Early Rules of White House Etiquette

“Mrs. Monroe refused to permit relatives to appear at social affairs in the President's mansion on account of their failure to come in small clothes and silk stockings. An edict from Mrs. Monroe decreed that no visitor would be permitted to be seated in her presence.”
~ James Monroe served from 1817 to 1825, as the 5th president of the United States 
— Public domain image of James Monroe

Bypaths of History

What rules of White House etiquette, which still prevail to more or less extent, were established by the wives of Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams?

Social customs prevailing at the White House are a result of long precedents. Those customs which prevent the President and his wife from making private calls, while occupying the White House, and which determined the places at the dining table, had their origins back in the times of Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. Both of these executives had spent years in the courts of Europe and hence were acquainted with the social customs prevailing there. Even the daughters of President Monroe refused to return calls made by the ladies of foreign embassies.

Both the Monroe girls had spent their younger days in the court circles of France. When their father became President, they married into prominent families. The older daughter married a George Hay of Virginia and he was appointed to a judgeship by President John Quincy Adams. When the younger daughter, Maria, married Lawrence Gouverneur, of New York, President Adams appointed him to the postmastership of New York City. While their father was President both girls and their husbands lived in the White House. The sons-in-law acted as private secretaries to President Monroe.

The rigid etiquette which prevailed at the White House under both the above-named chief executives, was severely criticized. Mrs. Monroe refused to permit relatives to appear at social affairs in the President's mansion on account of their failure to come in small clothes and silk stockings. An edict from Mrs. Monroe decreed that no visitor would be permitted to be seated in her presence.

Another cause for criticism of this First Lady was that she wore an ornamental gold comb which resembled a crown. Upon the death of the elder daughter's husband, she moved to Europe and joined the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory XVI sent her a fine bracelet with cameo setting of the head of Christ. 

When she died she was buried in France. After the expiration of the term of Monroe's presidency, he was so heavily involved that most of his property was sold for debt. He died July 4, 1831, at the home of his daughter in New York City.—By Guy S. Allison, San Pedro News Pilot, October 1947

  🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Awkward State Dinners

White House tables set for the Obama administration’s last State Dinner. His administration’s first State Dinner was memorable for the now divorced, notoriety seeking, party-crashing couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. With no invite, they managed to not only skirt Secret Service scrutiny and attend the State Dinner, but get photographed meeting the President, just a few feet away from the Indian Prime Minister. 

— Photo source, Pinterest 

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first state dinner was memorable for who showed up uninvited. His sixth, a high-glitz affair for the President of France, may be remembered for who was initially invited but did not attend.

Obama opened the White House doors Monday to French President Francois Hollande — but not to his former First Lady, journalist Valerie Trierweiler. Hollande’s first state visit to the U.S. comes after he announced his breakup with Trierweiler amid a swirl of reports linking him to an actress.

That development threw preparations into confusion. Two days of events culminate in a state dinner on the White House lawn for more than 300 people.

Like any good host, the White House did its best to make Hollande comfortable, dismissing the trouble of crossing Trierweiler off the guest list. Officials would not comment on whether they had tossed out invitations bearing Trierweiler’s name. They would not say who would take her coveted place next to the President at the head table. They released details on the entrees (American), the entertainment (singer Mary J. Blige) and the dessert (whimsical, including orange-zest-dusted cotton candy).

On Monday, the Presidents traveled to Charlottesville, Va., to tour Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate, keeping the focus on the storied Franco-American alliance. (Some saw ties to infidelity even there, however: Historians believe Jefferson fathered children out of wedlock with Sally Hemings, a slave.)

For the world of efficient and polite protocol experts, a guest of honor traveling without a companion is nothing compared with the embarrassment of party crashers like the ones who talked their way into Obama’s dinner for the Indian prime minister in 2009.

“This is not difficult to manage,” said Anita McBride, former chief of staff for First Lady Laura Bush, who now heads the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. Sure, the image of the two couples standing in their finest at the North Portico will be a person short, but c’est la vie.

“This is an interesting visit, isn’t it?” said Mary Mel French, chief of protocol during the Clinton administration and author of “United States Protocol: The Guide to Official Diplomatic Etiquette.”

At one time, a head of state bringing a guest who was not a spouse would have caused headaches for the Office of Protocol and the Secret Service, French said. That has changed with the times as more heads of state have remained unhitched. The Secret Service now typically gives companions, married or not, the same level of protection as spouses.

Indeed, though often described as dictated by strict protocol and decades of tradition, state visits are also shaped by the times. Politics, personal whim and predicaments all factor in. Franklin D. Roosevelt scandalized some Americans by staging a picnic with hot dogs for Britain’s King George VI during a state visit in 1939. President George W. Bush hosted many foreign leaders at his ranch in Texas, a reflection of his preference for casual, personal interaction, McBride said.

President Clinton held 23 state dinners, a reflection of his love of a good Washington schmoozefest. By contrast, and perhaps reflecting the differences in their personalities, Tuesday’s state dinner is Obama’s sixth. White House officials say the low count is a result of tighter budgets and sensitivity to tight economic times.

With fewer parties, each becomes more important — a more meaningful gesture of gratitude or praise for an ally the White House wants to spotlight, said one senior administration official, who asked not to be named discussing the White House’s approach to state visits.

In this case, the ceremonials are a sign of appreciation for an ally that has stuck with the Obama administration when others, particularly in Europe, have not.

“Let’s just say that we’ve come a long way from freedom fries and are now working together on multiple continents,” a senior administration official said.

The White House kept a lid on discussion of the French President’s personal life, with a senior official saying the administration is “studiously neutral.”

After a magazine published photos that appeared to link Hollande to French actress Julie Gayet, Trierweiler was hospitalized for a week.

The incident reignited a debate in France on privacy and the role of the press.

Hollande promised to clarify his relationship with Trierweiler before leaving for the U.S. On Jan. 25, he announced he’d be traveling alone.

He has tried to cast his U.S. visit as a reboot. “For President Hollande, it comes at a useful moment for him to show him operating at a world stage,” said Erik Goldstein, a professor of international relations at Boston University who has written about state visits.— Los Angeles Times, 2014

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette for Hosting Fasting Guest

Prime Minister Modi was in the middle of a nine-day religious fast, a practice that reportedly limits his intake to water and lime. How was a dinner to be hosted in his honor? — According to HinduWebsite.com, “Fasting in Hinduism is a declaration of faith and resolve and way to build character, strength and purity as part of one’s preparation for liberation. It is also helpful to restrain the mind and the senses and practice detachment, austerity and self-control. The Hindu Law Books such as the  Manusmriti prescribe for both men and women elaborate rules and procedures to practice fasting on specific occasions. They also consider fasting a meritorious deed or good karma.”

 Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on August 08, 2019 

Photo source, Wikimedia Commons

An Indian leader’s fast was etiquette question for a dinner at the White House

Reporting from Washington —


White House visits from foreign leaders regularly bring up delicate questions of etiquette and protocol. Just in the past year, a small team of experts at the White House has had to figure out whom to seat next to the newly single French president, for example. And they’ve fielded questions over how to greet a leader’s wife when that leader is a polygamist.

Next week, the team faces one of its more unusual challenges: how to host a dinner for a man who isn’t eating.

The prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, is due at the White House on Monday for his first visit with President Obama. The White House is planning a dinner for the leaders and other top officials to honor his arrival. Modi is in the middle of a nine-day religious fast, a practice that reportedly limits his intake to water and lime.

That could make for an awkward evening Monday as the president and others start eating. But officials say they’ve got it covered, though they have not been specific about how.

“We obviously try to be respectful of the needs of all of the high-profile visitors that come to the White House and to be respectful of their observances,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday.

Earnest suggested the dinner would be more focused on the conversation than the food and would not require the president to dine alone.

“It’s my understanding that we’re talking about a working dinner with a substantial number of people around the table,” Earnest said. “If Prime Minister Modi or other members who are participating in that working dinner choose not to eat based on their own religious or cultural observance, then we’ll certainly work to accommodate their needs as best we can.”— K. Hennessy for the Los Angeles Times, 2014

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

White House Smoking Etiquette

A place setting from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Administration (1963 — 1969) complete with the required ashtrays, White House matches and holders of cigarettes flanking the floral arrangement.  — At State Dinners and home dinners, smoking at meals was so commonplace, the 1940’s Sunset “Host and Hostess” book on entertaining cautioned that for a properly set dining table, each place setting needed an ashtray, no less than 3 cigarettes, and matches or a lighter. It wasn’t until the Clinton administration, that smoking was banned in the White House at the dining tables.

Smoke When They Please, Hang The Protocol at the White House

Washington (UPI) 

Backstairs at the White House: Be it a sign of less respect for strictly formal etiquette or the informality of the ‘New Frontier,’ but guests at White House State Dinners these days— some guests, at least— seem to smoke when they please and hang the protocol. It once was rigid custom that guests smoked only late in the dinner, certainly not until after the entree, and to be completely safe, not until the champagne was served before dessert. 

In the Truman administration, for example, smoking at formal dinners was controlled rather simply — no ash trays. When the time came for smoking, waiters placed ash trays along the glittering banquet tables. At one of the first Truman dinners, the wife of a new cabinet officer lit up right after the soup and discovered, to her horror, there was no place for ashes except the hallowed, historic dinner china or the floor. A stern butler let her collect ashes in her hand for a few minutes, then marched up disdainfully and relieved her of the smoldering butt. 

The Eisenhowers put ash trays on the table, with small dishes of cigarettes, but since neither the President nor his wife smoked, it was hard to watch them for guidance. Occasionally, late in a dinner, either the former President or his wife Mamie, would tell those nearest them to smoke if they wished. At some of the more recent functions given for visiting heads of state by President and Mrs. Kennedy, however, several guests started smoking early in the proceedings. 

At the recent dinner for Sudan President Ibrahim Abboud, several guests lighted cigarettes moments after they were seated, even before the dinner actually began. They apparently spotted raised eyebrows and doused the cigarettes quickly. The President does not smoke at the table. He lights up when he goes into the adjoining red, green, or blue rooms for coffee and liqueurs after dinner. 

The more valorous protocol would indicate no smoking until a host or hostess gives some indication, but it may be that with a growing climate of informality not only in Washington, but other gathering places of prominent people, the sin of smoking before the entree is becoming less heinous. The Kennedy’s, early in their White House career, stopped the long established custom of splitting the men and women into carefully segregated groups after dinner for brandy and cigars in one room, creme de menthe, frappe and cigarets in the other.— By Merriman Smith, White House Reporter, 1961

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia Etiquette Encyclopedia

19th C. White House Etiquette

Guests to the White House should really keep their hands to themselves. “Inquisitive people often like to study the upholstery, perhaps, and they forget to replace the shams. The shelf ornaments may take their fancy, and they sometimes fail to restore things to the condition in which they were left at the dictation of the President’s aesthetic taste. In this democratic age, few people are aware of the grandeur to be seen in the home of the Chief Ruler of the nation.”
 U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, 1881-1885
- photo source US News and World Report 

Some Presidential Habits

President Arthur pays attention to every little detail of household decoration. He continually wants this or that article of furniture shifted about, to change the appearance of things. He is particular even to the exact angle at which the corner pieces of furniture rest, and on Mondays, when the rules he has made for the White House exclude visitors, it is his custom to inspect the house throughout and see that everything is in order. A reception is apt to leave some things topsy-turvy. 

Inquisitive people often like to study the upholstery, perhaps, and they forget to replace the shams. The shelf ornaments may take their fancy, and they sometimes fail to restore things to the condition in which they were left at the dictation of the President’s aesthetic taste. In this democratic age, few people are aware of the grandeur to be seen in the home of the Chief Ruler of the nation. 

The state dining room is the room in which the President entertains at table the distinguished guests. No matter whom it may be he is entertaining, the President is always served first. He sits at the centre of one side of the long table, his wife, if he be married, directly opposite him. It sometimes happens that the Secretary of State will be seated in the chair usually assigned to the President’s wife. After the President has been served, White House etiquette requires that the lady sitting next the President on his right, and then the lady on his left, be served before any others. Then the President’s wife is waited upon, and afterward the gentlemen immediately on her right and left, in the order named. Then the other guests follow. 

Whenever the table is set for a dinner, the large brass plateau is set for sixteen feet along the table, which was imported from France during the administration of President Monroe, is filled with fruits, flowers and French candies. In the centre, directly in front of the President, is placed a full rigged floral ship, which was sent to President Garfield at the time of the last inauguration by a Boston florist. The flowers are renewed from the White House conservatory. When the chandeliers and candelabra are lighted, and other effects produced to heighten the scene, the spectator is apt to think of the regal festivities of some other land than free America. 

Across the wide hall or corridor, which extends from the East Room to the large plant conservatory at the west end of the house, I was shown into the private dining room of the President. There I saw the handsome buffet and the sideboard which Mrs. Hayes had made during her stay in the While House. The buffet was ornamented with pretty platters and dishes finished from designs of Theodore Davis, the New York artist. The scene depicted upon each dish suggests a story of some kind. 

In the drawers of the sideboard is kept the White House silverware. The gold spoons which President Van Buren purchased are still here. They are said to have defeated him when he ran a second time for the Presidency. Some of the silverware I saw, Crump said, was seventy years old, and the side tables in the room have done duty for sixty five years. The President often entertains his company in this private dining room. Then the upper gas jets are lighted, and the eight candelabra, four of silver and four of brass, are distributed on the table and about the room, the reflectors all being so colored, as to impart a deep rosy tint to the scene. Sixteen pounds of candles are used to carry out this system of lighting by candelabra.

It may be of interest to some people to know the hours meals are served at the White House. During the Hayes’ administration, breakfast was served at 8:30 o'clock, lunch at 1:00 and dinner at 6:00. When President Garfield became the host, the hours were (an Ohio idea) changed, breakfast was ready at 7:30. dinner at 3:00 and tea at 7:00. President Arthur is not regular as to any meal except dinner, which is served at 8 o’clock in the evening (a metropolitan ideal). He is not an early riser, and it is not unusual for his breakfast to be as late as 10:30 o'clock. A cup of coffee is always relished by him at this meal. 

He rarely resigns himself to slumber till 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, and five or six hours are all he requires for rest. How he maintains good health under the heavy strain of so many hours of activity is a question that troubles his friends. He is fond of the delicacies of the season, and his table is the least expensive of the various drafts upon his purse. — Cleveland Herald, 1882

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia

White House Etiquette and Teas

Ida Saxton McKinley was the wife of the 25th U.S. President, William McKinley

White House etiquette permits that Mrs. McKinley hold informal receptions on Saturday afternoons. The President is not in evidence at the pleasant gatherings, nor do the cabinet ladies assist as at more stately functions. During her long residence in Washington as a congressman's wife, Mrs. McKinley made many friends outside the exclusive circle to which she is now largely confined. Many of these old acquaintances drink tea with the “first lady in the land” at the Saturday afternoon receptions. – Los Angeles Herald, 1899

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Old Washington Etiquette

Julia Dent Grant was “Mrs. President” in 1873, when this article first appeared in the newspaper. – All officials and non-officials call on the President. He is not required to return calls or accept invitations, but may waive this exemption at discretion. All are admitted to his formal receptions without cards or invitation, as well as to Mrs. President's receptions on stated days, of which notice is usually given in the city papers. – In 1873, the First Lady of Washington D.C. society was not the wife of the President, but the wife of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as the President’s is a temporary position and the Supreme Court Justice’s jobs are for life. Four years later, in 1877, writers of etiquette books, and those in Washington society, were horrified  when journalist Mary C. Ames referred to the newly inaugurated President’s wife, Lucy Webb Hayes, as “the First Lady of the Land.”

A writer, in view of the approaching season at the capital, gives a resume of certain points of etiquette, which he asserts will be found to accord with old time usages at Washington: “All officials and non-officials call on the President. He is not required to return calls or accept invitations, but may waive this exemption at discretion. All are admitted to his formal receptions without cards or invitation, as well as to Mrs. President's receptions on stated days, of which notice is usually given in the city papers. State dinners are attended by those only who are formally invited—which invitation cannot be declined on account of any prior engagement. 

“Senators who observe the old usages make no ‘first calls,’ on account of recognized superior rank, except on the President of the United States. Through courtesy to their own presiding officer, they make the ‘first call’ on the Vice President, but not by the virtue of any supposed higher official position. But Senators are expected to return calls like other mortals, and among themselves to observe the usual rules regulating the intercourse of private gentlemen. Those first at the capital make the advance, welcoming after arrivals.

“Heads of departments and foreign ministers make ‘first-calls’ on the President, Vice-President and Senators. Members of the House make ‘first calls’ on the foregoing officials, and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. None of the classes above mentioned are expected to make ‘first-calls’ on citizens, sojourners, and visitors, but are expected to return such calls in person, or ‘by card’ when personal calls are impracticable. These usages have not been established without much friction, discussion, and even rebellion on the part of certain ambitious ones. Of course, officials may voluntarily waive their privilege; and men of brains, culture, and acknowledged power are never tenacious about their observance, and act at Washington very much as they do at home among their old neighbors, calling socially whenever they find agreeable society.” – Marin Journal, 1873

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

White House Etiquette and Tone

Hamilton Jordan, President Carter’s “right hand man.” – “The White House yesterday issued a 33-page white paper contradicting a published account of a Jan. 27 barroom occurrence in which presidential aide Hamilton Jordan was slapped by a young woman. The account in Sunday's Washington Post Magazine asserted that Jordan was struck after spitting his drink down the woman's blouse. "I did not say or do anything that night to any woman that was improper, and I categorically deny that I spat my drink on anyone. I did have an unpleasant encounter with a woman at the bar, but it was not precipitated by me of anything that I had done," Jordan said in a statement released by the White House...” – Portion of a Washington Post article, February 21,1978

A Timely Historical Etiquette Post:

“Didn’t You Know, My Dears?” 

WASHINGTON - “You won't find it listed in the U.S. Constitution or in the transition team’s notebook, but one of the highest duties of a new President apparently is to uphold, enhance and adorn the social life of Washington. I am quite sure Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and all the President’s men scarcely gave that a thought before moving into the White House. Now they are having to give it more time and attention than they would like. Believe me, it is a no-win proposition. I say that because of the latest federal flap over the tavern tribulations of Hamilton Jordan, the President's prominent non-chief of staff and man about town. But Jordan is only a recurring cross the Carters have to bear. 

There have been others and there will be more. For reasons rooted in local tradition, members of the First Family and the White House staff are supposed to be models of decorum and Emily Post etiquette. They are expected to be versed in the social graces and protocol; to remember what to do with a fork and what not to do with a finger bowl; to know when it is all right to go tieless and shoeless; that it is never alright to get pickled in public. This city is as stuffy as any other in America. It has its own ‘standards’ of acceptable conduct, born of a peculiar mixture of politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, lobbyists and the press, all of whom coexist in a useful but fragile social relationship that is subject to shattering every four years. It does not react warmly to those who buck the system or offend its practitioners. 

Politically speaking, the Carter crowd already has discovered that Washington does not adjust easily to those who come in as ‘outsiders’ and want to stay that way. As even Jordan admits, the Carter administration wasted a lot of valuable momentum its first year because it thought it was unnecessary to first learn how the rest of political Washington works. Socially speaking, the same is true. In its own way, Washington is as provincial as Plains, Ga., although I doubt any of its social lions or lionesses would admit it. Lusting in one’s heart or in private is fine, even for a ranking White House official, but heavens, not in a public place like Sarsfield’s singles’ bar or at a posh Barbara Walters dinner party. The trouble is that Washington expects, even wants, those who live and work in the White House to be like the preacher’s family in a small town: above reproach. The White House is the sun of the local solar system. Everything here revolves around it, socially as well as governmentally. It sets the climate in which Washington lives. But expecting local folk to be always happy with the social tone set by the White House, is as futile as expecting people to be happy about the weather. 

During the Eisenhower years, when I first came here, nobody accused administration officials of risqué behavior. But, my, how they grumbled about the stodginess of the White House social scene. Dullsville was replaced by Camelot when the Kennedys came in. Washington was entranced, intrigued and enlivened by the social style of the young President and his Jacqueline. The Johnsons set a more down-home and boisterous pace, but it was still judged to be within the Washington tradition. The Nixons tried hard but it came off as too much pretension, while the Fords’ social example was rated as sort of a Grand Rapids version of the LBJ era. The social tone being set by the Carters is more permissive, more do-your-own-thing, than Washington society would like. And that goes equally for Amy reading a book at a State Dinner or boozy bar-hopping by Jordan, Jody Powell and top presidential assistants. 

Mr. Carter came to town determined to govern more openly than any president before him. His Cabinet members and high appointees were to have no conflicts of interest, no hidden motives, no cozy deals out of public view. His style of governing was going to be like living in Macy’s window. But Washington, and perhaps a good part of the country, would prefer it if the Carter people would behave in public as though they were living in Macy’s window. Perhaps Mr. Carter is of a mind to insist on that, if only to protect himself from the political embarrassment of social misbehavior. It is not terribly uplifting for the country when the President’s White House legal counsel has to be sent out, on government time, to take a sworn statement from a bartender that the President’s highest assistant did ‘no spitting, no touching’ during an altercation with a young woman at the bar.” – Editorial in The Desert Sun, 1978

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

White House China Etiquette

The White House "China Room" in 1918

The ground floor China Room is where the White House collection of china is kept. Even the earliest Presidents received government funds to purchase state china. However, by a special clause in the appropriation bills, "decayed furnishings" could be sold and the proceeds used to buy replacements. Such "furnishings" included state china, and during the 19th century the cupboards were frequently swept clean and the contents carted off to auction. The money could then be used to order a new china service that better suited the President and his family.

Even into the 20th century, White House china was often given away if it was chipped or broken. Later, Congress passed a law that required that all U.S. Presidential china be kept or destroyed. When new dessert plates for the Johnson administration turned out badly, the White House staff smashed it against a basement wall painted with caricatures of the President's assistants.

Today, nearly all Presidents are represented in the china collection one way or another. And full services suitable for state dinners exist for the B. Harrison, Wilson, F.D. Roosevelt, Truman, L. Johnson, Reagan, and Clinton sets, although the older sets are much smaller than the newer ones and cannot be used for the largest events. Replacement pieces are occasionally ordered for these, as pieces become chipped or broken.

Wilson — 120 settings

F.D. Roosevelt — 120 settings

Truman — 120 settings

L Johnson — 216 settings

Reagan — 220 settings

Clinton — 300 settings

Bush — 320 setting formal set, 75 setting informal set

Above from the White House Museum.Org

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia