You this morning, also to kind of see all the pieces come together. And its truly a privilege to introduce our first speaker whos a fellow wisconsinite like myself. So our first speaker this morning will be Jonathan Pliska author of the Award Winning White House Historical Association Publication a garden for the president 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 youll have an opportunity to meet with him and talk about how great haze presentation was. No pressure. So please join me in welcoming Jonathan Pliska. So, yes, hello. I am in fact Jonathan Pliska. And i am absolutely honored to be speaking at this wonderful garden symposium. Id like to thank the White House Historical association, oaks spring and all the other sponsors for having me here today and hosting the events. As well as that splendid reception last evening at the u. S. Botanical garden and thank you all for attending. And my task here this morning is to give you an overview of the first 100 years or so of the white house grounds, focusing on the various uses of it landscape as well as its physical development and squeeze this all in a little under 30 minutes. Now, thats a bit of a tall order and were obviously not going to be able to touch on absolutely everything, but i like a challenge. I think well do just fine. Okay, lets start with the basics. The white house itself stands as the center piece of a grand 18. 7 acre site, which we know as the white house grounds. Having been established in 1790 the white house grounds in fact 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. This is what the grounds look like today. With sloping lawns and groves of grand trees. That said, this is definitely not what the grounds looked like in 1790. For one thing the south grounds originally stopped here basically where this road way is. And it stopped there for about the first 8 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 eaten about by the expansion of the executive offices. So 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 november 1, 1800, the landscape was left completely neglected and unimproved. In fact, as weve heard it was still full of the all the temporary structures needed for building the mansion. This included the carpenters shed and unused Construction Materials and even heaps of garbage. Many of the preexisting trees had been filled for firewood. The ground itself was terribly uneven and pockmarked with holes and dug for clay and brick kilns. In short the scene was deplorable. Upon her arrival first Lady Abigail Adams was understandably less than impressed and wrote to her daughter was not the least fence 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. But the adams would not have the chance to make any improvements themselves. John adams lost his reelection bid and only lived in the white house for a little less than four months. So when the new president , Thomas Jefferson moved in, it remained a wreck. Visitors describe td as a barren, stony, unfenced waste that existed in a rough, wild state. One english gentleman found the site down right dangerous after dark when one was liable to fall into a pit or stumble over a pile of rubbish. But none of this deterred washington in the slightest and almost immediately he got to work improving the landscape, filling in the holes and grading the earth. And jeffersons vision for the ground culminated in this draft landscape plan. While it doesnt look very much like the current arrangement of the white house grounds it formed the basis of all future development. It also perfectly illustrates how that the beginning of the white house grounds were more short and squat than they are today. Theyre shorter north and south and wider east and west. So very broadly speaking jeffersons plan revolves around three key things. The first two are closely related. He divided the landscape into north and south grounds but the white house itself acting as the dividing line between the two halves. This arrangement might seem familiar as most American Homes have front lawns visible from the street and back yards more secluded. This was actually precisely jeffersons intent. To have the north grounds freely assess too assessable to the public. Over time this distinction between public and private space blurred and changed. Jefferson called for plants in abundance. His vision included trees but also productive gardens for growing fruits and vegetables. Ornamental gardens for flowers and decorative plants. In keeping with the Spatial Division of the landscape the planting on the north grounds would be formal and symmetrical. So lets begin on the north grounds. Standing on pennsylvania avenue looking on the north front of the white house this really is the most iconic view of the mansion. I mean, whos come to visit washington and not had their photo here taken standing by the fence. I know i have lots of times and today this is still the formal front lawn of the white house. Throughout the 19th century when the public was allowed ready access to 3 4 grounds and people werent shy about coming for a visit either as we can see from this fantastic photo of these rather dapper gentlemen lounging on the north grounds fittingly in the shadow of the jfrson statue that was originally the center piece of the north grounds. All this was well and good as long as people stayed out of what was supposed to be the private south grounds. Before very long folks started making themselves quite at home in the president s backyard as well, and this trend really started with a bang during Andrew Jacksons first inaugural reception in 1829 when more than 20,000 boisterous supporters descended and continued to Party Outside on the south grounds. And to be fair washington was still a young city and woefully lacking in parkland and other recreational spaces. So people started availing themselves of whatever green ground they could find. Because of this by the mid19th century the entire landscape essentially functioned as a de facto public park. And some president ial households dealt with this invasion of privacy better than others. President grant for his part hated the crowd of gawkers but he put up with them because he did not want to be labeledads the president who shut the people out. The president of benjamin harrison, they were good natured about living in the public eye and even posed for photographs. In particular the president s young grandchildren always drew quite a lot of attention. Children always do in the white house, and this was especially true when they were being carted around by the pet goat who had the apt name of his whiskers. Eventually enough was enough. When unwanted visitors went so far as to physically hoist president clevelands baby daughter out of her carriage to get a better look at her and pose with her as if she was a doll. He had to put his foot down to ensure her safety. Public access on the south grounds thus came to an abrupt end in 1893. The south grounds came to what president jefferson originally intended. Remains so to this day. The north ground stayed open for a bit longer before also being closed for good due to mounting security concerns. Today general access to the entirety of the grounds is of course prohibited. But there are exceptions to every rule. The best example is the kpubl easter egg roll. Its one of the longest tenured events in white house history. Held the monday after easter the 2019 egg roll just took place and marked the celebrations 141st anniversary. Less than 200 children showed up on the first occasion way back in 1878 to roll their brightry colored hardboiled eggs as well as themselves down the sloping south grounds. But the events popularity has absolutely skyrocketed since then. In 1890 the estimated attendance was already up to 50,000. It was far more people than the grounds could realisticly accommodate. And shortly thereafter the decision was made to bar adults unless accompanied by a child. Enterprising kids began going back and forth through the gates charging a dime ahead to bring in as many sets of parents as they could find. And since 2009 tickets have been distributed in advance via online lottery. More than 200,000 tickets are requested each year but attendance is limited to about 30,000 lucky winners. So now lets switch gears here a little bit and talk about the physical development of the grounds. Specifically all the different types of plants growing on the landscape over the years. Thomas jefferson was a lifelong gardener, and while its romantic at least to me to imagine him outside the white house trowel in hand digging the soil, its unlikely he ever did any planting on the grounds during his 8 years in office. The site was simply in too bad a shape and jefferson had to content himself with setting the stage for his successors. He did place this order for tree and shrubs which arrived at the white house days after James Madison became president. 51 different types of plants around this list including oak, elm, ash and beach trees. We also know these trees were indeed planted as one of jeffersons former assistants wrote to him in 1809. Not exactly a wilderness of shrubs and trees. Do any of these shrubs and trees survive today . Its possible. Theres particularly one large oak on the south grounds that might be even older than the mansion itself, but its not very likely most of these early plantings survived and thats because the british burned the white house during the war of 1812 leaving only the clarrharr exterior walls remaining. Thankfully in 1825 another plant loving president moved in. John quincy adams had harbored a lifelong interest in botany and ho horticulture. This all changed when he came to the white house and established a tree nursy inside a home wood paling fence, and thats what we see here in the foreground of the image. All told adams grew more than 700 samplings. An oak tree survived up until 1891. Some of adams trees also held special significance having grown seeds and nuts harvested from historically significant trees. White oaks from a tree riddles with bullets fired during the war of 1812 and english oaks from the sate of salem, massachusetts, which i believe were likely procured from the infamous gallows tree used to hang during the witch trials. But the most famous tree ever planted on the white house grounds is undoubtedly the grand southern magnolia located just west of the south portico. Thats this tree right here. Legend holds it was personally planted by president Andrew Jackson who defeated John Quincy Adams in the election of 1898. Both sides ran particularly nasty campaigns that year, but they accused jacksons wife rachel of being an adulterous. Jackson made it known he believed the assault on her character and good name had quite literally killed his wife. He never forgave adams and, and griefstricken the wid eoar president brought with him seeds from the southern tree and planted them outside her the white house in her memory. Truthfully the stories probably were more fiction than fact. Neither jackson or any of his contemporaries ever mentioned the tree and it does not appear in the earliest photo ofs the white house. However, this does not in any way detract from the enduring love story the tree has come to represent over the centuries. The Jackson Magnolia is far from the only tree planted on the white house grounds. This Condition Survey marks the location of some 500 trees and shrubs. Thats what all those ittybitty tiny dots are. And 500 or so, this 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 as a means of commemorating their time at the white house. Unfortunately, not all of these trees have survived. But here at the top Queen Elizabeth ii seen helping george h. W. Bush plant one. The oldest tree with a proven president ial association is this absolutely beautiful rust colored japanese maple planted by first Lady Francis Cleveland on the far south grounds in 1893, the same year that the grounds were closed to the public. The most recent comemerative tree was also planted by a first lady, in this current First Lady Melania Trump who planted a sapling grown from a historical oak tree originally planted by 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 and thats because prior to 2009 there would be no serious cultivation of fruits and 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 first days of his administration. These included cucumber, turnip and leek. John quincy adams later wrote in his diary about planting deep blood colored beats, yellow flowered parsnips, tall and slender stemmed jerusalem artichokes. And fun fact jerusalem artichokes are in fact neither artichokes nor from the holy land. Theyre actually a type of sun flower. And adams further mentioned herb such as mint, sage as well as prizewinning pairs and peaches. After he came to office Andrew Jackson went even bigger. For some 40 years this plot provided fresh food for the occupants of the white house to enjoy. And this landscape drawing done shortly after the end of the civil war shows the old Kitchen Garden at its greatest extent. Having grown to about 1 acre in size it was pretty darn big, larger in fact than the footprint of the main block of the white house. And the garden is located right here in this trapezoidal area. And as you can see its also rather interestingly divided up into 8 smaller sections which to me suggests it was run like a miniature farm. I should point out these faint line said running through the drawing here. Thats the outline of 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 smackdab through the middle of the Kitchen Garden which alas meant the end of the serious growing of fruits and vegetables on the white house grounds until the Obama Administration. Now, unfortunately because it was a working productive space the old Kitchen Garden is not terribly well documented. It wasnt pretty or glamorous, and so it went largely unrecorded. There arent any paintings or photographs of it, and apart from the plants showed there isnt visual at all. After an awful lot of searching and archives i was fortunate to track down the original sales receipts for the fruit and vegetables grown in the white house Kitchen Garden during president lincolns time. Hes capable of making any little thing interesting and significant even this list. Something like president taylors tomatoes or buchanans brussels spouts just would not have the same cache. A good number still aexist as heirloom varieties. 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 turnips or christmas beans or hunters cantaloupe or what about my personal favorite if nothing else just for the name alone mangle wurtsal, which is basically the beats much, much larger cousin. For the past few years my wife ellen and i have done the best to do so for our suburban baltimore home. I think im a better historian than i am a gardener. I dont have a black thumb but neither is it quite green. Weve had more success than others and the biggest success by far was our cabbage harvest a few years ago. Seriously if we can grow this much cabbage its full proof a and a great plan to start off with. And of course what would the white house be without flowers . President s John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson kept a flower guards on the west side of the south grounds. Just like the old Kitchen Garden its history has proven to be frustratingly elusive to track down. Its not kplaekt muexactly much is it . The only part thats really visible is this wooden structure. Its either a trellis or an arbor. The foreground is obviously dominated by this crane. It was the expansion of the treasury that necessitated the removal of the white house Flower Garden in the 1850s. There were of course still flowers but no real Flower Gardens in the way we think of them today. And why would that be . Frankly because the president s and families didnt have an outdoor space to plant such a garden. The south grounds were also used as public parkland which was not part of the original planl. The Flower Garden simply moved indoors at the white house and became a private space for the first family to enjoy out of public view. This is a very early photograph of the white house conservatory. And it was steamy and exotic and absolutely overflowing with all types of hot house plants. In the 19th century a News Reporter somehow did manage to get inside and described the scene as, quote, almost like penetrating the luxurious fragrance of some south american island, so warm and odiferous is the atmosphere. And first lady lucy web hayes seen her with her children and one of her friends in the conservatory, she and her husband utilized the conservatory in a special way. After a dinner with guests instead of serving drinks they led tours of the conservatory. This actually seems to have gone over surprisingly well with their guests coming away quite pleased with the experience. By about the year 1900 the single conservatory, which is the big building here had grown into one vast glass house complex that ranged over much of the near southwest grounds. The conservatory itself was are for show and enjoyment, a luxury for the president ial household. But the rest was simple utilitarian used to grow as much as possible. Cranking out thousands, possibly tens of thousands of bulbs, flowers, ferns and shrubs per year for planting outdoors on the grounds or use inside the white house. There are nine separate buildings shown in this drawing. From left to right we have a large rose house, the gardeners office, a camellia house, a fern house, a geranium house and a second small rose house. The rose has always been the king of flowers at the white house and a general propagating house and an orchid house. And then rather suddenly in 1902 everything changed. All of the greenhouses as well as the conservatory which is what we see here were unceremoniously torn down, and the reason to make room for the expansion of the white house under theodore roosevelt, specifically the new west wing seen as in the foreground, but the very last remnants of the greenhouse is behind. And that was basically that. Theres never been another greenhouse at the white house since. So understandably the loss of their indoor Flower Garden did not thrill the president or his family. First Lady Edith Roosevelt came up with a solution to the problem. Since the south grounds had been closed it was possible to move the president ial Flower Gardens back outdoors, and this is precisely what she did in 1902 and 1903. Specifically the first lady created two colonial style gardens one west of the south portico and the other on the same position on the east side. They were intricate and heavily embellished and modeled after the geometrically patterned gardens like mount vernon in the 1700s. Both bloomed with oldfashioned flowers and mrs. Roosevelt was extremely pleased. So please she chose to sit for her official portrait in the West Colonial garden. Some of her successors, however, were not nearly impressed with her handiwork, and that is how her gardens began to change over the 20th century. Her west garden eventually became the internationally famous rose garden. Her east cologne ynl garden is now the its a fascinatesing story especially for garden lovers. And with that ladies and gentlemen, im going to end. There you have it, a abbreviated history of the white house grounds in i think just about half an hour. So thank you for your time and again its been my great pleasure. [ applause ] so we do have a little bit of time. We can do a short q a. Theres microphones on either side of the room. So if you have a question feel free to raise your hand. I want to ask about the use of the greenhouses for cutting gardens and the use inside the house. So was it almost all sourced from there for the arrangements inside the home at the time . At the time absolutely. And who was doing the arranging at the time . That would have been it kind of depends. The white house gardeners at various times would have done it. The white house gardener during Mary Todd Lincoln presented her with a bouquet, so it varied from administration to administration. And i noticed one of the houses was the orchid house, so can you talk about some of the varieties that might have been at that. To be honest with you it was everything that was available at the time. It was built during the grant administration, and it was specifically under first lady grants auspices. She indoctrinated what was known at the time as an orchid craze in the United States because orchids were just brand new. As far as varieties go, i cant answer you specifically right off the top of my head, but they literally would have been everything available to them because they were trying to showoff as much as possible, frankly. Yes, sir . Was there any geopolitical influence on the white house meaning gifts of flowers and trees from International Visitors or things given to International Visitors from the garden . Thats a really good question. The good example is the the Jackson Magnolia which i was talking about is i suppose somewhat other rather famously in a state of decline. The tree is basically on tree life support. Theres no center of the tree. Its being held up by a pole. So this is the grand effort that the white house and the National Park service are going through to keep this tree up. And because of its special historical significance theres also saplings that are constantly being grown so the tree when it finally does have to go, and it will. Its a living thing. They are going to replace the tree with a genetically identical tree grown from it. And this means theres anywhere between i think 8 or 12 of these saplings being grown at any given time and some do better than others, some get bigger and once they get to a certain size rather than just throw them away those are for instance presented to visiting dignitaries and honored guests. 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 ground. It was a tree from the bella wood battlefield in france which is where the u. S. Marines earned their nickname devil dogs fighting in defense of the allied cause. And the tree then shortly thereafter disappeared from the grounds. And the reason being it needed to go through quarantine just like anything else. So funny story it was actually planted in an enormous tarp so none of the actual roots of the tree hit the ground. So its currently to the best of my knowledge still in quarantine at the u. S. Darmtd of agriculture. And as soon as it gets cleared itll be coming back. Oh, im sorry. Thats all right. For the vegetable garden has it expanded and is much of it organic and are you promoting heirloom varieties . To the best of my knowledge its still about the same size but its being maintained to the same standards. I believe all or most is organic. Tethats up to the discretion of the first lady. And heirloom varieties, yes, are not the sole focus. For instance i know that during the Obama Administration at least there was a strong focus on growing some of Thomas Jeffersons favorite vegetables. Final question. Yes, sir . Thats a really good question. How was the garden financed in the first 100 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 didnt have time to necessarily go into some of these details, but the conservatory in some of the greenhouses burned down not once but twice. And rather than appropriate money for an iron structure they kept building it out of wood, which, you know, it gets kind of moist in a greenhouse, it gets wet and moisture and wood dont really work. But, you know, congress controls the Purse Strings for things like that. Okay, thank you very much. Cspan has around the clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and its all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps, watch on demand any time unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. Up next on American History tv author Rebecca Roberts on the effort leading up to the passage of the 19th amendment and how women gained the right to vote through marching, picketing and persistence. Shes the author of suffragi s suffragists. Relive your history here on American History tv on cspan 3. Im the president of the White House Historical association, and its my privilege to welcome many of you back to historic Decatur House and the White House Historical association for another one of our wonderful lectures. Tonight is one of the annual National Heritage lectures that we do in partnership with the u. S. Capitol Historical Society and the u. S. Supreme court Historical Society, and we have
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