Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the White House Historical association and our 2023 symposium, the white house in Popular Culture hosted by the Association Good morning, Everyone Welcome to the White House Historical association and are 2023 symposium, the white house and Popular Culture, hosted by the association and our two friends and partners the john w center for the library of congress. I am Stuart Mclaurin and i have the privilege of being the president of the White House Historical association and i see many familiar friends and faces here today and those joining us and our own digital coverage its great to have all of you joining us here today as well i want to recognize three of my colleagues who have been involved and many here at the association have played a roll making today happened in these annual symposiums which are actually a yearlong effort to put together. We start with a colloquium of scholars in the fall and focus on a topic or subject with our partner. In this case the center and that culminates in this wonderful symposium that you are gathered with us today to enjoy. The three colleagues i would like to recognize today for their leadership is dr. Colling joe kent the Senior Vice President and director of the debris Rubenstein Center for white house history. And we are excited colleen has been nominated by President Biden to be the next archivist by the United States but would like to congratulate colleen. And we are hopeful there will be Senate Confirmation soon and we will hate to miss her. She has contributed a significant amount to our success and shes not going far and as you know we have a close tie in relationship with the National Archives and particularly our wonderful friends at the president ial library, which we all enjoyed. Dr. Matthew costello is in the back here and has been very involved and we will be hearing from him later today as far as this program and my colleague has been in charge of every logistical element making this happen and it makes me happy when i dont have to worry about any of those things. Grace has done a wonderful job so thank you, grace. Right now we have a video agreement from the chairman of the board of directors from the White House Historical association [ laughter ] the chairman of the White House Historical association the honorable john rogers. Good morning. I serve as the chairman of the board of directors of the white house us to association. Although, i cannot be with you in person, i know you have an interesting day with engaging speakers and conversations over how the white house and Popular Culture intersect. I had the privilege of working in the white house across two different administrations but mainly during the reagan years as you undoubtedly know reagan starred in many movies. I love watching movies at camp david. They enjoyed classic films such as singing in the rain and stagecoach. But i never missed the chance to view the latest contemporary hit like et and raiders of the lost ark and the karate kit. President reagan implicitly understood that president s need to remain in touch with what is popular in the country, and he certainly did that through film. Movies and other forms of Popular Culture offer insights into who we are as americans, and also, who we aspire to be. I hope youre looking forward to hearing from more of our speakers today about this dynamic and how Popular Culture shapes are perspectives of the presidency and the people who have held that office. Finally, i would like to thank our partners from the john w kludgy center at the library of congress. Both of our organizations are committed to the study and preservation of history as well as supporting do research and programming that inform and educate the public. The Association Symposium offers us this unique opportunity every year to connect and inspire people to learn more about the white house and its larger cultural significance as a symbol of our democracy. Thank you again for joining us at the decatur house, and i hope you enjoy the day. Thank you to john as our chairman and i would also like to recognize carla hayden the library of congress who serves as an ex officio board of directors over the entire Library System today. As john mentioned the White House Historical situation and the klugey center have much in common and we share similar beliefs in making history more accessible and available and relevant to all audiences and we are grateful for this partnership. Todays symposium explores the relationship see the white house and Popular Culture. The only information is through popular medium such as television, films, comics, cartoons, and other such. Familiar outlets. The cause of this Popular Culture holds an Important Role in our society not only for entertainment purposes but for informing audiences and shaping their understanding of our countrys institutions. Todays panel and if youve seen the program its a robust and exciting panel of presenters, they will discuss a variety of perspectives and include historians historians, Entertainment Industry experts, actors and scholars. They will discuss how the presidency and the white house shapes Popular Culture and how the public understands these institutions. Todays watch is going to be beautiful in the setting today. And it will give a little hat tip to a pop culture moment that is happening this weekend. We have all seen, its hard to miss the coronation of the king that will take place tomorrow. And, certainly, there is a great amount of history and synergy between the monarchs of the United Kingdom and the royal family and the president of the United States and the white house. There will be a fun tribute in the fair and menu items and the celebration of lunchtime together that pays tribute to the coronation. I am wearing my commemorative coronation pin to participate in the pop culture moment and i hope you had an opportunity to receive my podcast today with dame karen pierce, the current ambassador of the uk to the u. S. She is extraordinary. I had the privilege of just listening to her and i think you will enjoy her comments the special relationship and the coronation as well available on our website. I have a few housekeeping reminders before we dive in. Our white house history shop is open throughout the day. As our special guest you will receive a 10 discount if you go in there and tell them you are here for the symposium. Our parting gift for you today will be an issue of our white house history quarterly and this is it a previous issue on the white house and television. Many of you subscribe to this and if you have this issue take this one and give it to a friend. Our publications, and this one in particular, our quarterly magazine, is one of the favorite things of mine at the association. It goes back to the very beginning of our mission with mrs. Kennedy in 1961. Just a year later she had us publish our very first guidebook and it was the first publication and now we produce awardwinning publications that are deep and rich and scholarly and wonderful for you to enjoy yourselves as well as give to others. The next issue which will be out in early june, every issue that comes out i told Marsha Anderson and her staff that it is better than the one before. The one coming out in june is going to be on the white house and new york and it is fantastic. You dont want to miss that one. At the conclusion of the days wonderful presenters and panels, we will have a reception out in the courtyard and we hope everyone will stay and enjoy that time of fellowship together. So my contribution to todays program is complete. I will get off the stage and let the festivities begin. I want to thank the kluge center, my colleagues and all of you. Your participation and engagement with us on these important topics is very important and encouraging to us in our work and for every one of you that sits here today there are thousands more who follow us on mine, our social media, digital resources and a friend such as cspan and if someone in your life doesnt yet know about the work of the White House Historical association, please introduce them to watts. There are so many great and wonderful causes out there in the world. Many of you are supporting hospitals and universities and Community Groups and organizations but there is one white house that belongs to all of america and all of the American People and your support for that given our nonprofit and nonpartisan status makes what we do possible. Thank you very much. With that, i would like to welcome hannah summers who is representing the library of congress today. She is the associate librarian for research and Collection Services at the library of congress and they are an extraordinary historic institution that our country and our congress cannot do without. Hannah, i will turn it over to you. [ applause ] good morning, everyone. Its wonderful to be here and thank you for that introduction. I hannah summers and the still new associate librarian for research and Collection Services at the library of congress. I want to welcome you today to the wonderful symposium on the white house in Popular Culture, which is a joint effort between the john w. Kluge center at the library of congress at the library and the white house association. The kluge center is part of building and stewarding the collections of the library of congress and facilitate access to collections from researchers around the world. We have an Important Mission at the library, to engage, to inspire and to inform. Congress and the American People with universal and Enduring Force of knowledge and creativity. The john w. Kluge center at the library of congress helps us fulfill that mission and a vibrant scholarly center on capitol hill that brings together worldclass researchers from the u. S. And abroad to energize one another to instill wisdom from the librarys Bridge Resources and interact with policymakers and the public. The Center Offers opportunities for senior scholars and postdoc loads to do research on the library of congress collections and offers free public lectures, conferences and symposia including footage that helps so the seeds for todays event. Many of the ideas and historical insights being discussed today were first presented during the scholarly workshop hosted at the Jefferson Building at the library last november. The library of congress is delighted to be part of todays event and i encourage everyone to visit and register for a reader card, if you dont already have one and spend some time exploring resources of the Worlds Largest library. To begin todays program i would like to introduce kevin butterfield, the director of the center and moderator of our first panel which is on the presidency in comics and cartoons. Kevin. Welcome. It is my great pleasure to moderate our first panel. We are exploring the white house and both comics and cartoons. From George Washingtons time two hours. The ways in which we have used print and other forms of media to reach and shrink the distance between the American People and our political leaders. Things we can explore and it is both entertaining and enlightening to do so. I do not want to say all that much to introduce our panel. Their biographies are in the panel. We have a close connection with others. Sarah duke works there and megan and jesse spent a good amount of time as a distinguished visiting scholar at the the john w. Kluge center and a journalism professor i believe i have the clicker and you cant do much without this. Let me hang things over to sarah to begin our exploration of the white house and comic and cartoon. Sarah . Thank you, kevin. I must express my gratitude for being invited to speak to you today. I am sarah duke and in 1972 just six days after the watergate breakin the editorial cartoonists drew this editorial cartoon showing put steps leading away from the white house. He had already drawn two editorial cartoons featuring the physical appearance of Richard Nixon and implicating him in the break in. So i draw the white house. Thats whatwe will explore today. But lets go back to a moment in time, as we celebrate the coronation of chles tomorrow. We fought a war and this is the sacking of washington. The White House Historical association owns the original drawing for this purpose the library of congress has the only William Strickland engraving from it. Benjamin latrobe was given an unique opportunity to rebuild the white house in a new way with the lovely colonnade on the southern fagade. And i apologizethis is a collection arand dear to my heart because i am processing it it now and john ruben smith. He traveled up and down the stn seaboard documenting the new republic in drawings and print. When one thinks of the types they think of that ancestors or somebody elses dead ancestors. They also feature buildings and landscapes and this is the white house in 1846. And while the northern fagades was depicted less regularly in print, perhaps because it was last granjeno here is an image from a calendar in 1822. I am laying the groundwork. This is what the building looks like. By the 1840s everyone comes to know what the building looks like and it does not need to be handled. He had the Longest Campaign and shortest presidency he did not need to label the white house. It is there as part of his destination and that is what happens in lithographic editorial cartoons. In the beginning the white housis a destination. Poke running for presidency, its a foot race. The white house is the destination. Currier and ives. You think of bucolic landscapes. They did a lot of editorial cartoons. They had political opinions and their opinion was Horatio Seymour governor of w york was the man for president , not Ulysses S Grant and they depicted dragging the chicago platform across an abyss. Kw how that turned out because we dont know who Horatio Seymour is. During the American Civil War thwhe house becomes part of the emblematic patriotism of prerng the union and so it appears on a lot of civil wars we have a huge collection and they are very pictorial and deserving of research, if anyone wants to delve into them. We have volumes of civil war envelopes. The white house destination in the white house patriotic symbol. So why am i showing you west . The westside . Because by the midand late 19th century the fagade that is depicted tells the story of what the contents of the cartoon is. And the first story that gets told is the presidency becomes important enough that there are spoils to be had and those spoils come out of the side. They dont come out of th side. It is the side of the building that gets depicted. And punk magazine a weekly publication from the 1850s to 1917 side, spoils of presidency, it is the side. Want to know what cleveland is thinking . You go to the side. Why dont the side up here in editorial cartoons anymore . I think that is we dont associe spoils with the presidency anymore. In my transition and bringing you Teddy Roosevelt a train wreck and his own hand shows the successor and his larger than life squashing the white house and that gave wilson the entry, right . And speaking of wilson. Now we are getting to the south fagade. It is my argument that when the south fagade is depicted it is the personality of the president that is the issue. You are going to say thats not the white house. Its the summer house, the shadow white house but it resembles the south fagade so spectacularly and poor president wilson is trapped by the shadows of all the issues he has to deal with and according to conservative cartoonistmccutcheon, of chicago, he is not doing too well. Ver when we get to the largerthanlife presidency of Franklin Dell and of oh, oscar cesar ramos working for the New York Times says the white house is overtaking washington as the personality of the president and the strength of the president redraws the map. We get to truman who gave us the white house we know and love today and he has remodeled it. The washington caronists remodeled it and he cant quite fulfill his president s pmise because no one will run for him in his first campaign. London johnson, everythings coming up roses as he passes legislation and settles issues. Its almost like a honeymoon and we have a great herb block collection of more than 4000 drawings at the library in part because mr. Bloch got tired of johnn king for every cartoon that depicted him and he just said they are not availae. We have pretty much ev