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Why Is the White House White?

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Why Is the White House White?

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It has nothing to do with the burning of the house by the British in 1814, although every schoolchild is likely to have heard the story that way. The building was first made white with lime-based whitewash in 1798, when its walls were finished, simply as a means of protecting the porous stone from freezing. Why the house was subsequently painted is not known. Perhaps presidents objected to the dirty look as the whitewash wore away. The house acquired its nickname early on. Congressman Abijah Bigelow wrote to a colleague on March 18, 1812 (three months before the United States entered war with England): “There is much trouble at the White House, as we call it, I mean the President’s” (quoted in W. B. Bryan, “The Name White House,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 34-35 [1932]: 308). The name, though in common use, remained a nickname until September 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt made it official.

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George Washington never set foot in the White House as the President of the United States. Construction of the executive mansion in Washington, D.C., did not begin until 1792, three years after Washington took office. It was finished in 1800, and John Adams, America’s second president, moved in towards the end of his term. The m

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” For this, he had no answer. I therefore did research, and here is the answer: Its original walls were soft sandstone blocks. These crumble under the leakage of rain, snow and ice. To protect the building’s porous outside from cracking, it was made that color with lime-based whitewash in 1798. The era’s masons (not the ones who belong to that secret club but the ones who smash blocks of rock) painted the outside with preventive white paint, thus protecting it from freezing and breaking. Why the place was never subsequently painted red or brown, I don’t know. Not my problem. Anyway, in 1812, three months before the US war with Great Mother England, some congressman named Bigelow nicknamed it the White House, and in 1901 Theodore Roosevelt made it official. So many coats of paint have since been splashed on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., thus ruining the perfectness of its exterior that two decades ago it was stripped, cleaned, repaired and re-whited. Whether some dude in the Executive Office

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Well – it wasn’t always white…at least not until 1814. That was the year during the War of 1812 that the British sacked Washington. In the process they set fire to the Executive Mansion destroying much of its interior and charring its outer walls. Once Washington had been recovered, to save money on the reconstruction – architects whitewashed the outer walls of the Presidential residence to cover up the scorch marks. There are actually a few hidden places that White House curators have kept unpainted over the years where you can still see the black marks from 1814. That is why the White House is white. Was this guide interesting/helpful? If so, please vote below!

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