Free Margaret Truman by The President's House: 1800 to the Present : The Secrets, History of the World's Most Famous Home

investigation.”
    Questions for Discussion
    What purposes do White House social events serve?
    Why do White House dinners have to be carefully planned?
    What is the value of having an entrance ceremony for the president?

Dolley Madison personified the wise use of womanpower. Her warmth and wit
won several political battles for her brilliant but reserved husband.
Credit: White House Historical Association (The White House Collection)
    6
    Womanpower
    I FIND IT amusing that the East Wing, which was built by Charles McKim in 1902 to provide a visitors’ entrance and coatrooms, and rebuilt by Franklin D. Roosevelt to add extra office space during World War II, stands on the site of Thomas Jefferson’s henhouse. I wonder what Jefferson would say if he could see the flock of females who are hanging out there now—the first lady’s staff and sometimes the first lady herself, plus the predominately female White House social office.
    There is irony at work here. Thomas Jefferson did everything in his power to keep women, except for scullery maids and laundresses, out of the President’s House. Convinced that women should have nothing to do with politics, he hoped to inspire a tradition whereby all the social events in the White House were relentlessly male.
    In the Washington, D.C., of his era, Jefferson’s attitude all but paralyzed the government of the United States. Politics is not an art form that can be confined to legislative halls. It includes a vast amount of personal give-and-take at social events where women can smooth the rough edges of quarrelsome males.
    Aside from all this, the president’s deliberate exclusion of women infuriated them. They found their opportunity for revenge after President Jefferson gave a dinner for the new British minister, Anthony Merry, and his wife, Elizabeth. Ignoring the rules of etiquette, he let his guests find their own places at the table. When Mrs. Merry’s husband, the guest of honor, was seated far from the president, she persuaded the minister not to accept any further invitations to the White House.
    Jefferson denounced Mrs. Merry and blamed her for the problem. But he soon discovered that the women of Washington took Elizabeth Merry’s side. Without quite saying so, they admired her refusal to let the “Democratic Emperor,” as some of Jefferson’s enemies called him, push her around. Prominent among the secret sympathizers was none other than Dolley Madison, the wife of the secretary of state.
    Jefferson worked himself into a near frenzy defending his behavior. But the ladies of Washington flocked to Mrs. Merry’s dinners, and the president slowly realized he had lost his battle to keep women out of politics.
    II
    If Jefferson had any doubts about his defeat, they vanished when James Madison was elected in 1808 and Dolley became the first lady. Already well known as a hostess, she swiftly made it clear that ignoring the rules of etiquette and men-only dinners in the White House were as dead as the dinosaur bones ex-president Jefferson liked to collect.
    For openers, Dolley staged the first inaugural ball at nearby Long’s Hotel. Attended by over four hundred people, it was heralded as “a handsome display of female fashion and beauty.” Next, Dolley turned the White House into a political and social power center, with the two ideas so intertwined that no one could tell the difference.
    Womanpower. The term did not exist in the nineteenth century, but the White House came to personify it. The State Dining Room became the scene of weekly formal dinners for as many as thirty men and women, with Dolley at the head of the table, presiding over the conversation. At Dolley’s Wednesday evening receptions in the Elliptical Saloon, today’s Blue Room, she engaged in conversation that was often highly political but simultaneously amusing and informative.
    Few doubt that Dolley was responsible for her husband winning a