Good afternoon, welcome to white house history. My name is stuart im the president of the White House Historical association. Today we will have an exciting conversation with the head of the Rubinstein Center for white house history in one of our historians on a brandnew book, the cabinet, George Washington and the creation of the american institution. Ordinarily we would do this event at the Carriage House which is our base of operations on Lafayette Park but as we are all working from home and joining you in your home we are trying out this new mode of communications. It is perfectly fitting with our historic mission. As you all know we were founded in 1961 by first lady, jacqueline kennedy, who had the vision at such a young age in a short period of time as first lady to create an organization like the White House Historical association to give nonprofit, nonpartisan support to the work of maintaining the museum of standard of the white house but also an education mission, to teach
Historic mission. As all of you know we were founded by 1961 by first Lady Jacqueline kennedy who had a vision in such a young age as first lady to create an organization to give nonprofit, nonpartisan support to the work of maintaining the Museum Standard of the white house but also an Education Mission to teach and to tell stories of the white house and history going back to 1792 when George Washington who were talking about today actually selected that piece of land and hired the young irish architect james hogan to build the white house. Well, creating educational materials and content is a core part of our mission and thats what we do every day through the wonderful books that we publish, our programs that we host at the Decatur House and around the country and online social media content and website content and this is an example of that. We are doing more and more of this during this time when we are all at home looking for interesting things to do. I would encourage you to chec
Above the televised president ial debate tonight. So we think weve got the best thing going here and were glad you chose to be with us tonight. Id like to acknowledge some very important people who are with us this evening. Matts parents tim and debbie costello, who are here with us tonight and his wife kristin, who is here tonight. And, of course, in my book the two most important costellos are sophia and theodore and theyre at home, i guess. They can come next time. Theyre matt and kristins wonderful little kids. I would also like to welcome the members of our board of directors who are with us tonight. We have ann stock and lets give ann a hand. Yes. And bob mcgee. [ applause ] and we have two that are in route, Anita Mcbride and gail west. Both will be a little bit late but will be with us here tonight. Steve strong is the national cochair of our white house our National Council of white house history, which he and his wife andrea are here with us tonight. This is one of our most i
History through a wide variety of perspectives and lenses. If you are interested in the people, you can learn more about the people who live there and the people who work there. The people who built it and repaired it. If you are interested in looking at things like artifacts, objects, material culture, painting, fine arts, decorative arts, the white house has all of those things, as well. If youre into politics, policy, that is something that people think about. Even pop culture or political culture. Understanding the white house is a symbol for american democracy and how that has changed and evolved over time. It says a lot about who we are and the american identity. I think all these ways of studying the white house, it touches on all these Different Things. You may not get this in a traditional, American History textbook but if you look deeper there is an incredible history on the surface. We are going to spend some time with both of you and your work and the association. I am goin
Who repaired it. If you are interested in looking at things like artifacts, serial culture, paintings, fine arts, decorative arts, the white house has all of those things as well. If you are into politics, policy obviously, that is the big one people think about. Even in terms of pop culture, or political culture, understanding the white house is a symbol for american democracy. And how that symbol has changed and evolved over time. It says a lot about who we are, the american identity itself, and i think all of these different ways of studying the white house touches on all of these Different Things that you may not get in a traditional American History textbook. But if you dig deeper, there is an incredible history beneath the surface. Susan lindsay chervinsky, a White House Historical , a new role, we will spend time with both of you learning about your work and about the association. I want to ask you to give the elevator speech about the association, how it got started and what is