sprawled on the frigid tiled floor next to the bath, still in his shirt and trousers.
His face is pressed into the floor, his one visible eye shut.
Edith falls to her knees beside her husband.
With trembling fingers, she tries to find a pulse in his wrist.
At first all she can hear is the thunderous beating of her own heart.
But eventually she feels it.
It is weak, but he is still alive.
Tears running down her cheeks and dripping onto the dark fabric of her dress, she takes a steadying breath.
Then she springs into action.
Her husband is much taller than her but she rolls him as gently as she can onto his back.
His eyes flicker open but he remains unconscious.
The left side of his body seems unusually stiff and she struggles to position his limbs into what seems a comfortable position.
Next she runs to their bedroom next door and retrieves a pillow to cushion his head.
Once she has done all she can for him she goes to the telephone in the adjoining sitting room.
She dials Ike Hoover, chief usher at the White House.
He has been in the job for over a decade and a half and has served under three presidents already.
The man is a consummate professional.
Barely able to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Edith tells him to call Wilson's doctor Grayson and ask him to hurry.
The president is very sick, she says.
After hanging up, she returns to sit on the bathroom floor next to her husband.
Gripping his hand in hers, she offers a quick prayer for his recovery.
And then she leans back against the bath to wait for the doctor and to plan.
Having served as president throughout the First World War, Woodrow Wilson spearheads the effort to create the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations, so that such a devastating global conflict can never again occur.
But the stress takes its toll.
When he has a stroke in October 1919, his wife Edith resolves to do anything to aid her husband's recovery.
And so, with his doctor, she devises a plan.
Believing that his health has the best chance of improvement if the League of Nations work continues and comes to fruition.
They also agree that he must be shielded from bad news while he regains his strength.
So, until the end of his second term in 1921, Edith effectively takes over as president.
Everything coming into the White House for Wilson to deal with goes through her.
The whole operation is shrouded in secrecy, with his condition kept from both the American people and much of the government.
But even with Edith working doggedly in lieu of her ailing husband, the U.S.
Senate eventually votes against membership of the League.
They say that because she did that that the US didn't enter the League of Nations because she kind of mishandled it.
But yeah, Edith Wilson actually was kind of like the first, people say, the first female president.
Limited as it is by the absence of the powerful United States, the League of Nations ultimately fails in its objectives and is unable to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War, after which it disbands.
Despite Edith Wilson's secret wielding of power, it is Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D Roosevelt, who is remembered as the woman who redefined the role of the First Lady.
By far, the most impactful first lady of the 20th century was Eleanor Roosevelt.
She changed the game when it came to what first ladies can do.
She was in the position for 12 years, which is an unprecedented amount of time.
She was there for the Great Depression and World War II, these kind of cataclysmic events in American history.
Throughout her tenure as First Lady from 1933 to 1945, Eleanor refuses to be bound by the traditional duties of wife and hostess.
Instead, she continues with her speaking engagements and civil rights activism, attends labor meetings and holds regular briefings with the media.
She was the only first lady to have press conferences with just female reporters, because she saw how these mostly male reporters were taking over and getting all the best scoops, and so she insisted on having her own press conference with women.
And then she had the my day column where she was talking to the american people.
I mean, she was a true force of nature, and eleanor roosevelt earned the nickname rover by the secret service because she literally roved around the world.
She makes use of radio to reach people directly in their homes, making some 300 broadcasts.
Sometimes these are even recorded from the White House radio studio itself created by her husband for his so-called fireside chats, a series of evening addresses given by the president.
Her husband, the man known as FDR, contracted polio some years before his presidency, which permanently affects his mobility.
The ubiquitous stigma around disability at the time makes him determined to hide from the public the fact that he uses a wheelchair.
Though he teaches himself to walk short distances while wearing iron leg braces when he takes up residence in the White House, changes are needed to make it accessible for him.
Discreet to a man, the staff help him to maintain the illusion that he is able-bodied, wheeling him into rooms and seating him at desks and tables before guests arrive.
After FDR dies in office towards the end of World War II, he is succeeded by Harry Truman, and it is during his presidency that the building is extensively renovated, out of necessity above any other consideration.
The roof was caving in.
There's a great story about Margaret Truman, their only child, and she loved to play the piano.
And a foot of the piano actually plunged through the rotted flooring of the sitting room.
So it was time to move out.
And they moved into Blair House, which is across the street from the White House, so that this big renovation can be done.
And what Truman added, which I think is one of the most beautiful parts of the White House, is the Truman balcony.
And it's where families can go and relax and look out onto the South Lawn of the White House.
It's really like their back deck that I know that first.
Ladies especially love to go out there and have dinner and just have some privacy.
In 1961, a young couple move into this newly renovated White House.
John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie bring glamour and modernity to the roles of president and first lady, qualities that are reflected in the changes that they make.
Jacqueline Kennedy was really the person who modernized the White House by televising a tour of the White House and also, more importantly, by working to get rid of what she called these hideous horrors that were in the White House.
There was a lot of just furniture that needed to be updated.
And Jackie Kennedy wanted to make the White House the most perfect house in the country.
And so she got together wealthy Americans, including Henry DuPont, and collectors of early American furniture.
And she created a fine arts committee and they came and they brought in incredible pieces of art and they went around the country and they would find, you know, desks that had belonged to President Madison or chairs that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson, and they would bring them in.
Jackie Kennedy founds the White House Historical Association, dedicated to protecting, preserving and providing public access to the rich history of the House.
Under her supervision, the space becomes both a museum of American presidential history and an example of exquisite taste.
Jackie Kennedy saw herself as the art director, really, of the 20th century.
She believed that fashion and the arts were really an important part of American culture.
And this young country.
She did a lot to promote American culture, both internally but then outside, because everybody in the world you know Charles de Gaulle and all the great leaders looked up to Jackie and idolized her.
And so I think that she was a sophisticated person that brought the White House up a level that it hadn't been before.
The Kennedys' time in the White House also demonstrates the close relationship between the first family and the House staff.
Huge numbers of people work in the presidential and cabinet offices in the West Wing.
But alongside these political staffers who might occasionally make the headlines, The house itself is run by a largely hidden workforce.
The White House staff is made up of about 100 people and they are housekeepers carpenters cooks florists, and they all work there from one presidency to the next, so they're not hired by the president.
They serve at the pleasure of the president, and they can be fired for any reason.
But they are not political in any way, which is very unique in Washington.
The resident staff are just incredibly dedicated, loyal people.
Spending almost every day with the president and his family.
They see them at some of their most intimate moments.
They are uniquely trusted and are relied upon to exercise absolute discretion.
They form incredibly close relationships with the presidents and first ladies they serve.
I interviewed dozens of them and they told me that the Bushes George H.W.
Bush and Barbara Bush were their favorites to a person.
Everyone said that because I think that the Bushes were used to having staff.
And so it's much easier, when you're used to being served, to deal with that, whereas the Carters, the Clintons, the Obamas none of them grew up with maids and housekeepers.
And so it's not a natural way of being for them.
So I thought that was interesting.
This closeness between the first family and the people who work in the White House is highlighted most poignantly in the days after President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963.
A really important moment to highlight is in the East Room, when President Kennedy's body was brought back to the White House and the staff gathered to pay their respects.
And when Jackie Kennedy walked into the East Room, they turned to face the wall because they wanted to give her private time alone with her husband.
And the fact that Jackie was so stoic during that time.
They really felt like they also had to, you know, not be sobbing, even though they felt like it.
The second half of the 20th and opening decades of the 21st century, see the White House bearing witness to a series of seismic events in both American and global history.
Some of these are scandalous.
In 1974, President Nixon is forced to resign following the Watergate scandal.
Members of his campaign had broken into Democratic Party headquarters to try and help his re-election efforts.
But to begin with, the president himself cannot be tied to the crime.
In the end, it is the recording system that Nixon himself installed in the Oval Office that proves his downfall.
Knowing they contain incriminating information, the president refuses to release the tapes, a decision that sees him resign before he can be impeached.
But it is from another room, the Situation Room, that modern American presidents monitor the most dramatic events.
Located in the White House basement.
This is the place staff watch the Berlin Wall fall, observe the course of the war in Kosovo and respond to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
In 2011, its importance is highlighted in a news story that reaches around the world.
The Situation Room is its own universe and books have been written about it alone because it's such an important top secret place inside the White House.
And it's where presidents can monitor military actions around the world.
And what comes to mind about the Situation Room is the bin Laden raid and the famous images of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, watching the raid unfold, not knowing if it would be successful or not.
As President Obama sits tensely in the Situation Room waiting for the news that bin Laden had been killed, his wife and children sleep just upstairs.
Since its inception, the White House has fulfilled this dual function both a home and a government office.
And nowhere is this more apparent than in the moment when one president leaves office and hands the House over to his successor.
It is a time of great upheaval, not just for the outgoing and incoming presidents, but for the White House staff as well.
The changeover every four to eight years is very difficult for the White House staff because they grow very close to the family they serve.
It was really hard when the Bushes left and the Clintons came in, because the staff grew so close to George HW.
Bush and Barbara Bush.
It's almost a kind of funereal feeling in the House.
And the staff actually has to move the former president out and the new president and his family in because of security reasons.
They can't hire outside firms to do this.
It's all hands on deck.
You have engineers and florists, you know, moving heavy furniture on inauguration day.
And it's quite a sight inside the White House.
There's a lot going on and it's a really emotional day.
But as America becomes more politically divided in the 21st century, White House staffing policies change.
When he becomes president, Barack Obama replaces George Bush's chief usher with his own.
This pattern continues with Trump and then Biden and then Trump again.
Presidents now fear that senior staff members loyal to their predecessor might gossip about the goings-on inside the presidential residence.
In recent history, the most striking changeover occurs when Barack Obama, the first black president, leaves office and is replaced in the White House by Donald Trump.
On January 6 2021, when it is Trump's turn to leave.
After losing the election to Joe Biden, he gives a speech outside the White House claiming the victory has been stolen from him.
His supporters rally in his defense, and the resulting attack on the Capitol becomes a defining moment in modern US politics.
Ultimately, the riots fail and Trump does leave office, handing over to Biden on Inauguration Day, as expected.
Democratic norms, for the moment, prevail.
But since Trump's victory in the 2024 general election, the White House has continued to bear witness to novel and unprecedented events that seem to mirror Trump's personality.
In March 2025, the South Lawn was turned into a car showroom, from which the president encouraged people to buy Teslas, seemingly as a favor to billionaire Elon Musk for his support during the election.
You know, I think the White House is a reflection of each president and first lady who lives in the House, because first ladies usually play a big role in this.
And we see it with President Trump.
He's definitely making it more in line with kind of the ballrooms at Mar-a-Lago and the outdoor spaces there.
And so he's putting his own stamp on it.
Also with the Oval Office, a lot of gold there.
And there was a more subdued interior decor during the Biden and Obama administrations.
So it's kind of a reflection of the personality of the man who holds the office.
And that's what the White House does.
It's kind of a mirror image of the person that's there.
The same exact space, but it's completely transformed every four to eight years.
Home to 44 presidents, their wives and families, as well as being the workplace of countless aides staffers, domestic staff and more.
The White House continues to evolve more than 230 years after its first stones were laid.
In July 2025, the building of a new state ballroom was announced.
Totaling 90000 square feet.
It is expected to seat 650 people and comes with a price tag of 200 million.
The building's role and meaning will undoubtedly continue to evolve further in the years to come, as it always has.
But one element has remained constant throughout its storied history.
The White House is the physical manifestation of American democracy and it means an incredible amount to the American people because of what it symbolizes.
It's such a physical manifestation of everything that the United States stands for.
Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of the London Underground.
London was a crowded mess and a lot of the slums were right in the centre.
So there was an idea that people should live further out, and the only way that they'd be able to achieve that would be with a railway system.
Well, you can't demolish all the houses on the way to central London from the suburbs.
You would have to put the railway underground.
And that was the revolutionary idea.
That's next time.
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