Henrietta Nesbit toured the White House with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Describing her initial impression of the kitchen,
“I can’t work up any charm for cockroaches. No matter how your scrub it, old wood isn’t clean. This was the “first kitchen in America,” and it wasn’t even sanitary. Mrs. Roosevelt and I poked around, opening doors and expecting hinges to fall off and things to fly out. It was that sort of place. Dark-looking cupboards, a huge old-fash- ioned gas range, sinks with time-worn wooden drains, one rusty wooden dumb waiter. The refrig- erator was wood inside and bad-smelling. Even the electric wiring was old and dangerous. I was afraid to switch things on.
She then reported Mrs. Roosevelt saying, “There is only one solution—we must have a new kitchen.”
by CryptographerKey2847
2 Comments
i think i read somewhere once that when it was first built, they focused more out the exterior, and the first few presidents were living with dirt floors on the ground floor. since they were just establishing the government and the concept of how the presidency would work, they just built a big house and were like, the president and first family can live here i guess
also: WOOD DRAINS??
Some wood pipes still being uses for natural gas.