here you investigate tenhave a . it was always around the fence and was more protected than we think of the house being. these sketches are wonderful. i don't know he where the originals are. there are many, many copies at the library. when he was taking the flag down from the hotel was a horrible personal tragedy was a loss of

the first soldier of note. mrs. lincoln always controversial mrs. lincoln. this picture was taken of her.

>> there was a crash in the east room, artist coming in colored pencils and do pictures on it. jefferson davis claimed that he had the u.s. flag on his floor but that was always denied. so mrs. lincoln had a hard row to hoe but she wasn't very good at it. she couldn't get a long with the white house staff at all. the staff was unlike any other.

they were the most unlikely people you could imagine to run the white house. they flattered her. they weren't allowed to go in there. this appears to me, otherwise i can't imagine how. they were in two parts of the house. and mrs. polk had built one

under the game us stair that lincoln used to thread it up through the house. he used that stair to get out on the lawn and they were there. that is all they had was those. there was running water in all the rooms up stairs and in the pantry and it was potomac water. and the faucet faced you when you looked at the sink and you turned it one way and the water came from springs and from the river that ran in wooden pipes. and it is where the main springs were that fed the white house. there was a heating system. so he had a sore throat all ó]ó] winter.ó=ó=ó= you can see, that is your he

called it the damed all house. it was a bit like a hotel but again, still a house. you know the story of the stables burning. these pictures turned up at the end of the year of that stable. we looked forever for a picture of it. it was built by an drew jackson for his race horses. here is the south front of the house in the distance. and the temporary fences and this is where the horses were. the reason it burned so fast was the lantern on the roof. and it acted as a chimney and burned the house the building down. another relatively new peicture

is this one which most people think is lincoln out on the north driveway. can't tell, but here is a little boy and he was out there all the time. the rail that go you see beyond that is a 14 foot drop that served the basement. all of these railings were put in, in the 1830s. the lamps were put there in the 1850s by pierce. all of what you see stunned, that whole top of the portico which you usually find is wood. but it is not, it is all stone. it was used for nothing in lincoln's time. it was a barn. the only non picture of the east room is this one.

this came from a flea market in maryland. but, you had to piece it together. the ceiling was painted and the chandeliers came in from jackson and were made into gas by polk. it was changed quickly by johnson because it was so worn out. this is where it was put in by general grant and all the parts vanished nobody knows where those light fixtures and thins s were. when lincoln died they used the

plateau in france and it is rarely ever been assembled the whole way since lincoln's time. it is 13.5 feet long. they had candles on it. the dining room in lincoln's time went the long direction. this plateau was decorated with wax flowers and a part of it is still in use today. the dining room was enlarged by roosevelt. the north lawn again the statue of jefferson was placed there by polk. but he wanted a symbol to identify himself with expansion.

so he put jefferson on the front lawn. mrs. polk is a shrewd gal. she saw him as cortez and not jefferson then. this is the lawn, in the last speech that lincoln made and there were several thousand people there. the greenhouse, a very popular feature of the white house, it was torn down in 1902 and part of it was moved. it was not this same one. this one wooden and this one burned. here you see them greeting indians and ladies there. and the agents, these are the contents of the earlier and those were popular in the white house. they used to take them out and

put them in the halls. this was the best place to take pictures. all winter long this was a retreat for the family. the lawn in the back, what they did was they brought sheep in, and it was one of the perks of the gardner to take the money and they went in and the fire engine was brought out and they greened it up. and they had two rollers and they would flatten it out. and linton used to go into the blue room behind that and he would close the shoutters and h

would lion the sofa and listen to the marine band and the public was allowed to come in. the famous picture at the western reserve historical lincoln's office shows the details of what is now the lincoln bed room and this is a document used which i will show later. but the description shows this out. this must have been the same way 20 years before. the table had drawers around it. he would put anything that was to be dispatched into the drawer. the i don't know why the desk is

over the door and i imagine some of you are wondering on the right. and actually, if you open that door, there was a partition built. the room next door, was the next room and then the next room as the oval room. lincoln had a partition built that crossed the next room so that he could go into the family oval library in privacy. that was torn down after his time but i don't know why they had the desk over it because he used it regularly. it must have been a nasty place with spitoons and the floor and across the floor, the office was a narrow room to the left here

through that door. and then the office across the hall and they slept in the bed room, at the time of lincoln's death, the body was taken to the white house and there was a viewing i guess you could call it and then the funeral on the 19th and thousands of people came to see the open could fin and the evening that was closed. they were supervising the building of this part of which still exists in the center of the room. they also built bleachers in the center of the wall. and it was a press box beyond

this part. and he was allowed to come in and sketch this and grant was to be presented in the end of it with the ribbon on. she didn't attend. she was in a hysterical state and people took their shoes off to walk up and down the halls. this is what the funeral was like. there were people passed out. two people would hold up one and the smell of flowers was pretty sickening. and they gave an emotional funeral oration funeral revenge. i don't think lincoln would have

liked that very much. the mourning stayed up for 30 days. here you see a picture that appears to be taking the mourning down. the columns have been totally wrapped and the house was heavily draped. well, you got in trouble in washington if you didn't show something. you would not believe that is a platform that went over the deep area and it had steps on it. they started using it in the 1850s when the huge crowds came. they would not serve anything anymore. they would have the people get so sick and they would start going out if they had the opportunity to get out. and that must be how, it is up

there for some reason i don't know why, but it was put up for all public perceptions. a certain number wouldn't take anymore and left. one of the mourning bath inin i the funeral period. showing lincoln. this is the bed room as restored with the idea of using the facts about lincoln as possible in the room. the picture is not in color and the photographs taken by carpenter are not in color. they had that corona made for the top of the bed. the problem with this is, the bed was used in the other end of the house in what was called the other room and the ceilings are

22 feet high. you have a four foot difference between the level of the floor between most of the house and the east end. so this is shorter. so this is the crown and the idea that it was a state bed room. the furniture and the sofas same from england and when president truman created this room, they gave them back to the white house. most of it was there. the lamps and things, they were of the carpet patterns and the table, in the middle, which is almost weird with the creams carved on it. they thought that was the most beautiful table they had seen. it was being hauled out into the

trash. they made them bring it back into the house because they loved victorian furniture. this is now the lincoln bedroom and to the right would be the treaty room. so this is a popular state bed room. president truman started the idea. and someone on the staff said, mr. lincoln's office was right next todoor and this was called the lincoln study. churchhill stayed here often and it was a popular thing. lincoln's house survives. somehow through all of the density through law and circumstance and the rest of the conditions that come along with the white house, the private lives and influences drifts.

there seems to be no end to it. several of which appeared, thousands of documents on this subject are housed on the national archives and fun to go through. to see which little things are recorded. from the first presidents which kept little records of the white house. the lincoln materials are full gi giving facts and clues to what life in the setting must have been to this day. the french called such information little history. the little shells along the shore. it comes with recollections of doormen and maids and wrascraps paper somehow now preserved.

the small corners, the bits and details that i have brought up today composed the history of the white house. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, dr. seale. we have a few minutes for questions, so if you have a question, make your way up to the mic. >> i certainly enjoyed your comments this morning. >> thank you. >> as a quick compliment to your talk, there is an exhibition at the smithsonian of things that were tossed out from the white house during the various

renovations. you mentioned in particular that grant and roosevelt administrations and lastly, the fireplace in front of which lincoln sat is now here in gettysburg at the iza oois a. >> thank you. thank you. public property given to the white house. ing with, the eythat celebrated the 50th anniversary and mrs. kennedy began the renovation to make the house look like something, look historicalal and in so doing found an historical society that has gron on and has a tremendous educational program and a journal that you can sign up for any time you want to, the only subscription the association has. thank you for bringing that up.

that's a very important, very select exhibit there. >> my question, since the white house is made out of sandstone, i don't understand how that could burn. >> well, very good question. i can tell you. what burned was the very thing that president the corps of engineers warned president truman of. the wooden atlant lath. there is acres of wooden lath and it is a tinderbox and that's what burned. the white house stone is only that thick, like a very near, like cathedrals and everything and country houses in europe and there was almost just under four feet of brick behind it, not ever meant to be exposed to the weather and it was soft, so

that's all removed by truman and provided air conditioning and everything and what happened in the fire was that the fire burned and got it all hat and rain storms began at 12:30, 1 in the morning and it began to pop everything. it wasn't that it didn't survive standing up, it couldn't hold anything. for safety it had to be taken down. they tore it down really. the british didn't burn it down. they gutted it. that's why it had to come down. it was no longer structurally sound. when it was built, a lot more wood was used and over the years everything has to be done quickly at the white house and because it is a business house, not a museum, and it is both but charles mckim when he did the room for roosevelt wanted to enlarge the dining room so it would seat 100, and so rather than going into the structure,

he put a -- when he tore the supporting partition out, he took tie rods and put up and screwed into the wooden structure of the attic both like those stars you see on the outside of buildings, that's how he supported the thing. well, it was by truman's time like a big sandwich being squashed and so structurally, you know, and chases were cut through timbers and all sorts of stuff. truman's objective was to keep the president in the white house. anything else? >> thank you for a wonderfully educational and enjoyable presentation. >> thank you. >> very nicely presented. i have a question about the earthquake in the city of washington. i know some public buildings were damaged. did anything happen to the white house? >> i have to tell you, not that i know of. it was a shake. i mean, it really was. i don't know what happened.

most attention has been given to the cathedral, the washington cathedral had real terrible damage, but i don't know. i haven't heard. the white house is the original stone walls on new footings from 1948, '52, and can a cage inside out of steel, steel beams. it is a beautiful engineering story. every room is a cage. the idea was to be bomb proof which is a joke now, but every room is a steel cage, and president lyndon johnson was very sensitive to sound, and he used to try to take a nap while tourists were going through the house and the structure would hone, and he used to say it would nearly drive him crazy the way it was humming and i can't imagine there being much trouble with the foundation that place has. i will ask. it makes me curious. >> it was closed. >> yes, they're still working on that and they had a little digit. it is chilling, isn't it? there was real damage around

washington. i was there, and setting at my computer, and it was violent for the short time it happened. it made me appreciate san francisco and not want to go there. >> thanks. >> you often read that buchanan pretty much treated the white house as he did the country, didn't do anything with it. leaving the lincolns to put some semblance of order. was it really in that bad of shape? >> no. the jefferson-davis wrote the end of his life of all times he had seen the white house, the most brilliant was the time of harriet lane and james buchanan. after all lincoln did thank buchanan for holding the union together until he got there, but buchanan, you know, they got the tremor, the crack of the whip on all the sectional business, but it was actually very splendid

white house. they sent a lot of stuff to auction that people would like to have today and some has come back. they refurnished rooms. they had parties. it was like the diplomatic community that they had been part of, he and his daughter had been part of. it was a very almost to cover up what was going on, but they had -- he split the cabinet, of course, over sectionalism, and he was a unionist, and they had to make dinner lists to be careful who they had because they had a fight over the dinner table, and, in fact, nikolay was sent, you probably all know this, throw me out, but nikolay was sent pi lincoln to washington early to meet with the secretary of state, and everything social passed through the secretary of state. one reason mrs. lincoln hated the secretary of state. he had authority over her and lincoln never interfered with that, but social authority, and

they discussed how you should do the social stuff and there was a wonderful drawing in the national archives of nikolay and the secretary of state made as to how you seat people by random at the table. president and first lady, along narrow today and the president and first lady were across from each other and in descending order the ambassadors, ministers then, and the ambassadors wives, the same rank they did, and so this is how, so they were conscious of that and buchanan had a stunning court and subsequent history. anything else? thanks very much. >> a generation before president john f. kennedy acting on behalf of a grateful nation designated

him an honorary american citizen winston churchill paid his own tribute to his transatlantic origins. appearing before a joibt session of congress on the day after christmas, 1941, he observed i cannot help reflect that if my father had been american and my mother british, instead of the other way around, i might have got here on my own. today outside the british embassy on massachusetts avenue, churchill literally describes two nations with one bronze foot planted on british snow and the other on american. this pleased the old man himself no no end. on his 89th birthday the honorary american said i feel i will rest happily and securely on both feet. controversy arose over the depiction of the wartime prime minister not because of his characteristically defiant stance with right hand raised in