jackie tour of white house

• The White House Tour Seen in <i>Jackie</i>, as Described in 1962

The White House Tour Seen in Jackie , as Described in 1962

W hen Natalie Portman stepped into the role of Jacqueline Kennedy in the new movie Jackie , out Friday, the actress did not lack for historical references on which to base her performance. That record included one very important piece of video footage: the First Lady’s televised tour of the White House, which aired in early 1962.

Ever since the White House had been rebuilt after the War of 1812, Presidents and First Ladies had used the home’s decor to reflect the grandeur of leadership, whatever that meant in their own eras. Accordingly, as styles changed, so did the furniture. Older items were sold off; as explored in Inside the White House from TIME Books, President Chester A. Arthur presided over the sale of two dozen wagons full of historic furniture from the executive mansion. Jackie Kennedy, however, wanted something different: under her watch, the White House would become a showcase for American history. As TIME put it in 1961, “Jackie formed a Fine Arts Committee to help her transform the White House into a ‘museum of our country’s heritage.'”

And in 1962, a televised tour was a way to show her work to the nation, and prove that it was worth the effort. (As the New York Times has reported , shooting the tour scenes for Jackie was a matter of meticulous care—it even required making the First Lady’s outfit in two colors, one that matched the red she wore on that day and one that would appear the correct shade of gray when shot in black and white.)

The week the tour aired, TIME noted with some amusement that it was an “impressive” display of the First Lady’s knowledge:

…Jackie Kennedy, along with some 45 million other Americans, settled down to watch herself in action as guide to CBS’s Charles Collingwood on an hour-long White House tour that had been taped a month before. She had refused the services of a CBS makeup artist, wore a wireless microphone around her neck with the pack and battery concealed in the small of her back. Pamela Turnure, her press secretary, had been instructed how to adjust the mike if anything went wrong. Explained Collingwood later: “We couldn’t have a technician fiddling with the First Lady‘s person.” From her first whispery words, Jackie put on an expert performance in telling how she and her advisory committee have redecorated the White House. Without notes or prompting, she showed a connoisseur’s knowledge of every antique and objet d’art that came into view (only one scene had to be refilmed; Jackie momentarily confused a Dolley Madison sofa with one of Nelly Custis’). She easily rattled off the names of bygone artists and cabinetmakers, displayed an impressive knowledge of intimate White House history. The Green Room, she noted, “used to be the dining room, and here Jefferson gave his famous dinners and introduced such exotic foods as macaroni, waffles and ice cream to the United States.” Woodrow Wilson so detested the stuffed animal heads with which Theodore Roosevelt had adorned the state dining room that he always “seated himself in such a manner that he would not see them while dining.” Showing off the Lincoln bed, Jackie remarked dryly: “Every President seemed to love it.” Said she in the Red Room: “One thing that’s interesting—President Hayes was sworn in here as President secretly at night, cause his was the closest election there ever was and they didn’t want the United States to be without a President for even one day, so while everyone was having dinner they swore him in here.” Moving from the Red Room to the Blue Room, Collingwood said as a sort of conversation opener: “Oh, this has a very different feeling from the Red Room.” Replied Jackie crisply: “Yes. It’s blue.” All in all, it was a pleasurable event in a fascinating week.

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While TIME’s reporter may have viewed the event as merely pleasant, the tour would in fact turn out to be part of one of the Kennedy family’s most lasting impacts on the American presidency. The First Lady’s efforts led to the creation of the White House Historical Association, and redefined what a new administration could and could not do to their home. Ever since, even as tastes have changed, the connection between American heritage and the look of the White House has remained.

Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault: Simply Everywhere

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Watch CBS News

Jackie Kennedy's real White House tour

January 24, 2017 / 2:20 PM EST / CBS News

Director Pablo Larraín’s movie “Jackie” was nominated for three Academy Awards Tuesday, including best actress for Natalie Portman’s portrayal of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

The film traces Mrs. Kennedy’s life in the days immediately following President Kennedy’s assassination. Woven through the movie’s narrative is a recreation of the first lady’s famous White House tour, which aired on Valentine’s Day in 1962.

Hosted by CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood, “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy” was America’s first televised tour of the president’s residence. In the movie, Larraín meticulously recreated scenes from the tour and also included footage from the 1962 broadcast.  

With signature poise and style, Mrs. Kennedy showcased the $2 million renovation she launched to restore historic artifacts at the White House, showing encyclopedic knowledge of each item on display.

In the original White House tour, Mrs. Kennedy shows Collingwood various White House rooms, including the Diplomatic Reception Room and the Blue Room. In the Red Room, she shows one of two original White House mantles, and in the East Room, she points out the piano designed by President Franklin Roosevelt. (Watch these moments in a shortened version of the tour, posted in the video player above.)

At the end of the tour, President Kennedy joins the first lady on camera, offering comment on her restorations.

“When we have, as we do today, Grant’s table, Lincoln’s bed, Monroe’s gold set—all these make these men more alive,” the president said. “I think it makes the White House a stronger panorama, really, of our great story.”

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The Best Moments From Jackie Kennedy’s Famous TV Tour of the White House

By Brooke Bobb

There’s nothing glossy about Jackie Kennedy in Pablo Larraín’s new biopic about the former First Lady. In fact, his bold film is at times brutal and emotionally raw, to say the least. Aside from examining the tragedy that she endured during and after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, the movie also provides an intense character study of a woman who understood the art of self-branding before any of the Kardashians even existed—and she did it with inimitable poise and class. Evidence of this is portrayed throughout Jackie , specifically in the scenes that re-create the televised 1962 tour she gave of the White House and the vast and varied renovations she oversaw throughout.

It was the first time in history that a First Lady gave a private tour of the White House to the American people seated in front of their TVs at home, walking them (and CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood) through the state dining room, the Red Room, the Lincoln Bedroom, and the room Mrs. Kennedy designated for in-house reupholstery, among others. She raised most of the funds for the restoration privately and succeeded in hunting down pieces that once belonged to past presidents, bringing them back to their former glory inside the White House. While many saw her restoration as a vanity project, her intention was not to force her own tastes upon the interiors, but to bring back a sense of American pride and history into a home that had long been stripped of it. As President Kennedy says at the end of the special, “Anyone who comes to the White House as a president desires the best for his country, but I think he does receive a stimulus from the knowledge of living in close proximity to the people who are legendary but who actually were alive and were in these rooms.” And it was his gracious and enigmatic wife who made that symbolism come to life.

Below, in honor of Jackie ’s official release today, here are some of the most memorable highlights from Mrs. Kennedy’s historic tour of the White House.

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Remembering Jackie Kennedy's White House Tour

On this day 50 years ago, first lady Jackie Kennedy offered a Valentine to America: A televised tour of the newly-restored White House. She had been shocked at how little of the past was in the White House. So she threw her heart into bringing that history back. A record number of Americans tuned in to watch the tour.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. On this day 50 years ago, the first lady offered a Valentine to America, a televised tour of the newly restored White House. Jacqueline Kennedy had been shocked at how little of the past was in the White House, so she threw her heart into bringing that history back. Teddy Roosevelt's rugs, an oak desk given by Queen Victoria, a rare portrait of Benjamin Franklin. And Americans loved it, with a record number tuning into her TV tour. It's MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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What Jackie Kennedy’s Fascinating White House Tour Tells Us 60 Years Later

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The rare TV appearance is just as captivating now as it was in 1962.

Jacqueline Kennedy is perhaps the most influential first lady in American history, and yet she’s also one of the most elusive.

We know plenty about her biography, her timeless and influential sense of style , and the inspiring example she set for the nation when she bravely led the funeral procession after her husband’s assassination. But very little of Jackie’s story has been told in her own words. She rarely spoke at length in public, and the interviews she did give were typically short and mostly focused on campaigning for JFK. 

One rare exception is A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, a television special that aired on Feb. 14, 1962 — 60 years ago today. In it, Jackie takes CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood through the first family’s home, highlighting the $2 million restoration project she spearheaded to honor the building’s history.

It was a smashing success, drawing an estimated 80 million viewers. (Newton N. Minow, the FCC chairman during the Kennedy Administration, wrote , “After I got the overnight ratings, I called the president, who asked, ‘What were they?’ I said, ‘Mr. President, they were higher than your press conferences.’”) The special was then sent around the world, becoming a propaganda tool of sorts that highlighted the young, glamorous couple who were about as close as America would ever get to royalty. 

The tour was the culmination of one of Jackie’s most influential projects. As a result of her work, the White House itself and the artwork and artifacts inside it are now preserved by the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. But before the Kennedys, upkeep of these historic treasures was “idiosyncratic and non-routinized,” says Barbara A. Perry, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and author of Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier .

“When presidents would come and go, they could just take things with them or sell things off,” Perry says. “The tragedy of it in terms of preservation was that there was no formal status for the White House to protect it as a shrine or as a monument.”

Changing that policy going forward was only part of Jackie’s efforts. She also went on a mission to retrieve the priceless objects that had once occupied the White House before being scattered to the winds.

“It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in the house,” Jackie says in the tour. She compares it to the presidential palace of Colombia, which she had visited and admired for its sense of history. “Every piece of furniture in it has some link with the past. I thought the White House should be like that.”

Jackie accomplished this through a savvy approach of engaging wealthy collectors of art and furniture whom she could appoint to prestigious advisory boards and take donations from, setting a template for fundraising that’s still relevant today.

“Publicizing it the way she did, people would just volunteer and say, ‘Oh, I have one of Abraham Lincoln’s chairs, and I’ll donate that,’” Perry explains. “And because all this had been formalized, they could get a write-off for their taxes.”

Jackie leads the tour with commanding expertise about the special objects and their provenance, showing off fixtures like a sofa that belonged to Dolly Madison, a centerpiece that belonged to James Monroe, and a pair of chairs originally owned by Martin Van Buren that had been sold by Mary Todd Lincoln after she was left “destitute” following her own husband’s assassination. 

In the CBS special, Jackie is gravely serious about preservation, and her expert opinions and elevated taste can sometimes provoke an unintended laugh. For example: As she discusses a famous 1796 portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, she explains that it set “a rather interesting precedent” of the government commissioning “the finest living artist of the day” to paint the president — and then delivers a biting critique of subsequent portraits.

“I often wish they’d followed that, because so many pictures of later presidents are by really inferior artists,” she declares. 

“The essence of the tour is Mrs. Kennedy’s amazingly detailed knowledge of what she was reporting,” Perry says. “She wrote the script, and then without cue cards, she took that tour and could remember names and dates and places and details. She had a capacious mind and an artistic eye that comes together with her sense of excellence and perfection.”

Equally fascinating is the way Jackie chooses to present herself. Though her wardrobe was a relatively simple red suit (a Christian Dior design recreated by the American atelier Chez Ninon, which produced authorized copies of European couture), her overall image was fresh and innovative, inspiring millions of American women to recreate it themselves.

“Even when she was wearing what we might call business attire, her bouffant hairdo was very different for that time. Women tended to wear tight curls that were done in permanents,” Perry says. “And remember, she’s only 31 when she comes to the first ladyship — that’s the fourth-youngest of all the first ladies. Women wanted to copy her because she had that new, youthful look.”

Perhaps the most transfixing element of Jackie’s persona is also the strangest: her voice . In today’s terms, it’s an odd, breathy, stilted accent that combines elements of her roots in New York and Massachusetts with the “Mid-Atlantic” inflection adopted by the rich and famous of the early 20th century. Letitia Baldrige, who served as White House social secretary during the Kennedy Administration, once described it to Perry as “Locust Valley lockjaw,” referring to a well-to-do hamlet on Long Island. It is an affectation that contains not just the signposts of performed wealth but also a strategic appeal to the opposite sex.

“People say that she was taught that whispery part of her voice by her dad because he would say that’s how you attract boys and men,” Perry says. “And there was something about that whispery voice that made men draw closer to her, like, ‘What did she say?’” 

She certainly knew how to attract suitors from an impressive pedigree, as evidenced by her marriage into one of the nation’s most prominent families, but Jackie’s appreciation for the finer things could sometimes become a sticking point in her relationship with JFK. 

It happened during his run for office, when the press reported that Jackie spent $30,000 a year on her wardrobe — and her response didn’t help matters. “Before she became more skilled in public relations as first lady, she snarkily said, ‘Well, I couldn’t spend that much even if I wore sable underwear,’” Perry says. “And that’s just not the kind of snarky thing you should say if you were a first lady.”

But sometimes, Jackie’s elevated sophistication could be a positive: During a 1961 trip abroad, Jackie’s glamour solicited such fanfare from the people of France that the president introduced himself at an official dinner as “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.” The first lady’s restoration of the White House — and the positive publicity it drummed up — provided a similar shine to Kennedy’s presidency. 

JFK made a brief appearance during the CBS special to praise his wife’s work in making the White House “the center of a sense of American historical life,” and he was grateful that the image she projected helped to paint the United States as a bastion of freedom and prosperity during a precarious political period.

“He’s pointing out that this is the symbol of American democracy and the free world in the midst of the Cold War,” Perry explains. “Many more thousands of people were coming to the White House. They were enamored of him and Mrs. Kennedy and wanted to see what she was doing because it was so well publicized in Life magazine and then in the television tour. I don’t think it was as meaningful to him to see all of this artistic interior decorating going on, but the more he saw the effect, the more positive he became about it.”

This gets to the heart of what made the Kennedys such impactful cultural figures: They were experts in image-making, and they crafted an aspirational identity that cast a long shadow on American society even though JFK spent only about 1,000 days as president. 

Jackie’s White House tour is a perfect distillation of what makes her so beguiling. With her reverence for history, mastery of period furnishings, preternatural sense of style , and keen understanding of how to craft a personal narrative, the first lady created a mold that presidents’ wives continue to emulate to this day. Sixty years later, she still captures the American imagination. 

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Jacqueline Kennedy's 1962 Televised White House Tour

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave Americans a televised tour of the restored White House public rooms on Valentine’s Day 1962. A reported 5… read more

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave Americans a televised tour of the restored White House public rooms on Valentine’s Day 1962. A reported 56 million viewers tuned into the CBS broadcast. James Wagner -- John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum exhibits specialist - talked in this virtual program about Mrs. Kennedy’s restoration and the tour that captured the nation’s imagination. close

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Seeds Planted

The Restoration

Televised Tour

Henry Francis du Pont

An Inside Look at How Jackie Kennedy Transformed the White House

“I’d feel badly if I had lived here for four years and hadn’t done anything for the house.”

A version of this story originally appeared in the June 1992 issue of Town & Country.

On February 14, 1962, three out of every four Americans curled up to watch “A Tour of the White house with Mrs. John F. Kennedy” on television. Produced by CBS at a cost of about $130,000, the show was carried by all three networks and viewed by approximately 80 million Americans. One former Texas housewife recalls “watching and listening to Mrs. Kennedy more than [I thought] about the White House.” Her name: Barbara Bush.

Beyond the camera glare and her seemingly effortless breeze through the rooms, Jacqueline Kennedy had undertaken an enormous task: to restore not only the White House State Rooms but also the private family quarters and guest rooms. (“She’s planning to redo every room in this house,” outgoing First Lady Mamie Eisenhower warned White House Chief Usher J.B. West.)

Mrs. Kennedy’s undertaking had its roots in her childhood. Her first visit to the White House, in 1940, when she was 11, left a deep impression: “I remembered feeling strangely let down by the White House. It seemed rather bleak.”

On January 23, 1961, her first working day as First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy met with David Finley, chairman of Washington’s Fine Arts Commission, for advice on forming her own committee in the White House. “It must be restored,” she said, “and that has nothing to do with decoration.” It was not just a museum but a property where people were entertained, where important meetings were held and where a family lived. And it had to be maintained. The First Lady’s memo detailing the daily tasks showed her organized and perfectionist standards:

“All 18 bedrooms and 20 baths on second floor must be tidied; 147 windows kept clean; 29 fireplaces laid ready for lighting; 412 doorknobs polished; 3,000 sq. feet of floor space on 2 nd story waxed and buffed; half-an-acre of marble mopped and remopped; carpeting vacuumed three times a day … ”

.css-4rnr1w:before{margin:0 auto 1.875rem;width:60%;height:0.125rem;content:'';display:block;background-color:#9a0500;color:#fff;} .css-gcw71x{color:#030929;font-family:NewParis,NewParis-fallback,NewParis-roboto,NewParis-local,Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;}@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-gcw71x{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-gcw71x{font-size:2.625rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-gcw71x{font-size:2.8125rem;line-height:1.1;}}.css-gcw71x b,.css-gcw71x strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-gcw71x em,.css-gcw71x i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} As chatelaine of the White House, the First Lady knew not only what had to be done but who should do what.

Although Mrs. Kennedy was always giving credit to others for their work, behind the scenes she was very much in charge. Even the President was impressed: “The restoration has been a more formidable operation than anyone realized. Mrs. Kennedy displayed more executive ability for organization than I had imaged she had.” It was particularly apparent in the hundreds of memos, letters and notes that she painstakingly scribbled.

The First Lady wrote them in longhand on legal pads, using dashes instead of periods or commas, rarely noting the date. She sprinkled her letters with her trademark quips, wanting no more “Mamie pink” in most of the rooms, finding Victoriana “hideous” and feeling “like a sailor taking in a sail” when she pulled down the window shades.

Her strong views on décor are seen in a memo to Chief Usher West:

“Could you send Mr. du Pont Mr. [Stephanie] Boudin’s samples for Green Room … Please enclose this humble letter soliciting his approval. If we don’t get it, he will have the shock of me doing it anyway! … The sun is going to fade the curtains in Green, Blue and Red Rooms—so the minute the tours are over, could you have the blinds drawn? … Make sure the braid on curtains is turned in. If the braid faces out, it gets sunburned.”

Before making her decisions, she always turned to experts like her good friends and role model Jayne Wrightsman, who not only advised on but underwrote much of the restoration. Nonetheless, financing remained a problem because Mrs. Kennedy thought it improper to ask for federal monies to buy antiques. When West had difficulty in getting a good price for a rug, he advised: “Rug dealers and antique dealers are all alike—no good.” She replied in the same tone: “I so like the rug, but we are short of dollars .... Tell him if he gives it he can get a tax donation [tax deduction] and photo in our book—if not—goodbye!”

When there was a particular historical item that she wanted for the White House collection, Mrs. Kennedy contacted the potential donor herself. Her persuasive February 1962, letter to financier Bernard Baruch reads:

“Perhaps you know that we are trying to bring things of past Presidents back to the White House. Someone said that you had an Orpen portrait of Woodrow Wilson …. I thought it would be the most touching and historic thing if there could be a superb portrait of Wilson—given by you …. It is unpleasant to write to friends and to people I admire asking them to part with things they love. If you can’t spare the pictures I will understand …. ” (She got the painting.)

Occasionally, Mrs. Kennedy would turn down a gift. She refused a set of expensive crystal because she wanted to buy glasses made in West Virginia:

“It is funny—but in all of the places we campaigned … those are the people who touched me most.”

A true outdoorswoman, Mrs. Kennedy found it vital to take in the fresh air with her children on the South Lawn, but she did not want people watching them.

“If you stand in the children’s playground, you will see that lots of people can take photographs from the place marked X. Could you have some more trees planted—or perhaps, rhododendrons? It must be a solid wall.”

She was very concerned that the property around the White House be aesthetically pleasing. Under the care of her close friend, horticulturalist Rachel (Bunny) Mellon, a Presidential rose garden was surveyed and planted. It was to become a storybook setting for State dinners and press conferences. When Bunny Mellon wanted to do the East Garden, which the First Lady’s staff’s windows faced, Jackie told her to proceed:

“I have complete confidence in your East Garden …. All I would do is to look at your plans and just agree with them, so go ahead … I know that what you do there will be divine.”

Although Jackie concentrated on the mansion proper, she did exert her influence over the décor of the Oval Office:

“We don’t want white chairs—[the President] wants to see sample of rugs—he says curtains are OK but I think perhaps they should be a creamier color … Also, the President says that the softest sofas in his office are a bit low, and everybody doesn’t like to be sitting that much lower than he is … Could you see what can be done to raise them?”

One point of pride was her discovery of the desk Queen Victoria had given President Rutherford B. Hayes, which became the President’s desk in the Oval Office. Thinking ahead, she wrote:

“Would Mr. A. know of any wonderful woodcarver? The absurd reason I ask is that I am thinking very far ahead: In his [Presidential] Library, the President … wishes to have a replica of his office … I thought if there was a woodcarver around, perhaps he could do such a thing by stucco or wax impressions …. ”

Jackie later said that she “worked harder on this project that I ever have on anything, and so it has been especially gratifying.”

As chatelaine of the White House, the First Lady knew not only what had to be done but who should do what. Yet she was exceedingly kind to her staff. When the President died, not only did Mrs. Kennedy provide tickets to his memorial service for all the staff but the night before she left the White House, she penned little personal notes to them. She knew all their first names.

The restoration of the White House provided Jacqueline Kennedy with not only pride but self-esteem: “I’d feel badly if I had lived here for four years and hadn’t done anything for the house.” In a rare personal revelation, she later admitted that she “worked harder on this project that I ever have on anything, and so it has been especially gratifying.”

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A Tour of the White House

Mrs. Kennedy provided a masterful, authoritative, knowledgeable tour of the various historical artifiacts furnishing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "the people's house", its interior design and h... Read all Mrs. Kennedy provided a masterful, authoritative, knowledgeable tour of the various historical artifiacts furnishing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "the people's house", its interior design and her well-received renovation efforts of the White House, all the while amidst an aura of el... Read all Mrs. Kennedy provided a masterful, authoritative, knowledgeable tour of the various historical artifiacts furnishing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "the people's house", its interior design and her well-received renovation efforts of the White House, all the while amidst an aura of elegance by the First Lady hard not not to be captured by while viewing the tour.

• Franklin J. Schaffner
• Perry Wolff
• Charles Collingwood
• Jacqueline Kennedy
• John F. Kennedy
• 2 User reviews
• 1 Critic review
• 1 win & 1 nomination total

• Self - CBS News Correspondent

• Self - First Lady and Hostess
• (as Mrs. John F. Kennedy)

• Self - President of the United States of America
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia There was also an eerie moment that shook Jackie (2016) director Pablo Larraín when watching A Tour of the White House (1962) starring Jacqueline Kennedy . "Suddenly, when Jackie is in the Lincoln Bedroom, she starts to talk about what happened to Lincoln's widow after he was killed," the director recalled. "In a very strange way, it almost feels likes a premonition of what would happen to her. It seemed very important to me to include that moment, a sign of the weight she felt inside her."

John F. Kennedy : When we have, as we do today, Grant's table, Lincoln's bed, Monroe's gold set-all these make these men more alive. I think it makes the White House a stronger panorama, really, of our great story.

• Alternate versions A 16mm color version was made available for non-theatrical distribution.
• Connections Featured in The House of Yes (1997)

User reviews 2

• spencerthetracy
• Oct 27, 2004
• February 14, 1962 (United States)
• United States
• CBS News - Jackie Kennedy's devotion to the White House revealed
• CBS News - Jackie Kennedy's real White House tour
• A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy
• Washington Monument - 15th Street & Constitution Avenue NW, National Mall, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 1 hour
• Black and White

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tv   The Presidency Jacqueline Kennedys 1962 Televised White House Tour  CSPAN  December 30, 2023 3:25am-4:07am EST

The Presidency Jacqueline Kennedy's 1962 Televised White House Tour CSPAN December 30, 2023 3:25am-4:07am EST

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code).

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Uploaded by TV Archive on December 30, 2023

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Jacqueline Kennedy: Restoring the White House

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When First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took on the herculean task of restoring the interior of the White House, she appointed renowned collector Henry Francis du Pont of Delaware to lead the project. Winterthur, du Pont’s home which he turned into the first Museum of American Decorative Arts in 1951, served as inspiration for the renovation. White House Historical Association president Stewart McLaurin visited Winterthur and spoke with Elaine Rice Bachmann, curator of an exhibition based on the mentoring relationship between the reserved octogenarian and Mrs. Kennedy. “Jacqueline Kennedy and H. F. du Pont: From Winterthur to the White House” uses artifacts and images to go behind-the-scenes of this collaboration which culminated in the First Lady giving a televised tour of the renovated White House in 1962. The exhibition will be on view at the 175-room museum of American antiques and interiors outside Wilmington, DE, through January 8, 2023.

Stewart McLaurin, Host

President of the White House Historical Association

As President of the White House Historical Association Stewart McLaurin leads the nonpartisan, nonprofit in its mission to preserve, protect, and provide access to White House history. As a lifelong student of history, Stewart is an avid reader, author, and storyteller. Drawing on his own experiences, relationships, and knowledge he provides listeners with a front row seat to history at the White House.

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• Feb 14, 2020

Jackie Kennedy Tour of The White House

On February 14, 1962, a television special, "A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy" featuring the First Lady of the United States , Jacqueline Kennedy , led a tour of the recently renovated White House . It was broadcast on Valentine's Day , on both CBS and NBC , and broadcast four days later on ABC . The program was the first ever First Lady televised tour of the White House, and has since been considered the first prime-time documentary specifically designed to appeal to a female audience.

The program showed Kennedy on a tour of the house with the CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood . The videotaped tour was the first glimpse the American public had had of the $2 million restoration of the White House that Kennedy had helped direct in the first year of her husband's presidency. The project was not merely a "re-decoration" but a preservation of the history of the country within the White House:

The program was viewed by 80 million viewers and globally syndicated to 50 countries, including Russia and China. Kennedy's notes for the televised tour were among her personal papers that were publicly released by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in 2012. The papers showed that Kennedy made sure that the names of individual donors who had contributed to the costs of the renovation were included in the script.

Kennedy had been the First Lady of the United States since her husband's inauguration in January 1961 and had engaged in a well publicized restoration and redecoration of the president's official residence, the White House, in the first year of her husband's presidency. Kennedy had been approached by various television networks to broadcast the restored White House and it was subsequently agreed that the three major American networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) would jointly fund and broadcast the resultant documentary. Here is a clip of the dining room tour, with Jackie giving a detailed history behind the items in the room:

The success of the film led to other documentaries aimed at a female audience including The World of Sophia Loren and The World of Jacqueline Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor in London , all of which drew significant numbers of viewers. The success of the film of Kennedy's White House tour has been analyzed from a feminist film perspective , as it appealed to "women's fantasies about living a more public life while largely maintaining their conventional feminine attributes" as television could allow the female viewer to "fantasize about situations and identities which are not part of one's everyday existence", anticipating the new possibilities for women in the latter part of the 1960s. It also led to another project led by Jackie Kennedy of creating a historical "White House Book" that gave White House tour visitors a detailed history:

The film won Schaffner the Directorial Achievement Award for 1962 from the Directors Guild of America , and Schaffner and Kennedy were both recipients of the Trustee's Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for their work on the film. Schaffner would later be asked by President Kennedy to look at the lighting and acoustics in the State Department's Auditorium, the site of his press conferences, and was asked to help prepare Kennedy for his address to the nation at the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis .

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