1801-1932 White House New Years Day Receptions

 
Engraving of the White House by William Strickland

The White House Historical Association tells us that "the White House New Year's reception was a tradition for more than 130 years...

President John Adams began the tradition in 1801, opening the doors of the Executive Mansion to high-ranking officials, diplomats, and the public. This tradition spanned more than a century and was only canceled a few times due to wars, illness, or the president’s busy schedule. This was one of the most talked about events in the nation’s capital." 

By the early twentieth century, crowds swelled to more than 6,000 people. A line on the sidewalk outside the White House snaked out beyond the gates and around the block, bordering what is now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building." 

President Herbert Hoover held the last New Year's Day reception in 1932. Although the major event concluded that year, it is said that a man named J.W. Hunefeld waited at the gates of the White House in 1934 because "he wanted to make sure the president hadn't changed his mind."

White House Evolving During the administrations of John Adams & Thomas Jefferson  

Library of Congress

On October 13, 1792, George Washington laid the first cornerstone of the building in a freemason ceremony. Scottish masons were brought to Washington to do the stone work. 

Their technique for sealing the porous sandstone was a thick whitewash that covered like paint but sealed like glue. So, from its earliest days, the president’s house was white, and it quickly got the nickname “White House.”

When John Adams moved into the President’s House on November 1, 1800, it was far from complete. He used the second floor as his residence and the ground floor was used by servants as kitchens, laundry, and housekeeping rooms. 

Today’s Diplomatic Reception Room was originally the housekeeper’s room, with built-in cabinets. 

The Adams’s began furnishing the house in a fairly grand style, although Abigail Adams used the great Public Audience Chamber for hanging laundry. See: https://bestinamericanliving.com/2016/07/history-of-the-white-house-1792-1814/#

Englishmen Working by Stanley Spencer 1891-1959

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Workmen in the House 1935

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Workmen in the House 1935


Stanley Spencer painted men working for decades. He was an Official War Artist in both World Wars. His great cycle of wall paintings in the National Trust Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere commemorate his experiences in the RAMC and infantry during the First World War.

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Shipbuilding on the Clyde


The Imperial War Museum in London loaned paintings to augment an exhibition of Stanley Spencer's series on WWII British shipbuilding in 2012. An introduction to the exhibition written by Stanley Spencer Gallery's Curator, Carolyn Leder, explains...

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Garage 1929 

In 1939, Spencer urged his dealer Dudley Tooth to find him 'a war job, some sort of official art employment.' The art market was slack and as Tooth noted Spencer was 'terribly in debt all round'. On Tooth's writing to Sir Kenneth Clark, Director of the National Gallery, and Chairman of the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) under the Ministry of Information, Spencer was interviewed and appointed. His initial suggestion of a Crucifixion with predella panels to show the Nazi conquest of Poland was rejected.

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959)


Instead, he agreed to depict a shipyard, paying his first visit to the suggested 'Kingston' yard, owned by Sir James Lithgow, at Port Glasgow on the river Clyde in May 1940. He responded to the place with enthusiasm...The strong sense of community reminded him of Cookham: 'many of the places in and corners of Lithgow's factory moved me in much the same way as I was by rooms in my childhood.'

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959)


During WWII, Spencer depicted all the major trades involved in the building of the ships, including developments in technology, such as the use of welding, which gradually superseded riveting as a method of joining steel plates...They fully engaged his creative imagination: 'The point is that whatever may be thought of these shipbuilding pictures of mine, I am much moved by what I see up here and experience joy in attempting to express the feeling I have about it all…'

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) The Builders

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Plumbers

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Laundry

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Filling Tea Urns

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Shipbuilding on the Clyde Burners

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Shipbuilding on the Clyde Riveters 1946

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Shipbuilding on the Clyde Riveters

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Shipbuilding on the Clyde Welders

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Mending Cowls, Cookham 1915

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Bedmaking 1927-32