Old White House

[bigtree]

Michael Beschloss? @BeschlossDC 22m22 minutes ago
Thought to be earliest surviving photograph of White House, about 1846:

[chowder66]

1. What a dump.

[Blue Owl]

2. Look at that dump

[chowder66]

3. It's truly beautiful. : )

[bigtree]

5. a beautiful monument to our democracy

...this WH design said to be memorialized/preserved after Lincoln's death, having endured many changes over its earlier history.

Link to tweet

[Cracklin Charlie]

4. Beautiful then...

Beautiful now.

Present occupants excepted.

[Lifelong Protester]

6. Love it!

Thanks for posting.

Dump indeed! (sorry it's not trashy enough for the current occupant.)

[canetoad]

7. Lots of interesting stuff

At this link: http://www.whitehousemuseum.org

Lots of history, old pix, floor plans etc.

[dflprincess]

8. Some interesting pictures at this link of when it was gutted and rebuilt

during Truman's adminstration. I once read that when they began to dismantle they found beams that were badly burned when the British burned the White House still in place.

https://petapixel.com/2013/02/28/photos-of-the-white-house-gutted-during-its-truman-reconstruction/

This link has a description of how near to collapse the building was. One of the legs of Margaret Truman's piano actually broke through the floor in her second floor sitting room and through the ceiling of the room below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Reconstruction


And let's not forget all the work Jackie put into restoring the public rooms. All I could think when the Trumps moved in, with their God-awful taste, was that Jackie must be turning in her grave. Fortunately there are limits (budget wise) to what can be done to the family quarters and the public rooms are off limits to personal tastes.

[bigtree]

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