What does the firing of two of President Donald Trump’s most notorious female headliners, Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, have to do with the tearing down of the White House’s East Wing?
The destruction of the East Wing is more than just the demolishment of historic architecture. It removes the offices of the First Lady, eroding women’s power and is another step in closing off the White House — physically as well as symbolically — to its public.
With the physical White House back in the headlines with the stop-and-go funding of the ballroom, let’s take a look at the historic building — or at least what’s left of it.
When the White House originally began construction in 1792, its purpose was solely to house the President and his limited executive offices, with neither the East or West Wings existing yet. Their first iteration was added in 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt built the Wings as extensions to an overcrowded White House.
The West Wing had been built as an executive office building to be separated from the private residency. The East Wing served an opposite purpose: it was an entrance to welcome both the public as well as formal guests. But beyond being the physical entrance into the White House, it also suggested the President and the rest of the government with him, was open to the public.
The East Wing was again expanded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, who secretly added an underground bunker due to World War II. The renovation of the East Wing into two stories above covered up the construction of the bunker. Additionally, the White House staff had significantly increased by this time.
With this expansion, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt formalized the social position of the First Lady into a more professional position, rather than an informal one. One of the first revolutionary steps Eleanor Roosevelt was holding the first White House press conferences for women reporters on March 6, 1933, only two days after her husband’s inauguration.
The East Wing was also home to the fight for women’s rights. First Lady Betty Ford operated a professionally run political machine out from the Office of the First Lady; she and her staffers campaigned for the then-contemporary Equal Rights Amendment movement.
Betty Ford herself had also personally advocated for women’s rights within the White House. She had been instrumental in hiring more professional career women and argued for equal pay and an end to sex-based discrimination.
Beyond these two famous examples, other First Ladies had also spearheaded activism and political involvement from the East Wing. Michelle Obama had promoted an anti-obesity campaign and aid for military families. Barbara Bush had been a proponent of literacy and Lady Bird Johnson had been actively campaigned for her husband in the politically hostile South. Although Melania Trump had a much fuller and more active staff during the first administration, that did not continue into Trump’s second term.
With the entire wing now demolished, First Ladies must once again be relegated to undesignated sitting rooms. As Kate Andersen Brower, author of “First Women,” a book exploring the power and role of modern first ladies, said, “Watching the demolition is the physical embodiment of watching the first lady’s role become smaller and smaller.”
But how is this historic building meant to be replaced? When the last significant change to the White House had been made in the 1940s by Harry Truman — a project that was structurally necessary to the continued preservation of the White House — it was overseen by many other agents. Those groups including a bipartisan, six-person commission comprising members of the House and Senate, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Commission of Fine Arts.
Trump’s actions in his own authority and funding was entirely privatized. With hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into Trump’s vanity project by companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Lockheed Martin, it contrasts the previous congressional oversight that had the public’s interests in mind. Instead, the message of replacing public access for a ballroom promoting exclusivity is clear. The “people’s house” is becoming private.
With Trump replacing his Secretary of Homeland Security and Attorney General with men, even women on the Republican side are being removed from power. This reduction lines up with Trump’s actions in devaluing several professional degrees and his detention policy regarding all immigrants, of deciding who gets to wield that exclusive power.
The destruction of the East Wing is just another step in cementing those decisions.
Valerie Zheng can be reached at [email protected].
