in all phases of the cultural arts. His merits had been 

 recognized almost as soon as he arrived in the United 

 States and, within a few years, he had established him- 

 self not only in his governmental work on the state 

 level, but in the many important private enterprises 

 with which he was connected. 



When Latrobe was appointed Surveyor of Public 

 Buildings the White House was in much the same 

 condition as it was in 1800 when Abigail Adams com- 

 plained so feelingly that "there was not one apart- 

 ment" in what she considered a "finished" condition. 

 The walls of the apartments of the eastern section 

 were still unplastered, the grounds were rough and 

 neglected, temporary wooden steps were at all the 

 principal entrances, and the roof leaked badly. None 

 of the outbuildings so necessary for storage had ever 

 been constructed, and the house lacked most of the 

 conveniences then looked upon as essential. 



During the last six years of the Jefferson adminis- 

 tration, the President and Latrobe worked together 

 to make the house structurally habitable, to supply 

 the missing conveniences, and to improve the ex- 

 terior appearance of the building. No work seems 

 to have been done on the interior of the house during 

 this period, probably because so much was required 

 on the exterior that neither funds nor time were 

 available. Thus, President James Madison and his 

 charming wife Dolley' in 1809 moved into a house 

 (fig. 3) which was at last beginning to present to the 

 world a dignified outside appearance. And it was a 

 house which had been supplied with many of the 

 necessities for comfortable living, such as water closets 

 and a roof which did not leak. But it was a house with 

 an interior not yet developed to the degree promised 

 by its architectural elegance, a condition soon to be 

 corrected. 



The election of James Madison to the Presidency 

 must have given Benjamin Latrobe great pleasure. 

 To his brother Christian, in England, he wrote 

 shortly after the election "I have for many years been 

 on an intimate footing with him. Mary [Latrobe's 

 wife] has known his very excellent and amiable wife 

 from a child." ^ Indeed the friendship of Dolley 



' The fact that Mrs. Madison spelled her name Dolley is well 

 documented by her personal signature on letters which survive 

 in the Library of Congress and other manuscript collections. 

 The sale catalog of her estate, sold in 1899, is entitled "Impor- 

 tant Sale — Estate of Dolley P. Madison." The spelling 

 "Dolly" seems to be a 20th-century simplification. 



2 Talbot Hamlin, Benjamin Henry Latrobe (New York, 1955), 

 p. 333. 



Figure 2. — Benjamin Henry Latrobe — Surveyor of 

 Public Buildings, administrations of Presidents Thomas 

 Jefferson and James Madison. {Photo courtesy Maryland 

 Historical Society.) 



Madison and Mary Hazelhurst Latrobe dated from 

 the days in Philadelphia when Dolley was a young 

 matron and Mary Hazelhurst was a child in the same 

 social circle. 



The newly elected President, even before his 

 inauguration, turned over the entire direction of the 

 work to be done on the interior of the Executive 

 Mansion to his capable wife (fig. 4). In February, 

 he directed Latrobe to take his instructions from Dolley 

 and present his accounts to her. Together Dolley 

 and Latrobe were to assemble a stage setting singu- 

 larly appropriate to her outstanding performance in 

 the role of First Lady. 



The first glimpse given to the public of the results of 

 this successful collaboration came almost three months 

 after Mrs. Madison became First Lady. On May 31, 

 1809, she gave the first of weekly "drawing rooms" 

 which she held each Wednesday night when she was 

 in residence. No written invitations were issued and 

 none were needed. For social Washington, Wednes- 

 day night at the White House became the focal point 



156 



BULLETIN 24 1 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



