Kennedy, dedicated to the preservation of the white house. And also educating american citizens about the white house and its diverse history. This evening, our guest is jim conroy, the author of jeffersons white house monticello on the potomac. Jim was a lawyer in boston for 38 years before he began writing about american history. His previous book is lincolns white house the peopless house in wartime, which won the prestigious lincoln prize. If you would like to ask jim a question at the end of our broadcast, please type it in the comments section of the facebook feed and we will get to as many questions from our online audience as possible. Jim, welcome to white house history live. James thank you, it is a pleasure to be here. Colleen we are honored to have you. The first question is the setting for your book. There have been numerous books about Thomas Jefferson and about his presidency. You have a unique focus of this book on the white house as the setting for jeffersons two terms in office. Can you tell us why you decided to focus on the white house in your book about Thomas Jefferson and his presidency . James sure. My book about lincolns white house i guess inspired me to move backwards to jeffersons white house. I found in the lincoln book, it gave me an opportunity to take a perspective on lincoln as employer, as boss, as manager of the white house, the way he used it politically, socially and otherwise. I found that very interesting and different from what had been written before. I thought the same thing should work with jefferson and i hope it has. The second thing i guess is i worked in washington myself for eight or nine years in the 1970s and 1980s on capitol hill and elsewhere. It used to strike me that mustve been an entirely different place when it was a wilderness capital. Ive always found that interesting and worth looking at more carefully. Those are the basic reasons why i focused on the white house. Colleen we will start at the beginning of the story, the election of 1800 was famously contentious and acrimonious. Can you tell us about it and did john adams welcome Thomas Jefferson to the white house . James first of all, particularly the time we are living through right now with all of its challenges, i think it is useful and in some ways reassuring to look back at the election of 1800, which was, as you say, very contentious, very partisan indeed. And nearly came to Violence Toward the end. Without getting into detail, most of us will remember from high school or college that there were two basic parties at the time, one was the federalist party, which was the conservative sort of probusiness, favorable to wealth and commerce, very favorable to britain, hostile to france, and generally more conservative, traditional party. The republicans, later known as the democratic republicans, at the time founded by jefferson and madison, were very similar in their differences from the federalists, as you might say the democrats are today from the republicans. Kind of the mirror image of the federalists. Oriented toward the common man, or at least middleclass, favorable to france, hostile to britain, suspicious of wealth and commerce, agriculturally oriented. They were quite different. Beyond those bases, they had a different philosophy on what government should be. Again, at the risk of oversimplification, the federalists were favorable of a small, elite group that would run the country. Very limited voting rights. Modeled very much on the british form of government. Hamilton even favored a hereditary senate and a lifetime presidency like the king. Whereas jefferson and madison were for expanding democracy, making the government less authoritarian, less dominated by the elites. There was quite a clash and quite a difference in cultures and approach. In fact, people were so partisan and so fiercely divided at the time that there were federalist cures for smallpox, republican cures for smallpox, idolize or hate jefferson. Very much like our own time. As far as the outcome of the election, jefferson won the election fairly comfortably, but when it came time to count the electoral votes, a mistake was made which i dont have time to get into for detail, but a mistake was made in having the republican electors vote all for jefferson except one to vote for aaron burr so there would not be a tie in the electoral college. In fact, there was a tie in the electoral college, which threw the election into the house and it took 37 ballots from the house of representatives to finally elect jefferson as president. Quite a tumultuous, partisan, difficult time, like we are living through now. Colleen tell us about the white house, then known as the president s house, in 1801, when Thomas Jefferson moved in. What was it like and what was washington, d. C. Like at that time in 1801 . James if we could switch to the slide that shows the white house under construction. This is a painting by peter waddell, a modern artist, and i believe the White House Historical association has ownership of the image. The white house was built several years before jeffersons time in the 1790s. What this shows you in context is the kind of bucolic, rural setting in which the building was constructed. You can see the potomac and not much else but grain and tobacco fields, a vast malarial swamp, a literal swamp. And sort of a primeval forest that had not been touched by human hands for thousands of years, taking up much of that space. The map is a good slide to go to now if we can. This is a map also done in our day by a very talented cartographer by the name of hawkins who took maps and documents and records of washington in 1801 and constructed this map based on that evidence. The first thing is you can see the Potomac River is twice as wide as today, before it was filled in. To the upper left, you can see georgetown, which preceded washington, d. C. By couple of decades in age. Sort of in the middle, you can see the president s house, in the center of this little building, if you will, which was the central part of the city. There were houses and neat little brick shops and such extending east and west. To the lower right you can see the capital building, which itself was surrounded by a very small community, not even half built at that time. Down below that, is a third village, really, which built up around the Washington Navy yard. Everything else is open country. Really one of the british diplomats in washington called it four and a half square miles of empty land. Hard to visualize today. That is the setting that jefferson presided over as president. Colleen what kind of changes to jefferson want to make to the white house and did he have a particular budget he had to stick to to make those changes . James if we can go to the line drawing there we go. This is a line drawing done by a contemporary architectural historian, who made these illustrations and was kind enough to put them in the book as well. You see here the white house looking from the west, side view. There is no portico at the time, no front portico, nor a south portico at the back. There was kind of a pit dug around the white house, which is still there today, to allow air and light to filter into the basement rooms below. The wooden ramp on the left was a temporary structure built to cross over into the white house. You have the shell of the building very much limited to that shell, hardly anything else was done. There were only six usable rooms at the time. Many of the others had no floors or ceilings or plastered walls. And jefferson pretty much got a blank slate to work with. I think its interesting to point out too, and the middle of the drawing, you see this octagonshaped roof, it is what amounted to a wine cellar jefferson built for his wine collection, which i think is the first thing he had built there, which gives you a sense of his priorities as far as wineloving went. There were only two or three architects worthy of the name of the time in the country and he collaborated with one of those, and english born architect named benjamin latrobe, to design and finish the white house inside and out, much of which was done under his direct supervision, even drawing the working sketches. This is a watercolor that was done by benjamin latrobe probably during jeffersons presidency. It could have been soon afterward. It is a conceptual rendering of those changes that latrobe and jefferson made in the building. You can now see the north portico on the righthand side and the south portico on the left. The foundation for the north portico was built before jefferson left office not the portico itself. You can also see the talent of benjamin latrobe as a draftsman and architect in that drawing. Colleen what about the budget . Did jefferson have a budget and did he stick to it . James he did. The congressional appropriations varied from year to year for finishing the building and furnishing it and so forth. Generally he was quite good about adhering to that budget. He made an important policy stand in favor of very economical, limited government and realized the optics of exceeding the budget for his own residence would not be terrific. So he was quite careful with it. One year toward the end of his presidency, latrobe exceeded the budget by a substantial amount, caused a real hubbub. But congress loyally amended the budget to cover the deficit. He worked carefully and prudently within what was even to him in stages, starting with the landscaping and some of the essential living arrangements and gradually ramping up over time. Colleen did Thomas Jefferson bring enslaved people to the president s house with him, and if so, who did he bring and what type of work did they perform at the president s house or the white house . James yes, he did. Many people have the misperception that the white house was staffed by enslaved people completely during jeffersons time, that is not the case. He had, to start with, a footman, an enslaved black footman by the name of john freeman, whose services he actually leased from a physician, which was common in those days. John freeman may have invented his own last name because he had a contract with his owner that entitled him to freedom, i think it was 1815, in 1815. The system was that he would pay off, basically buy himself, by paying to his owner the wages he was paid as a servant in the white house. Jefferson was very close to john freeman. The book goes into that in some length, and elaborately chose to put him in the most public place in the white house as a footman, both greeting guests and waiting at table, wearing the same formal livery as the white footmen who worked in the white house and were freemen, and treated the same way, same accommodations, same supervision. What some historians have called a gray zone of slavery that jefferson established in the white house as a kind of model of what he hoped would be a transition from slavery to freedom. If we can slip to the slide of the kitchen. This is a monticello slide of the kitchenette in onto cello. The white house kitchen would have been similar indeed to this. Jefferson brought up from monticello three young, enslaved girls in their teens, 15, 16, 17, in that range. Initially the first one, called ursula granger, was brought up alone. The reason he brought these young women in was to have them learn french cuisine from the french chef he brought on to prepare meals in the president s house. So they had kind of an apprenticeship learning that craft. Ursula granger went back to monticello after just a few months, delivering her first child. After that, jefferson brought up two other young girls in their teens, edie fawcett and fanny hearn. Both of them had husbands at monticello, one was a wagoner and the other a blacksmith. They learned from the french chef and lived under the same conditions as the white servants and when his presidency ended, they came back to monticello with him and became the head cooks at monticello for the rest of their lives, and jefferson had the french cuisine he loved in both places. Colleen one of the most entertaining stories in your book is the story of the mammoth cheese. Can you tell us about it . James yes, if we can go to the cheese slide. This engraving was done in jacksons presidency, several decades after jeffersons presidency. We have no image of the jefferson comparable cheese. This one is very similar. The long and short of it is, during the early part of jeffersons presidency, right after the election, new years day of 1801, the berkshires, massachusetts preacher by the name of the elder john welland, as he was called, was a very wellknown proponent of religious freedom, and had suffered prejudice as a result of that. He and his colleagues in the berkshires created this mammoth, 1200 pound cheese, produced as he described it, by 900 cows, not one of them a federalist. The cheese was the size of a large millstone and was brought down on a six horse wagon from massachusetts. All along the way, welland would stop in towns and cities and give speeches about religious freedom. The cheese was the drawing card for that, people came to see the cheese and ended up seeing reverend welland as well as the cheese. When he got it to the white house, jefferson had it set up in the east room and opened the doors for the guests to come and sample the cheese. And he used it as a kind of metaphor for the common man and the produce of farms and working people who were the backbone of a country, and who produced goods like the mammoth cheese. It was quite an entertaining event and sort of condemned by the federalists. Praised by the rupublicans. Colleen how long did the cheese remain in the east room . James too long. As long as three years. The cheese was getting riper by the day and dying a death of a thousand cuts. I should point out that the east room then was basically a big, empty storage room. There were no finished floors, no plaster walls, just essentially a big, empty, echoing warehouse almost. It was a good place to park the mammoth cheese. Colleen jefferson is well known for the dinners he hosted at the white house during his two terms in office. Can you tell us where he held those dinners, who he invited, and what was the purpose of the dinners . The james yes. If we can switch to the dining room slide. This is a photograph also taken at monticello under the monticello foundations wing. The white house was burned to the cement and stone structure in 1814 by the british, so we dont know exactly what jeffersons dining room looked like but it would have been similar to this. It is in what is today the green room, where he held his dinners. A relatively small room, not as big or grand as the state dining room. He used these dinners very much as a Political Tool as well as a social tool. First of all, he would have social events for friends and family and important people coming through town, and he would also have a kind of wilderness salon where poets and artists and musicians and scientists who were visiting would be asked to dinner and he would have friends and congressmen and senators, and enjoy the intellectual discourse of that. But most important, i think, were what he described as his congressional dinners. He would have roughly a dozen, may be more, members of congress, house and senate, come to dinner, an average of three times a week and sometimes more. He would always or almost always confine those dinners to either all federalists or all republicans, because he had Different Missions for the two and they were at each others throats. He wanted to build a harmonious social environment. For the federalists, many of whom thought of him as the incarnation of evil it was intense. Many of the federalists despised him, but very few knew him or had met him. A very charming man, very genial, very bright, terrific conversationalist, with this wonderful french cuisine most of them had never tasted in this beautiful setting with nothing much else in town to do. It was a very attractive place to be and desirable place to go. Jefferson used these dinners to kind of charm the federalists, have them know him as a person and a host, as a friend, which he generally succeeded in doing. They would leave the dinners maybe no less politically hostile to them less personally hostile and amenable to french up in conversation. For the republicans on the other hand, most of them had never met him either. In that case it was not a question of wooing as it was bonding. He wanted to get to know them and for them to know him and to develop a sense of party harmony and amiability so that they too could Work Together in a more harmonious way. I point out before we move on, you can see in this picture to the left, this rolling dumbwaiter. Theres another example to the upper right. Jefferson brought those from france. They were unknown in the united states. The main reason why they were used was to be able to host a dinner without liveried servants standing at table, hearing everything and no doubt passing it on in the rumor mill and probably embellishing it. He would have the food brought in, set up on these dumb waiters, and the servants would leave. Jefferson would serve them with his own hands from the head of the table, next to one of those dumbwaiters, passing around the plates familystyle. They were positioned around the table so people could refresh their own wineglasses and refresh their own plates and have no need of servants. The whole atmosphere was a family, relaxed, informal, casual thing that people really enjoyed and jefferson enjoyed guiding the conversation, and it wouldve been a terrific evening out, as almost everybody describes it as having been. Colleen just a reminder, if you have questions for jim, type them in the comments of the facebook feed and we will get to as many as possible at the end of the program. I have one last question before we get to some questions. Of all of the research and writing on Thomas Jefferson, is there one particular insight or fact you learned about Thomas Jefferson in your research that you would like to share with us that was the most revealing to you or most fascinating . James i guess i would say two things. One is theres always been an ambivalence about jeffersons position as the author of the declaration of independence, the great theorist of equality and the common man, juxtaposed with being a slave owner. There was a tension then and now of course it probably is much more apparent. What i found interesting about delving into that issue was jeffersons own ambivalence on the subject. He had written in his earlier years that slavery was an abomination, in his words. At one point he wrote that he did not believe that a just god could be expected to favor the slaveowners over these enslaved human beings and that at some point, there would inevitably be some kind of explosion unless this was resolved and the Divine Authority would not be on the side of his class. When he was young in the legislature of virginia and in his legal practice, he worked quite diligently to chip away at slavery and erode it politically and legally, and kept running into a wall, getting nowhere, finally coming to the view that it was not going to happen in his generation. But theres a very interesting tension there. In the white house, as he tried to use a very small number of enslaved people as a sort of a model as to how they could be integrated into White Society and even truly transition into freedom. I found that very interesting. I guess the other thing is the way that jefferson used the white house to resist what he rightly sought as a tendency towards authoritarianism and oligarchy that had developed into washington and adams presidency. If we could switch to the picture of washington, please. This is gilbert stuarts famous portrait of washington, done while he was president. You can see the kind of regal trappings, the guilt furniture, the crimson draperies, the very formal clothing washington is wearing. Im told its the equivalent of white tie and tails. Very formal, almost imperial image. That was definitely the image that washington projected in the presidency. Almost as two or three steps down from the king, but the same mold. Even though he could have easily been the king had he chose do. But the trappings and the imagery was a very distant revered figure. Next slide of jefferson in the fur collar. A beautiful painting. The image projected here is one of simplicity, almost a rustic gentlemen, if you will, as opposed to this regal, imperial figure. Very plain background, sort of bundle up for a cold, badly heated house, will skin cloak with a fur collar. Projecting dignity and authority, but not this imperial presidency that he worked very hard to defuse. And i think he did so successfully. We have a lot of questions from our viewers. We will start asking those. James asks, where do you break Thomas Jefferson amongst u. S. Where do you rank Thomas Jefferson amongst u. S. President s . Was the Louisiana Purchase consequential enough to put him perhaps in the top 10 . James that is a good question. i think many people tend to put him in a top four or five because they know him and he is a hero and a big figure. In terms of president ial accomplishment, as far as historic events, he is probably not in the top five, arguably maybe not in the top 10. The Louisiana Purchase is an enormous achievement, doubled the size of the country. Removed the threat of a napoleonic invasion. Napoleon could easily have shipped his troops into new orleans and move them across the mississippi river. That was a tremendous achievement, and there were others. The second term of his presidency was not particularly successful. In terms of memorable events, its not all that significant. What is memorable and what is significant, again, going back to what i said in the last slide, is the way that jefferson reversed his tendency towards oligarchy, suppression of speech, limiting democracy, boosting the elite at the expense of common people, and jefferson reversed that. I truly think that had he not done that, we very well may have a different country today. You mentioned the east room colleen grant tasks, you mentioned the east room and the changes that the east room has undergone since jeffersons time in the white house. Are there other rooms in the white house that are different today than they were during jeffersons presidency . James as a matter of fact, we happen to have a slide. If we can get to the side of jeffersons cabinet, is that possible . Ok. Well, if we cant, the basic answer to the question is that jefferson took shell rooms, very much undeveloped, undecorated there we go not even finished, and converted them into Something Like this. This is a modern painting of jeffersons cabinet, as he called it, his office. This was in the Southwest Corner of the building with the state building, where the state dining room is now. Its part of this the dining room today. You can see the double high ceilings, the way the building was built, but jefferson put in the moldings, the crown moldings there at the top, a lot of paneling, a lot of beautiful woodwork, hardware, furnished it with beautiful french furniture. He had the countrys largest collection of what was then called modern french furniture, which was louis xvi gilded very ornate french furniture. And also filled it with scientific instruments. You can see his telescope and various other scientific instruments and artifacts, and really made it a strikingly beautiful federalist era building that gave the country a lot of dignity, receiving Foreign Ministers and important guests and such. Also, i should note in the middle of the picture, there is the mockingbird that he kept in his office, who he allowed to fly freely throughout the room, trained the mocking bird. Describe the mockingbird species as a superior being in the form of a bird. Theres quite a bit about that in the book, too. He knew how to live well and knew how to make the building impressive. Matt asks, you have also written a book about lincolns white house. Can you talk about how these two president s differed in how they used the white house during their presidencies . James good question. Lincoln of course, almost lincolns entire presidency overlapped with the civil war. So that was the first, second and third focus of his white house throughout his presidency. And he used the building in various ways to help support that cause. In lincolns time, i should say more so even than in jeffersons time, the building was wide open. Anybody who wanted to walkin was free to do so, tour through the ornate public rooms downstairs, go upstairs to the office suite, which is where the offices were in lincolns day. Basically free access to anyone who chose to come. And this was a lincolns way of underscoring the peoples house, as he called it. And getting people into the frame of mind that the war was being fought for the people. This was their house and they were entitled to come in and enjoy it as well. He also used it for military parades, for all kinds of efforts to promote the war. Jefferson on the other hand, again, is going back to an earlier time, roughly 60 years before, where his mission was to help sustain the country. It was still an experiment. We were only 12 years into the constitution when im sorry, yes, 12 years into the constitution when jefferson took office vice president. So he was determined to use the building to build up this sense of pride that the country is prospering, growing, viable operation, and also to admit people who wanted to come and see him. Similar to lincoln, not as extreme. But anyone who chose to come and speak with him was permitted to do that. You would walk in, take a seat in the waiting room, and he would join you and chat with you for 10 or 15 minutes about whatever was on your mind. So very different than today. Neither president had secret service or protection of any kind, and use the building to advance to different ends than we do today. Colleen jamie asks a creative question, do you know anything about plumbing in the white house during jeffersons time . James i do. Now we are at the basics level. When jefferson moved in there , there was an outhouse. And thats it. That was the common thing. In fact, almost the universal thing. Jefferson had lived in paris for a good number of years and had become familiar with indoor plumbing in paris, which was virtually unknown in this country. When he came back, he missed it. When the capital was in philadelphia, as it was in the early years, they were just beginning to get indoor plumbing in philadelphia. Jefferson arranged to have the philadelphia merchants provide the white house with indoor plumbing. There was indoor plumbing in his own bedroom and in one or two of the other rooms in the white house, but otherwise not. There was no Running Water beyond that. Basically we are talking 18thcentury, very primitive hygiene. Let alone sanitation. Colleen steve asks, were jefferson and latrobe able to complete the east and west colonnades with construction before jefferson left office, or did that have to come after he left . James if the questioner means the wings on both sides of the white house, then the answer is, most of that was completed during jeffersons time. Even today, most of that still exists. There are long singlestory wings on both ends of the white house. Jefferson installed that having seen it again in france. A system whereby all of the practical functions of a great house, the cookhouse, the cannery, the laundry, the storage rooms and such, the servants quarters were set up in these long wings running out from both ends of the house. When you looked at them from the outside, they were very attractive classic architecture. When he went through each of the doors, each one was separated into its own function. Wine cellar, smokehouse, laundry, whatever it might be. That was nearly completed in jeffersons time. As i said earlier, the porticos were not completed, but were designed. Colleen pete asks, how did the tensions between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson influence how jefferson decided to conduct his presidency . James very much so. Very much influence. Hamilton i find it ironic that hamilton is a rap star now because in his time hamilton was arguably the most conservative right wing figure in american politics. Almost a loyalist. One step short of a royalist and jefferson was the opposite. So they clashed from day one. They were in washingtons cabinet. Hamilton was secretary of the treasury, jefferson was secretary of state. Pretty good lineup, and they went at each other every day at cabinet meetings. Jefferson once said that they ine like two fighting cocks a ring. After he became president , this am recurring here, but he did everything he could to dial back that sort of regal atmosphere, both in the way he conducted the government, and also in the way he presented himself and was kind of determined to defeat hamilton. And the irony i think, with things different than they are now, jefferson kept a bust of hamilton in his study at monticello the rest of his life. So even though they were blood enemies, he respected him and knew what a brilliant man he was and that he had a very respectable point of view, he just was not jeffersons point of view. Rather than demonize each other, they actually respected, if not, admired each other. Colleen Dolly Madison famously held a lot of social events and elaborate events at the white house, subsequently after Thomas Jeffersons presidency. Did you encounter in your research any information about the changes the medicines might have made to the white house after the Jefferson Administration . James i did. I should say briefly before i go into that, that Dolly Madison was one of jeffersons major hostesses. He was a widower and his daughters lived at monticello and near monticello, so he had no women to assist him socially. In those days, a woman cannot attend a dinner that did not have a hostess presiding over it. Whether or not she was with her husband or fiance, there had to be a hostess or you cannot come to a dinner as a woman. So he had to use cabinet members wives and others for that role, which dolly served often. Turning to the question, the madisons restored some of that formality and i dont want to say regal, but more formal and more polished atmosphere than jefferson had had, but i did not mention and should mention that, in washingtons day, there were weekly levees, as they were called, formal receptions for men, only men, who would come and arrange themselves in a semicircle around the president , all formally dressed, about to and bow to the waist. Washington would pass among them a few words, very stiff, very formal, no handshakes, then they would leave and that was it. Very much modeled on what george iii did. Jefferson eliminated that. No more levees, no more formal parties. Anybody could come in who wanted to see him without an appointment. The madisons restored the levees, but they opened them up to anyone. Back in washingtons day it was the wealthy elites that were permitted into those functions. Under the madisons it was opened to everyone and they took out newspaper ads, encouraging ordinary people to come to the levees and meet the president and the first lady. Colleen our last question of the evening is a good one. It is from bev. She says, now that youve done jefferson and youve written a book on lincoln, which president is next . James i have written two books on lincoln, and the third one on jefferson. I am working now on a book that fdr is the focal point of the focal point of. Its about the casablanca conference of 1943 where fdr and church hill and the military high command met in secret at casablanca for 10 days in the middle of the war to plan how the rest of the war was going to go. So we are out of the white house and into the 20th century. Colleen thank you very much for joining us for another terrific episode of white house history live. Join us again next month in october, our guest will be capr how marshall capresha marshall, who will talk about her book protocol. Thank you very much and have a great evening. James to her. Up next, university of Mary Washingtons history professor
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