white house tour this is really an experience in its own right as well. so you are here in the white house visitor's center which is theme at clee based around five different themes to understand the white house story. it is a home, so it's obviously home to the first family, it is an office for the president, it also, too, is a stage that we as a nation, we celebrate great events there, obviously state arrivals, events as well take place there like the white house easter egg roll. it is also, too, a park. it is part of a national park and we are proud as a national park service to consider it as such. and also, too, it is a museum pause the white house collection is inside the whitehouse and that helps to tell the story of the first family's connection with the structure and also to the story of our nation alongside it. located directly behind me is a scale model of the white house. it is really the centerpiece of

the white house visitor's center and it is an amazing tool to understand the white house. both from an architectural standpoint because you very rarely if ever can understand the whole totality of what the white house s you can see the main part of the house but also, too, it's wings as well. you can do a 360 degree walk around the white house and see the construction of it and see really one of the most important historic objects in our nation, the white house, and understand its story much more, plus with the advent of technology we have touch screens where you can actually go inside the rooms and see them, see the objects in them, and then also explore them lieu the various centuries that the white house has been here. >> i'm here today in the white house visitor's center. we're going to take a look at some objects that have been lent

from the permanent collection of the white house for exhibition here as part of the new and vastly improved white house visitor's center that opened last fall. we're standing next to a mahogany desk. im it dates to about the time that the white house opened in 1800. the government was still in philadelphia when construction began on the white house in 1792 with the goal of moving the federal government to the new capital city and it's new quarters and the capital and the president's house. so construction went on until 1800. john adams moved to the city as the first president to occupy the new president's house. george washington had picked the site, picked the architect, supervised construction but was out of office and passed away by

the time the government came to philadelphia. the job he gave to picking the architect to both designing and building the president's house went to irish born architect james hoban who he had met in charleston, south carolina, and he thought he was a very practical builder so he gave him the job of constructing the white house. towards the end of that period obviously there were some building materials left over and so according to family history the hoban family history, this small desk which isn't the most elaborately designed piece of furniture that we have in the white house collection, but it was reportedly built by hoban himself out of mahogany that was left over from the construction of the floors and the windows and the doors of the what'ite house. so it's not made of material that has been removed from the building, it is simply surplus materials of the same type that was being used in the construction of the house. so it has not been in the white

house collection but for the last 40 years, it was donated in the 1970s by a member of the family with the history of having been associated with hoban and his completion of the house. hoban was also part of the white house again in 1815, having stayed in washington, he was given the job of reconstructing the burnt out white house after the war of 1812 when the british marched into the city and set fire to the public buildings, including the president's house. he was still in washington in 1823 when he added the south portico to the white house and 1829 when he started adding the north portico to the white house and it was completed in 1830 and he pass add away. he left an enormous architectural footprint both in terms of the original house, it's rebuilding and addition of two enormous porches on the north and south side. the basic form is late 18th century federal style furniture

with the simple tapered legs, inlays used as cuffs, inlays used as decorative element across the bottom, a fold out writing board and little slides to support it. in fact, it also has hidden section behind the top that can be locked. so in many cases a desk would have been a little bit bigger and perhaps had book shelves above it, but this one was a small and relatively comfortable piece. not atypical, just not as fence i will made perhaps as high style would have been done in new york or philadelphia. >> so now we will leave our james hoban desk of 1800 and take a look at some furniture that dates to a later period of white house history. >> in this case we're looking at a couple of objects that relate to the president's use of the house as his office.

this is a side chair, called the gothic style, was made in 1845 probably. it was purchased in 1845 anyhow. it wasn't especially made for the white house, it was a style of chair that was made by many cabinetmakers and could be purchased on the general market. what made these interesting was that there were 24 of these black walnut side chairs that were purchased by the white house for use around the president's office table, the cabinet table, on the second floor of the house. there was no west wing until 1902. the president occupied the rooms on the second floor, both for his family and for his offices. so this chair would have seen -- was purchased under president james k. polk so it would have been occupied by members of his cabinet during the next can american war and all the activities that went on then.

it would have been used throughout the 1850s, was still in use in the 186 os and as most interestingly seen in images of president lincoln in the cab knelt room. the first reading of the emancipation proclamation took place with him seated in a chair of his own and the cabinet members seated in this type of chair and they are very accurately drawn in the painting and prints from the painting that documented that particular event. so they said in use until the 18 -- until 1869 when president grant moved the office from where lincoln had it in what is now the lincoln bedroom to the adjacent room that is now called the treaty room and was used as the cabinet room until the turn of the 20th century at which point president grant bought a whole new sweet of elaborate furniture, cabinet table and chairs and he also bought an

enormous black marble french made clock that sat on the mantle that had not only the clock works but a barometer and a calendar and a thermometer. so you could monitor the conditions inside, not outdoors, it wasn't -- it didn't have an outdoor gauge somehow that was collected to this block chock. so this sat on the mantel also from 1869 to 1902 and would have been how the cabinet when it was meeting kept track of the time that was going by. one of the things that happened in the 19th century was if a president came into office and had things that he didn't find stylish any longer the government actually authorized public sales and white house things simply got away legally because they were authorized. so with some of these kinds of things that were the most historic that didn't leave. there are only four of the

chairs that we have had continuously since the 1840s. so, in fact, 20 of them did get away. they were used in other parts of the house, as was the clock. so these are treasures now that have survived those auctions and remained in the white house's possession and have been used at different times. sfrl of these chairs are currently used in the lincoln bedroom as part of the décor of the room showing what would have been in there when it was lincoln's office. so they've come down here because they weren't in regular use at the house and they told such interesting stories and went with images that showed them in place that made the story even more powerful by being able to see one of these chairs in position, the block clock on the mantel. for the visitor's center we thought these told the greatest stories because they were beautiful, they were historic and backed up by graphics that helped placed them in time.

>>4q above the chair here is a wonderful drawing that was done in 1864 by a local government employee named tellwagon who was doing drawings for various publications and was able to go into lincoln's cabinet office and room and you can see a man sitting dead center in the middle of the room with the back of one of these chairs very accurately depicted and others of the chairs around the table. the picture above it shows the other cabinet room, what is now the treaty room, with the clock on the man tell behind two members of the president's staff who have come n but that's the furniture that dates to the grant administration rather than the polk administration. next we will look at a typewriter used by president

wilson and a desk that was used by franklin delano roosevelt for his fireside chats. one of the objects we have on exhibit, it's a typewriter that belonged to president woodrow wilson and was used by him when he was personally drafting the 14 points, which was the document at the end of world war i where he was trying to establish principles by which the peace should be noesegotiat so that war wouldn't happen again and that nations would be properly treated. it wasn't a successful fight that he tried to lead to get the united states to -- to agree to the league of nations which was the out growth of his 14 points, but the peace treaty was finally signed after he traveled to paris and helped negotiate the treaty of versailles and this typewriter was simply a tool that he used in the pre computer

age to put together his thoughts and create his documents. i'm sure the final version was rp& person but the president would do all of his drafting. it is an interesting object to represent technology and presidential activities without being just another piece of furniture. now, in terms of furniture i'm standing beside a desk and it's very simple, simply a government issued desk and it worked just fine for president frankly roosevelt beginning in 1933 when as he inherited the economic depression that had happened under president her better hoover he decided that he would make speeches to the nation explaining the steps that the government was going to take to try to relieve the economic angst of people across the country and the business community as well. these were radio addresses, there was no video component so it didn't require anything other than a government desk.

this particular one had large holes cut in the top. that's where microphones were mounted to the desk and the microphones were enormous at the time. not as big as his face but pretty close. you can see them on the photograph that shows the president seated at his desk making one of his speeches from the ground floor oval room in the white house. so these address you may recall were fireside chats. it was often thought that he was by his fire side but in fact the fire plais in that room had been walled up in 1902. probably it was more likely that the meaning was you were at home where your family radio resided which was next to the fireplace in your living room listening to the president give great remarks about how he was trying to lead the country to economic prosperity. and he did this throughout the 1930s and clear into the 1940s in the days of world war ii as well, giving these fire side

addresses, the chats to the nation. the desk pretty much went into storage. i mean, it really was feared towards radio purposes and by the 1950s you started having television. so it's use -- it was no longer as attractive, it has holes cut in, it has patches where holes had been cut on it, on the backside there are some drawers and then one section that has no drawers and no cover because it was behind the desk. even if someone took a still picture of the president making a fire side chat you wouldn't see that part of the desk at all. it ran its course in the 1930s and '40s in the hands of franklin roosevelt. we have an opportunity now to link the desk that have used to make radio address toss an radio that was used in the white house and would have been the kind of radios that people had around the country and part of what life in the white house was like for the first family beyond its

formality. >> so we've moved over from the white house as office to the white house as home and it's been that ever since it's opened, it's one of its inherent jobs is to provide the president and president's family with a place to live while the president is in office. here we have a radio, this is a pretty standard 1941 issue tabletop radio made by the emerson company. it was one of a dozen or so that were purchased for the private quarters rooms at the white house. they weren't the first radios to exist in the white house but this is the earliest one that has survived in our collection. a lot of the more technological things weren't treated as historical objects as readily as the furniture was and so radios would be replaced and once new ones arrived the old ones were generally discarded as being outmoded the same way one would do today with computers and iphones. this particular one it shows in a picture -- again, we picked

things that had great documentation. there is a photograph of one of the third floor bedrooms with one of this set of radios, not necessarily this exact one, located between two single beds where either guest could reach over and turn on the radio in an era before television. this was acquired in 1941 just before the start of world war ii. the white house has also had other means of recreation. president coolidge was shown in a photograph as vice president using indian clubs. this was a form of exercise, they were weighted wooden clubs that you would raise and move and do calisthenics with. this particular picture was not at the white house but it was a great image of one of these in use. we have a pair of these wooden clubs and they are stamped u.s. to represent they are government property and they have survived in our limited collection of historic recreational artifacts.

as is this bowling ball which is marked white house, it's of a size that would have been used by a woman or a child, it's a little bit lighter weight than the standard issue for a man bowler in. 1947 dr. harry true man added the first white house bowling alley, at that point it was in the basement of the west wing. when it was later moved to the old executive office building next door to the white house, but in 1970 president richard nixon was a big bowler, he said i really would like to have a bowling alley as part of the residential complex and so a new single lane white house bowling alley was located under the north lawn. when you are standing on pennsylvania avenue looking into the white house house and seeing a beautiful mountain new things located under the north lawn where there are service areas and electrical facilities and the white house bowling alley. >> now, the children at the white house often found ways for

recreation, including gym equipment, swing sets, pets that could run out and play on the grounds with them. in the late 1960s before leaving the white house first lady, lady bird johnson, created what's called a children's garden, it's a small secluded spot down on the south lawn not too far -- actually close, adjoining the white house tennis court. in that garden -- which it was honored all of the grandchildren of the presidents starting with the johnsons and they had wonderful rust stick furniture was made in children's size to place around the garden and it has a fish pond as well. the main feature was that she had her grandchildren create their hand prints and they were cast to look like stone and used as pavers on the ground. the walkway leading into there now has such handprints for all of the grandchildren of the

johnsons to the present presidents, grandchildren that were alive at the time that they were presidents. so if it was a child who came after his term of office they are not included. so samples of the prints are seen here in the white house visitor's center including a hands on spot for children to place his hands in the prints in a modern creation. >> probably everybody has heard about the blue room of the white house. the white house has three parlours on the state floor that are named for colors, traditional colors that have been used for up who will trees, carpeting and textiles, the windows, draperies and such. it wasn't always the blue room, though. this chair was acquired byment james monroe in 1817, purchased from paris, as part of the refurnishing of the white house after the rebuilding of the

interior of the white house after the fire of 1814 when the british set fire to the -- to the building during the bar of 1812. there were 53 pieces in this gilded sweet, it was very high style, congress actually thought the president was being rather wasteful and especially by buying in france and not buying in america and he had to justify that the furniture was of such good quality that it would last for 20 years. in fact, it lasted at the white house in its first use until 1860 so they got 43 years of use out this have wonderful suite of furniture and then unfortunately like so many other things it was sold at auction. mrs. kennedy was given back this chair, this was the first one returned to the white house in 1961 by people who lived here in washington who had attended some of the white house sales, whose ancestors had attended some of the white house sales. so this chair became the model for reproductions that were placed in the blue room to try to recreate the monroe era.

when these chairs arrived at the white house in 1970 they were up holstered in crimson, that's how the room looked. since 1837 it has been blue and that's why the name is now the blue room. it's a very high style french chair. this is the one that we discovered had the most original material still a part of its guilding and its surface features and so it has been restored to look like it probably would have looked in the monroe administration with some very beautifully burnished smooth surfaces to simulate metal. in fact, that is fwilded wood. and then the red upholstery fabrics were put on to recreate its original appearance so that this became, then, the specimen chair we could use at the visitor's center while we still have other chairs in the suite up holstered in blue that are in the blue room. since the arrival of this chair in 1961 the white house has

upped its total to ten original pieces from the suite that was made by pierre belogge. it represents some of the grandeur of white house interiors, how the public rooms were meant to be impressive to foreign diplomats and american citizens who came to the white house for political persuasion activities that would encourage people to support the president's

stanton, virginia. we are a living history museum with a mission focused on education. >> our objective here is the frontier culture museum is to team people how a unique american folk culture was

created through the blending of european, and african and indigenous people cultures. told we'll start on the old world side and see the english and the irish and the german farm. and lastly move over to america and see the 1740s american farm settlement. >> my fame is sally landis. i'm a historic interpreter at the museum in stanton, virginia. right now we're on the english farm and this house comes from worcestershire in the midlands and the time we're showing is 1620s to 1640s. they have 150 to 300 acres of land. they are growing wheat, barley and rye and harvesting that and hiring people to help them. they have about 100 sheep, and they are shearing those twice a year and selling the fleeces. and then the lady of the house and her daughters would be responsible for milking the

cows, say 15 to 30 of them and then go ahead and make -- take the milk and make cheese and selling that at market. those would be the sources of income for this family. so they are working hard, they are doing well. and they have -- they are basically the top of the working class. could you refer to them as the midland sort. and again they are farmers. this is based on the woodhouse family. they have edward and cecilia and on one stone is says e.w. and that stands for edward wood house and this is his home and he and his wife cecilia has six children. you can see it is timber framing and there was not as much wood in england at the time. things like ship building and tanning have deforested so you're going to need to be resourceful. but the fact that this person

can afford wood and have wood and wooden furniture in his home shows he is doing well. and we have in the square panels we have quadle and daub. that is like a basket weave, and one plain, with one plain and you would have daub on one side and daub on the other. it consists of what you have on the farm, like straw, animal hair, lime, clay and manure. that is an important ingredient. we do know that lady of the house is cooking of course. she is going to be baking. she's going to be brewing. she's going to be the gardener and she has a 1-15 acre kitchen and she's the doctor for the family and making cheese and selling that. the yo man farmer has about 100 sheep to shear twice a year and have people help and they are selling those at market. he also has the grain to take care of. he's growing grain. we know he had 36 acres in

wheat, barley and rye and he would be harvesting that and hiring people to help with the harvest. a good harvester could harvest half an acre of grain in a day. the only thing is interesting about the farmer, he is a progressive farmer in the sense that in the fall he's thinking about at his fields, you've harvested and everything, but what he's going to do is putting in like green fertilizer, if you will, for the next year so that your fields will grow and do well. so things like turnups and in time clover is something that he can add so you are taking care of your land. and he's got fences to build. fences to repair. and then you are thinking ahead in the winter like what you are planting. so they really were kind of either in the thick of doing it, and i'm saying harvesting or planting, harvesting, but then you are planning and preparing for the next season too. so things are seasonal, very

much. and you are just trying to be prepared. and you want to do well. you have a good situation, this yeoman farmer, there is 5-7% of the population are farmers and this guy is in a good position and he wants to keep it that way. the first room you encounter if we go in this way is you're going to be encountering the kitchen. that is where we cook of course and bake. and that is where we make cheese as well. and i guess if i had to say, that is probably one of my favorite rooms. because there is a lot of action and i enjoy baking very much there. next we could take a step up, the room to the left would be the room which is called the parlor. and that is a formal room you have. you are very seldom using that. the door would be shut much of the time. and what you are doing is you're having that room for weddings, for funerals, christenings and special occasions and at times the families could have light

meals in the evening there. but the fact that you have a room you are hardly using shows you are doing well because most people are using every inch of space in their home. and then the next room we come to would be the hallch that is a room where you are dining. and also could be spending time knitting, sewing, reading a book, playing a game, something like that. the family spends time interacting there and dining there primarily. then we have an upstairs. and that consists of two bedrooms. one for the parents and one for the children. and then we have a locked room, which would have been a bedroom for the servants. here on the english farm, prime a jenityure is important because that is the system by which who inherits what. and what i mean, is the oldest son is going to be getting everything. he gets the house and the land. and of course we're talking about 15