Where does the name White House come from?
With just a week to go, everyone’s on edge and waiting anxiously for the results of a truly historic election.
While we wait, let’s take a lighthearted step back and learn why we’re all talking about the race for the “White House,” and not that for the “President’s Palace,” “President’s House,” or “Executive Mansion” (yes, the White House was historically called all those things). And trust me, you want to read this one till the end.
The true origin of this significant building’s name is really just science. Because it was science that initially led to it being white.
You see, the White House is made of sandstone, which is porous. So back in 1798, the centuries old practice of applying a lime-based whitewash was used on the President’s pad (btw why wasn’t “President’s pad” considered? It’s catchy).
Why whitewash?
This natural paint was hugely popular on a variety of structures as it’s both aesthetic and practical. For unpainted buildings — especially those made of porous materials — it helps them “breathe” by allowing trapped moisture to pass out of the building, reducing mildew. It also happens to be fire retardant, antiseptic, antifungal, odorless and non-allergic. But the official White House website specifically mentions another benefit; they state it helped “to protect the exterior stone from moisture and cracking during winter freezes.”
If you’re smirking at the mention of winter freezes in D.C., know that back in the 1800s they actually did have a reason to worry about this, as freezing temperatures were far more common back then. In fact, there’s an account of a foot of snow in early April in Georgetown.
With regards to the whitewash for the White House, I think this is how it helped: Most types of paint are not vapor permeable, which means they trap moisture within the wall. During the winter, this trapped moisture can go through several freezing and thawing cycles per day. Since ice has greater volume than liquid water, this thawing deteriorates the wall. So the “breathable” natural whitewash is also a winner in preventing this.
So now you know why this building was initially white. The color helped it gain the nickname of “White House.” Then President Roosevelt came along and officially changed the name from Executive Mansion to “White House,” frankly for egotistical reasons: nearly every U.S. state had an “executive mansion” for its governor, and Roosevelt wanted a special name for the President’s place.
The name should seem fitting as we’ve come to learn that the American government has an inclination for naming important buildings and rooms after shapes and colors; in addition to the White House, we have the Oval Office, the Blue Room and the Pentagon.
Even though the White House eventually got pained with real white paint, its historic roots to whitewash could not be more ironic today. You might have more commonly heard the word whitewash for its use as a metaphor for censorship. See, not only was the natural paint practical, it was also cheap, and therefore used to quickly give a uniform, clean appearance to a wide variety of surfaces. Hence, the following figurative definitions of the word whitewash were born: “to cover up or gloss over the faults or errors of; to absolve from blame” and also “to exclude or erase (a minority character or group) by substituting a member or members of the dominant cultural group in fictional representations of historical events.”
Need I say more about the irony?
