Symposium hosted by the White House Historical association in washington, d. C. He is an author of a garden for the president a history of the white house grounds. [applause] good morning. My name is dr. Matthew costello, and i am the assistant director of the National Center for white house history. It is a privilege to be with you this morning, also kind of seeing all the pieces together. It is truly a privilege to introduce our first speaker, who is a fellow wisconsinite like myself. Our first speaker this morning will be jonathan liska, the author of the awardwinning White House Historical association publication, a garden for the president a history of the white house grounds. Jonathan will be signing copies of this book later in the day during the reception in the gift shop. So you will have an opportunity to meet with him, and talk about how great his presentation was. [laughter] no pressure. So please join me in welcoming jonathan pliska. [applause] jonathan yes, hello, i am in fact jonathan pliska. And i am absolutely honored to be speaking at this wonderful garden symposium. I would like to thank the White House Historical association, oak spring, and all the other sponsors for having me here today and for hosting the event. As well as that splendid reception last evening at the u. S. Botanical garden. All fore, thank you attending. I am going to give you the overview of the first 100 years or so of the white house grounds, focusing on the various uses of the landscape, as well as its physical development, and to squeeze us all in in a little under 30 minutes. Now, that is a bit of a tall order. We obviously will not be able to touch on absolutely everything, but i like a challenge. It will be just fine. So lets start with the basics. I am sure you are aware that the white house is the official residence of the president of the united states, and is located just a few hundred yards south of here in downtown washington. The white house itself stands as as a centerpiece to a grand 18. 7 acre site, which we know as the white house grounds. Having been established in 1790, the white house grounds constitute the oldest continually maintained landscape in the nation. The grounds are older than the mansion itself. And George Washington is rather famously the only president to have never lived in the white house. But every single u. S. President , including washington, has walked upon the grounds. So this right here is what the grounds look like today. Of verdant, greensward a verdant greensward of sloping lawns and growth of grand trees. This is not what the grounds look like in 1790. Anita mcbride alluded to that. For one, the grounds originally stopped here. Basically where this roadway is. And it stopped there for about the first eight decades of the grounds existence. The far south grounds were not added until 1872 under president grant. And the southerly addition was to compensate for the loss of land in the east and west that was each enough by the expansion of executive offices. That is the treasury building, which is called the Eisenhower Executive Office. So, yeah, as i was saying, the white house grounds did not always look quite as nice as they do today. In the great rush to complete the white house before president john adams moved in on november 1, 1800, the landscape was left completely neglected and unimproved. In fact, as we have heard, it was still full of temporary structures needed for building the mansion. This included the carpenter shed and the little cottages that n directly workme onsite, as well as unused Construction Materials and even heaps of garbage. Many of the trees had been used for firewood. The ground itself was terribly uneven and pockmarked with holes where clay was dug for firing in the brick helms. In short, it was deplorable. Upon her arrival Abigail Adams , first lady was understandably less than impressed, and wrote to her daughter that the place had not the least fenced yard, or other convenience. Even so, she still saw the landscapes potential through all of this mess and closed the note by saying, it remains a beautiful spot, capable of every improvement. S would nots have a chance to make improvements. John adams only lived in the white house for less than four months. When Thomas Jefferson moved in, the landscape remained a wreck. Visitors described it as a barren, stony unfenced waste that existed in a rough, wild state. When jerome and found the site downright dangerous after dark. In his words, one was liable to fall into a pit or stumble over a pile of rubbish. But none of this deterred jefferson in the slightest, and almost immediately he got to work improving the landscape, removing the temporary buildings, filling in the holes. In jeffersons vision for the grounds, culminated in this landscape plan, which is believed to have been executed at least in part in his own proof hand. Part inted at least in his own hand. While it does not look like the current arrangement of the white house grounds, it is absolutely vital, because it formed a basis for all future development. It perfectly illustrates how, at the beginning, the white house grounds were more short and squat than they are now. They are shorter north and south and wider east and west. Jeffersons plan revolved around three key themes. The first two are closely related. He divided the landscape into north and south grounds. But the white house is itself with the white house itself acting as the dividing line between the two halves. This arrangement might seem familiar as most American Homes have lawns visible from the street and backgrounds that are backyards that are more secluded. This is precisely jeffersons intent to have the north grounds freely accessible to the public, and a south grounds reserved for the private use of the president ial household. Overtime, this distinction between public and private space blurred and changed, but even now, when granted access onto the entirety of the white house grounds is restricted, it is fair to say the north grounds are the mansions of formal front lawns, and the south grounds is the more homey backyard. As for the third theme, jefferson called for plants in abundance. His vision included lots of trees, but also productive gardens for growing fruits and vegetables, and ornamental flowers and decorative plants. In keeping with the Spatial Division of the landscape, the plantings on the north ground would be formal and symmetrical, while those on the south ground were idyllic and picturesque. So lets begin on the north grounds. Standing on pennsylvania avenue, looking at the north front of the white house, this is the most iconic view of the mansion. Who has come to washington and not had their photo taken standing by the fence . I know i have lots of times. Today, this is still the formal front lawn of the white house. The place where the public can get the closest to the home of the american president. This is even more true throughout the 19th century, when the public was allowed ready access to the north grounds. And people werent shy about coming for a visit either, as we can see from this fantastic photo of these rather dapper gentleman lounging on the north grounds, fittingly in the shadow of the jefferson statue, the original centerpiece of the north grounds. All of this was fine and good so long as people respected the first familys right to privacy, and stayed out of what was supposed to be the private south grounds. So yeah, what do you think happened . Before very long, folks started making themselves quite at home in the president s backyard. This trend really started with a bang during Andrew Jacksons first inaugural reception in 1829. More than 20,000 boisterous supporters descended on the white house and ran roughshod through its rooms before spilling outdoors and continuing the Party Outside on the south grounds. And to be fair, washington was still a young city, and woefully lacking in parkland and recreational spaces. So people simply started availing themselves of whatever piece of green ground they could find. Because of this, by the mid19th century, the entire white House Landscape essentially functioned as a de facto public park. At times it was even referred to in the press as the public grounds, which is precisely what we see in this engraving. Some president ial households dealt with this invasion of privacy better than others. President grant hated the crowds that turned up each afternoon to watch his Children Play outside. But he put up with them because he did not want to be labeled as the president who shut the people out. The family of president benjamin harrison, who we see here, fell squarely on the other side of the spectrum. They were goodnatured about living in the public eye and even posed for photographs. In particular, the president s young grandchildren always drew a lot of attention. Children always do in the white house. This is especially true when they were being carted around by their pet goat, who had the name of his whiskers. But eventually, enough was enough. When unwanted visitors went so far as to physically hoist president clevelands baby daughter out of her carriage in order to get a better look at her and pose with her like she was a doll, he had to put his down in order to ensure her safety. What parent wouldnt do the same thing . So Public Access under the south grounds came to an abrupt end in 1893. The south grounds returned to what president jefferson originally intended, a private president ial retreat, and it remains so to this day. The north grounds stayed open for a bit longer before being closed for good in 1929 due to mounting security concerns. Today, obviously, general access to the integrity of the white house grounds is prohibited. But there are, of course, exceptions to every rule, even this one. The best example is the annual public easter egg roll. It is one of the longest tenured and most loved events in all of white house history. Health the monday after easter, held the monday after easter, the 2019 eggroll just took place and marked the celebrations 141st anniversary. Less than 200 children showed up on the first occasion back in 1878 to roll their bright colored hardboiled eggs, as well as themselves, down the sloping ground. Evidently, popularity has absolutely skyrocketed since then. In 1890, the estimated attendance was already up to 50,000. Far more people than the grounds could realistically accommodate. Then was the decision made to bar adults unless accompanied by a child, and here is where you should never underestimate children. This was a good idea, but flawed because enterprising kids began going back and forth through the the gates, charging a dime a head to bring in as many sets of parents as they could find. [laughter] prof. Galambos since jonathan since 2009, tickets are distributed in advance via online lottery. Attendance is limited to about 30,000 lucky winners. Lets switch gears and talk about the physical developments of the grounds. Specifically, the different types of plants grown on the landscape over the years. Thomas jefferson was a lifelong gardener. While it is romantic, at least to me, to imagine him outside the white house, travel in hand trowel in hand and digging the soil, it is unlikely that he ever did any planting during his eight years in office. The land was into bad of shape, and jefferson had to content himself with setting the stage for successors. One thing we know that he did do was place this order for trees and shrubs, which arrived at the white house mere days after James Madison became president. 51 different types of plants are on this list, including oak, walnut, elm, ash, and beech trees. We know these trees were indeed planted, as one of jeffersons former assistants wrote to him in 1809, explaining that, sir, if you are now at the white house you would scarcely know it, for the grounds have become a wilderness of shrubbery and trees. So not exactly a wilderness of shrubbery and trees. So do any of these early trees or shrubs still survive today . Its possible. There is one particularly large oak on the south grounds that might be older than the mansion itself. But it is not very likely that most of these early plantings survived, and thats because the british burned the white house during the war of 1812, leaving only the charred exterior walls left standing. And the best depiction of the aftermath is this painting that shows the scene of utter devastation, and suggests the landscape fared just as bad as the mansion. During the subsequent rebuilding of the white house, the grounds were once again reverted back to a construction site. Most of the work was accomplished under madison. Thankfully, in 1825, another plant loving president moved in. John quincy adams had harbored a lifelong interest in botany and horticulture, but his political career always kept them moving from place to place and unable to do any real gardening of his own. But this all changed when he came to the white house and established a tree nursery inside a humble wood paling fence. That is what we see in the foreground of the image. In all, adams grew more than 700 saplings, comprised of a wide variety of species. 1876 he planted in survived until 1991 and was the oldest tree on the ground with the president ial association. Some of historys had special significance. They were grown from seeds and nuts from historically significant trees. He had a spanish chestnut descended from a tree planted by George Washington. White nets from a tree riddled with bullets. An english oaks from the city of salem, massachusetts, which was likely from the infamous gallows tree, used to hang the witches during the witch trials of the 1690. Most famous tree planted is undoubtedly the grand southern magnolia located west of the south portico. That is this tree right here. Legend holds that it was personally planted by president Andrew Jackson, who defeated John Quincy Adams in the election of 1828. Both sides ran particularly nasty campaigns that year. But the atoms camp crossed the adams camp crossed the line when they accused jacksons wife of being an adulterous. Then when rachel suddenly died only two weeks before her husbands victory, jackson made it known that he believed the assault on her character and good name has quite literally killed his wife. He could not forgive that. He had seeds from his wifes favorite tree, the southern magnolia, and planted them outside the white house in her memory. Truthfully, this story is probably more fiction than fact. Neither jackson nor any of his contemporaries ever mentioned the tree, and it does not appear in the earliest photos of the white house. However, this does not in any way detract from the enduring love story that the tree has come to represent over the centuries. It may be the most famous, but the Jackson Magnolia is far from the only tree planted on the white house grounds. This existing survey condition dates to the year 1900 and marks the location of some 500 trees and large shrubs. Thats what all of those little dots are. 500 or so, that is about the same number of trees and shrubs found on the grounds today. And beginning with Rutherford Hayes in the 1870s, nearly every president ial administration has also planted at least one tree commemorating their time at the white house. Unfortunately, not all of the trees have survived. One or two have. Seen helpingis george h. W. Bush planting leaf in 1991. In 1996, bill and Hillary Clinton planted a flowering dog wood in honor of the Oklahoma City bombing victims. The oldest tree with a proven president ial association is an absolutely beautiful rust colored japanese maple landed by first Lady Frances Cleveland on the far south grounds in 1893. The same year that the grounds were closed to the public. The most recent commemorative tree was also planted by a first lady. In this case, current first lady melania trump, in august of 2018 planted a sapling grown from a historic oak tree originally planted by president eisenhower on the white house grounds in the 1950s. So other than trees, what else grew on the grounds . Up until about a decade ago, when First Lady Michelle Obama installed the Current White House vegetable garden, Fresh Produce would not have been the first thing that came to peoples minds. That is because prior to 2009, there would be no serious cultivation of fruits or vegetables at the white house for nearly 150 years. But the truth is, for much of the 19th century, the white house grew a great deal of its own food. As with the first trees, the first Vegetable Seeds were planted under madison and almost certainly ordered by jefferson in the waning days of his administration. These included cabbage, brockley, radish, and dive, cucumber, turnips, and leeks. John quincy adams wrote in his diary about planting deep blood colored beets, yellow flowered parsnips, enormous leaved horseradish, and tall and slender stemmed jerusalem artichokes. Fun fact, jerusalem artichokes are neither artichokes nor from the holy land. They are actually a type of sunflower native to north america that grows like a grows a tuber that is rather like a potato. Mint,further mentioned sage, and marjoram, as well as strawberries and peaches grown by his skilled gardener. Andrew jackson when even bigger by converting adams former tree nursery into a dedicated Kitchen Garden. First some 40 years, this plot provided fresh food for the occupants of the white house to enjoy. This landscape drawing done shortly after the end of the civil war, it shows the old Kitchen Garden at its greatest extent. Having grown to about one acre in size, it was pretty darn big, larger, in fact, than the footprint of the main block of the white house. The garden is located in this trapezoidal area. S you can see, it is also rather interestingly divided into eight smaller sections, suggesting to me it was run like a farm. I should point out these faint lines running vertically through the drawing here. That is the outline is the future west executive avenue, which today separates the white house grounds from the Eisenhower Executive Office building. And when this road was cut through in the early 1870s, it ran straight through the middle of the Kitchen Garden, which alas, meant the end of serious growing of fruits and vegetables on the white house grounds until the Obama Administration. Now, unfortunately, because it was a working and productive space, the old Kitchen Garden is not terribly well documented. It was not pretty or glamorous, and so it went largely unrecorded. Paintings werey photographs of it, and apart from the drawing i show, there is no visual record at all. For the most part, there is not even much of a paper trail of follow. However, after an awful lot of searching, and an awful lot of archives, i was fortunate enough to track down the original sales receipts for the fruits and Vegetable Seeds grown in the white house Kitchen Garden during president lincolns time. Trust me, if you are a historian looking for anything related to the white house, it is best to find it during lincolns tenure. He is capable of making anything interesting and significant, even this list. Something like president taylors tomatoes, or buchanans brussels sprouts. They would not have the same cachet. So of the fruits and vegetables appearing on the list, many are long since out of cultivation. But a good number still exist as heirloom varieties and can be purchased online from seed banks and specialized growers, and a few are still stocked at local garden centers. This means that Backyard Gardeners can try their hand at growing the same produce that graced president lincolns table during the civil war. This season you can still do this. Would you like to plant some purple top turnips or some Prince Albert pease Prince Albert peas or hunters what about my personal favorite . Beets much, much larger cousin. Now you can. For the past two years my wife and i have done our best to do so at our suburban baltimore home. I think i am a better historian that i am a gardener. I dont have a black some, but black thumb, but neither is it green. We have had more success with some than others, and the biggest success by far was our cabbage harvest a few years ago. If we can grow this much cabbage, it is foolproof and a great plan to start off with. And now there is a silly photo of me that is going to be on cspan ok. Of course, what with the white house be without followers . President s John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson kept a Flower Garden on the south side of the south grounds. But like the vegetable garden, its history has proven to be frustratingly elusive to track down. In fact, this is the only known image of the original white house Flower Garden, and it is not a good you, isnt it . It . Theview, isnt garden is located here in the middle ground of the photo. But the only part that is really visible is the wooden structure, a trellis or an arbor. The foreground is dominated by this crane used in the construction of the treasury buildings left wing. And it was this expansion of the treasury that necessitated the removal of the original white house Flower Garden in the 1850s. And for the rest of the 19th century, there really were no ornamental gardens on the white house grounds. There were of course, there were, of course, flowers planted in beds here and there about the landscape, such as arranged around the north fountain, but no real Flower Gardens in the way we think of them today. Frankly, because the president s and their family did not have space to plant a garden. Or the private space to plant such a garden. To north grounds were opened the public, as jefferson intended, but the south grounds were also used as public parkland, which was not the original plan. So instead, after the construction of the white house conservatory of 1857, the Flower Garden simply moved indoors of the white house. It became a private space for the first family to enjoy out of the public view. This is a very early photograph of the white house conservatory. Obviously this large Glass Building here. And the conservatory was steamy and exotic and overflowing with all types of hothouse plants. One 19thcentury News Reporter somehow did manage to get inside and describe the scene as almost like penetrating the luxurious fragrance of some south american island. Us is thend odifero atmosphere. And first Lady Lucy Webb hayes, seen here with her children and one of her friends in the conservatory had a tremendous amount of plants and was an avid gardener. She and her husband, rutherford b. Hayes, utilized the conservatory in a special way. , so thereteetotalers was no alcohol at the white house. After a dinner with guests, instead of serving drinks, they led tourists in the conservatory. It seems to have gone over surprisingly well with guests going away pleased with the experience. By about the year 1900, the single conservatory, which is the big building here, had grown into one vast glasshouse complex that ranged over much of the southwest grounds. The conservatory itself was for show and enjoyment. A luxury for the president ial household. But the rest of the buildings were purely functional greenhouses, simply utilitarian Spaces Designed to asw as many plants possible. They cranked out thousands, possibly tens of thousands of and flowers for use inside the white house. From left to right we have a rose house, a geranium house, a grapery, a second, smaller rose house. The white house has always seen the rows as can of the flowers. Finally, a general propagating house and an orchid house. In 1902, everything changed. All of the greenhouses, as well as the conservatory that we see here, were unceremoniously torn down. The reason . To make room for the expansion of the white house under theodore roosevelt, specifically the new west wing, seen in the foreground, but the last remnants of the greenhouse are behind. That was that. There has never been another greenhouse at the white house since. So understandably, the loss of their indoor Flower Garden did not thrilled the president or his family. First Lady Edith Roosevelt did come up with a wonderful solution to the problem. Since the south grounds had been closed in 1893, it was possible to move the president ial Flower Gardens back outdoors. This is precisely what she did in 1902 and 1903. Specifically, the first lady created two colonial style gardens along the south face of the mansion one a distance west of the south portico and the other in the same position on the east side. They were intricate and heavily embellished and designed after the brilliantly pattered gardens outside mansions in the 1700s. They defined the outlines of mrs. Roosevelts gardens. Both bloomed with oldfashioned flowers, such as snapdragons, goldenrods, columbines, fox, asters, hollyhocks, and peonies. Mrs. Roosevelt was extremely pleased with the result. So please that she chose to sit for her official portrait as first lady in the West Colonial gardens. Some of her successors, however, were not nearly so impressed with her handiwork. And so that is how mrs. Roosevelts Colonial Gardens begin to change over the course of the 20th century. Her west garden, shown at the left, eventually became the internationally famous rose garden that we all know and love today. For the east colonial garden, shown at the right, is now the jacking kennedy garden, which is Jack Jacqueline kennedy garden, which is less known than the rose garden. My colleagues later today will be telling you all about where this transformation took place. It is a fascinating story, especially for garden lovers such as ourselves. With that, ladies and gentlemen, im going to end. There you have it, an abbreviated history of the white house grounds from 1790 to 1903 in just about half an thank you hour. For your time. Again, it has been my great pleasure. [applause] so we do have a little bit of time. We can do a short q a since we made up a little bit of time. Way to be fast. Jonathan awesome, yeah. There are microphones on either side of the room. If you have a question, feel free to raise your hand. Jonathan dont you all do it at once. Ok, there we go. Ask it to want to ask i will wait for the microphone. The use of the greenhouses for cutting gardens and in the house. Was it almost all sources from there, for inside the home . Jonathan yes. And who was doing the arranging . Jonathan that kind of depends. The white house gardeners at various times would have done it. The white house gardener at the time, for instance, under Mary Todd Lincoln presented her with a bouquet every single day. So they had that kind of relationship. So it varied from administration to administration. And i noticed one of the houses was the orchid house . Jonathan yes. Can you talk about some of the varieties that might have been at that . Jonathan to be honest with you, it was everything that was available at the time. Tt was built during the gran administration, and it was specifically under first lady auspicies. She indoctrinated what was known as an orchid craze in the united states. Orchids were just brandnew. As far as varieties go, i cannot answer you specifically, they literally would have been everything available because they were trying to show off as much as possible. Thank you. Jonathan yes sir . Was there ever any geopolitical influence in the white house, meaning gifts of flowers and trees from International Visitors, or things given to the International Visitors to the from the garden . Jonathan that is a really good question. The good example is the Jackson Magnolia, which i was talking about. I suppose it is also rather famously in a state of decline. The tree is basically on tree life support. There is no center of the tree it is being held up by a pole. So this is the grand effort that the white house and National Park service are going to to keep this tree up. Because of its special historical significance, there are saplings that are constantly being grown. The tree, when it finally does have to go it will, it is a living thing they will replace the tree with a genetically identical tree grown from it. Where ns there is an anywhere between eight and 12 new saplings being grown at any given time. Some do better than others. Some get bigger. Once they get to a certain size, rather than just throw them away, those are presented to visiting dignitaries and other honored guests. Did anyone bring them . Jonathan yeah. So most recently, a tree was brought from france by the french president , and i believe it was a year or two ago at this point he and President Trump planted it on the south grounds. It was a tree from the bella would battlefield in france, where the u. S. Marines earned their nicknames devil dogs, fighting in defense of the allied cause. The tree disappeared from the grounds shortly after. The reason being it needed to go through quarantine, just like anything else. Funny story, it was actually planted in an enormous tarp so none of the actual roots of the tree hit the ground. So it is currently, to the best of my knowledge, still at quarantine at the department of agriculture. As soon as its cleared it will will be coming back. [laughter] jonathan oh, im sorry. Thats all right. For the vegetable garden that Michelle Obama was promoting, has it expanded and is much of it organic . And are you really promoting heirloom varieties . Jonathan to the best of my knowledge, it is about the same size, but is being maintained at the same standards. I do believe a lot, if not all of it, is organic, but that is i am not 100 sure. That is up to the discretion of the first lady. Heirloom varieties, yes, they are not the sole focus, but i know that, during the Obama Administration there was a strong focus on growing some of Thomas Jeffersons favorite vegetables. Final question. [inaudible] jonathan that is a really good question was the gardens financed in the first hundred years . Frankly, a lot of this came out of the president s own pocket. And some of it did come from congressional appropriations. A good example i can give is, i do not have time to necessarily go into some of these details, but the conservatory in some of the greenhouses burned down not once, but twice. Rather than appropriate money for an iron superstructure, they just kept rebuilding it out of wood. You know, it gets kind of moist a greenhouse, it gets wet and moisture and wood dont really work. Congress controls things like that. Ok. Thank you very much. [applause] watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. We look back to the vietnam war era and hear from former pow wives who joined forces on behalf of their captive and missing husbands. Heath hardage lee is the author of the league of wives the untold story of the women who took on the u. S. Governmetn to u. S. Government to bring their husbands home. She is joined by two members of the National League of families of american prisoners and missing in southeast asia. The Richard Nixon president ial library and museum hosted this event. Good morning, welcome to Richard Nixons president ial library. I am with the Richard Nixon foundation. On this memorial day, we honor the fallen, and appropriately we honor those who were missing or killed in action during the vietnam war, a narrative which an era in which president nixon was commanderinchief. This week marks the 46th anniversary of when the president and first lady welcomed the american prisoners of war held captive in vietnam, and their spouses and their