Presidential Mansion or White House?

[bagkitty]

Got a real burning question here. Having raised this topic with my fellow Canadians from coast to coast to coast, the general belief seems to be that the White House only became the White House after we set fire to it in the War of 1812. Any mention of the building that I can find prior to then refers to the “Presidential Mansion”. Yet when I look at American sources (especially the “official” White House site) there is no mention of how the building got its current name. Selective amnesia?

[BobT]

Theodore Roosevelt changed the name to “The White House” in 1902, but it had been referred to by that name as early as 1809.

You can read about it here
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,78866+1+76827,00.html?query=white%20house

[bagkitty]

Sorry Bob, your answer is about as satisfying as a cucumber sandwich after a day of ice fishing.

Prompted in no small part by the memory of one of my professors lecturing me about the unacceptability of using secondary sources like an encyclopedia article in a argument about historical fact (truth apparently is not an invention of the victors, it is an invention of the digesters…), I have to quibble with your answer.

Looking back to the incendiary event referred to in the original question, I was taught that the Americans had to do some hasty repair work to the building in order to have it ready for a visit by some French dignitaries… that the work was covered with a layer of whitewash in order to hide the extent of the damage, and that the term “White House” was then used derisively by critics of Madison’s little war.

So, was Teddy Roosevelt doing anything more than accepting the inevitable when he formally changed the name as mentioned in the encyclopedia article you referred me too?

[MEBuckner]

From the White House Historical Association:

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.
– Why is the White House white?

[nebuli]

bagkitty, looks like you lose this one, but you and your compatriots can take solace in the fact that American Heritage magazine has designated you “Our Most Underrated Enemy”. See
http://www.americanheritage.com/00/may/062.htm

[BobT]

A cucumber sandwich after ice fishing? You speak in riddles.

[bagkitty]

BobT: I take it from your confusion that you live in one of those parts of the United States where water tends to remain a fluid year round… I suggest you come up north and go ice fishing… heartier fare would be what you were looking for afterwards.