But think about to when johnson pivska visited the class and we talked about the Jackson Magnolia. Who remembers the story . Andrew jacksons wife died right before he went to office so he planted this tree because it was her favorite tree. And he brought the seeds from the hermitage in tennessee and do you remember what jonathan told us . He said there isnt any contemporary evidence, Andrew Jackson never mentions planting a tree, theres nothing in newspapers so it seems like this is a story that has these romantic origins and its continued to grow from that ever since. So this is actually first known exterior photograph of the white house taken by a welsh born photographer named john plume jr. In january 1846. So if youre looking at the white house, this is 1846, so in theory jackson planted his tree already, right . But i dont see a magnolia anywhere. So this also bolsters the case that perhaps the magnolia came a little bit later than people think. Heres an outdoor shot by lewis walter in 18571858. You can see the white house conservatory on top of what is the west colonnade going to the area today that is the west wing so you dont have the green houses but you have the conservatory above the west colonnade and in that place where you usually have the Jackson Magnolia, it looks more like a barren tree in the middle of winter. It doesnt look like a Jackson Magnolia. However, this is a photography that was of the cassius clay battalion, union army, april 1861 and that looks like the Jackson Magnolia to me. If we look at that tree and its probably at that point, maybe about 15 to 20 feet tall, depends on when it was planted or if it was transported. But the photographic evidence seems to suggest that that famous tree attributed to Andrew Jackson more than likely was planted later, probably some time in the 1850s. However, that story and that legend has continued to grow and grow over time. Heres another shot. This is actually Matthew Brady so this is during the civil war. You can see the flag pole on the south lawn. Theres part of jeffersons ha ha wall and some of the Union Soldiers who were essentially keeping an eye on the white house grounds. Again, you look and you can see what looks like a young Jackson Magnolia so, again, early 1860s, it looks like there is the famous tree that we all know. In 2007, you probably remember this, december 2017, the Jackson Magnolia made a lot of news because there were reports that the tree was going to be cut down because of safety issues and its announced that its going to be pruned and one of its major branches will be taken down and preserved and you remember from our visit to the white house you could kind of see, yes, the Jackson Magnolia is still there but its being held up by a steel pole, by these cables and its because pretty extensive rot on the inside of the tree and i pulled up some of the news stories from december of 2017. So whats interesting is, i guess ill ask you, what Media Outlets do you think published each story. Read this one and who do you think published this information. Any ideas . Nope. York times. Cnn. The first one was cnn. What about this one . Matthew . Msnbc. Christopher . Washington post the Washington Post, yeah. Do you notice theres a key difference between first one, the second one. What word did they use . Lore. White house lore. If we go back, theres not really it kind of repeats the story verbatim that we know but at least the Washington Post acknowledges that theres lore to it. It may not be entirely true, were just not sure. What about the final one . Any ideas . Kind of using it as a way to be critical of the president . How so . Because its talking about how theyre trying to take down, not because its old, but theyre trying to talk about how he wants to take it out as a negative way to betray the president. So you think theres a negative portrayal of the president . It seems like this article is pinning blame on melania trump. Thats why people would read it. What about the language before Jackson Magnolia . So called. So called. This is the new york post. Regardless of your politics, you can see how the stories have continued to the present and even when stories are put out there, there are slants to how the story is told. It was very different but he was considered a democrat, right. Because of its historical significance and the living history that continues to happen today, public fascination with the white house has created many legends and myths, some perpetuated by social media, the internet, journalists and historians. The point of todays lecture is not to discount or dismiss the fables but to unpack them and contextualize why they were created in the first place and reinforced. Myth number one, the white house is white because of the british burning. Have you heard that before . Youve never heard that . Alex . If im not wrong, they used white wash in order to hold the fencing together which is why it was then named the white house. Exactly. If you look at the exterior of the white house, that particular sandstone, much of it which came from virginia, particularly aquiia creek and thea, quia quarries in Stafford County, a lot of the sandstone produced had a gray color so you have to imagine the white house as a gray building and what they did, because sandstone is so porous, you have to seal it and protect it from winter months because if water gets into the stones pores, it freezes and then it cracks because water expands in those pores so what the scottish stone masons did and the workers who built the white house, enslaved and free workers who built the white house, they applied a coat of lime based white wash in 1798. White wash is different than the white paint they use today but that was really where the story began of starting to call it the white house because it was a white wash that was first applied so they do add the first coat of lead white paint in 1818. This is after the burning. But that colloquium term of white house had already been established so the idea that they started calling it the white house just because of the burning, no. There was a white wash that existed before then. They kept the coats of white paint up until the 1970s during the Carter Administration is when they undertook a major project to strip all of the layers of paint off the white house. In some areas of the house, were talking 30 to 40 layers of paint that had to be removed. And the project ended up taking about 25 years. It was completed during the Clinton Administration so it started at the end of the Carter Administration and this gives you some visuals of what the white house looks like without its current variation of white paint. Again, you can see its primarily gray. It has bits of white in it but theres also these tints of red. Youve probably seen the Smithsonian Castle on the national mall. So some of the sandstone quarries, eventually when you dug too deep, you would hit these deep red veins and sometimes the stone would turn completely blood red. So thats why we call it washington brownstone. Made in the early part of the 19th century. That is sandstone, its just red sandstone. From Stafford County it was primarily gray. You can see the flex, theres flecks of red within the stone itself but by stripping all the paint we could see the intricate detail of the carvings because you have to imagine layer of paint, layer of paint all of a sudden all of this is globbed. You cant see the carvings or see anything so it took 25 years but they finished it during the Clinton Administration and there are still parts of the white house and they saw it when they started removing paint, that there are still scorch marks you can see. Now on the exterior, its pretty much all painted. This is actually downstairs. We were on the ground floor quarter but behind it, the basement area service spaces, this is one of the doorways and you can see they left it unpainted and you can see some of the scorch marks still around the frame. But again, you can see the variations of the stone, also probably tell you that the stone was coming from different sources. Heres a shot of the north portico. Again, you get a sense of how white the building is and really you cant see the individual stones as opposed to here you can actually see each individual stone and again, flecks of red, streaks of red throughout the north portico columns and this is during the reagan administration. Heres a shot of the north side of the white house and again you can see the individual gray stones on either side but then still painted portico in the north entrance. Lets just say hypothetically you wanted to paint your apartment or dorm room or something the color of the white house, the closest you can get is durhams whisper white thats commercially available. Thats as close as you can get. White house myth number two. White house tunnels. We were just talking about this before class. The existence of tunnels, who used them and why did they use them. So one of the stories that there were tunnels beneath the white house that allowed for a quick escape, that one could get all the way to the Potomac River and that Dolley Madison used the tunnel to escape to Octagon House and Abraham Lincoln had an escape tunnel. These are not true. We know the architect of the white house did build several sewer systems and my guess is that Dolley Madison wouldnt have climbed through the sewer. And these were installed for Running Water but there really werent any fullsized tunnels anyone could have used. Now, of course heres Octagon House where the madisons lived for about six months after the burning and its just down the street from the white house. Now, during the civil war, general win field scott did suggest the possibility of adding a tunnel between the white house and the Treasury Building and heres the Treasury Building down at the bottom and up at the top you have the war department. At that point it would have been probably war, you would have navy and state using that space, as well. With the Treasury Department was to the east of the white house and the idea was that this could sort of be a citadel of sorts. If the Confederate Army innovated washington and they didnt want president lincoln to be captured, they could move him quickly to the Treasury Building, he could seek safety in one of the vaults and that essentially the people that were guarding him valid to fight to the death. This was an idea that Winfield Scott had. It never really materialized because lincoln didnt have to but heres a picture of the Treasury Building later and again you kind of get a sense of this imposing spectacle that this would have been a good place but if you were going to move to a fortresslike structure in the 19th century, this was a good place to do it. During Franklin Roosevelts administration, there actually is an underground tunnel built between the east wing and the Treasury Building and in fact they go so far as to even furnish a room in the Treasury Building for franklin roosevelt. Heres a picture of that room. This is where we start to see the presidency entering the new age of world wars and the cold war and that president ial security obviously changes but they need to have either structures in place to protect the president in the event of an immediate attack or in case that there is a chance that there could be an aerial bombing or later a Nuclear Weapon targeting the white house and the United States that the president has a place to go. Now, during the truman administration, thats when two sub basements are added beneath the ground floor of the white house so up to trumans time in the white house, there really wasnt central air conditioning, there wasnt central heating. This is a big part of the 1940th renovation, gutting it, changing things. Its made out of concrete and steel and they dig further underground and part of the reason they do that is because they need that space for things like utilities, air conditioning, electrical, plumbing. But also to add this walkway which now runs the length between the west wing and the east wing. Heres a finished version. And now this tunnel although would go all the way to the east wing and it hooks up with roosevelts bomb shelter so roosevelt had the tunnel built for access to the Treasury Department but he also had the east wing built in 1942 and thats the perfect time if youre building a structure to be also building something underneath it so he actually had the bomb shelter made beneath the east wing. Closer, didnt have to get to the Treasury Building and truman connects it between the west wing and that security complex so if the president is working in the west wing or the oval office, they they have a quick way to get to the bomb shelter and you probably actually have all seen it before, this is actually part of the president ial Emergency Operations center that was used on 9 11 by Vice President dick cheney and several members of the bush cabinet because remember for some time we werent quite sure where that last plane was heading towards. It certainly seemed like when it turned in pennsylvania that it was coming to washington, d. C. Was it going to the capitol . Was it going to the white house . We dont know because the passengers on that flight decided to try to take control of the plane and it crashed. But essentially what they did was they rushed white house staff and members of the administration down into the Emergency Operations center. President bush was visiting a school in florida at the time and they advised him to stay away from washington, d. C. Until they figured out what was going to happen with the last plane but for the members of the administration, there wasnt any type of real protocol for this type of scenario. Everybody that ive talked to or has talked about that experience essentially has told the secret service came in and told people to get out and to get to a secure location and get away from the white house because we dont know where this plane is. So and this is actually this is an image of that day. You can see things do look a little bit outdated and this was also then spurred a new effort to modernize and put in new technology and Communications Systems and the president ial Emergency Operations center. Myth number three, Dolley Madison saves the Gilbert Stewart portrait. We had to read a selection of sources for todays class and hopefully you did that. Now, who wants to you probably all heard the story before. You probably heard it in grade school, in high school. So who wants to tell us what youve heard. Alex . The british were coming in and they were burning down washington, d. C. Dolley madison runs back into the white house with a few people, takes down the Gilbert Stewart portrait and runs out to save it. In that version of events, Dolley Madison, its like a lastsecond thing, shes there, the british are essentially you can see the british on the horizon. Shes about to leave but she runs back in. At least you did acknowledge that there were other people there but that she was there when they took it off and they sent it away. Part of the reason why the story is so popular is because this was the story that was really put out there after the war of 1812 and Dolley Madison also played a part in keeping the story alive and well but it was picked up for Childrens School books. It was published in a variety of different story graphical works. And it was a story that kept getting perpetuated and well talk more about that as we dig into the sources. Source number one, the selected letters of Dolley Payne Madison and its anna cutts writing to her sister, Dolley Madison, circaa the burning takes place on the 24th. My sister, tell me for gods sake where you are and what you are doing and what youre going to do. I have only time to ask mr. C to take out the floor part of the carriages, putting in the piano trying to escape anything he can get in there or wagon since the british are coming. We hear nothing but what is horrible here. I know not who to send this to and will say little. What do you take away from reading that letter . How its written, how its phrased . Shes trying to get as much as she can written to her sister, its really short and sweet, i got to go type thing. You can definitely tell its very rushed. It also seems she doesnt finish entire sentences. Theres clauses and a pause and she says something else. Its relatively short. She even says i dont know who to send this to. She sent it to the white house, to Dolley Madison, but she wasnt sure if she would b