Pop History Moment: "First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's Tour Of The White House"

On this day in 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took television viewers on a tour of the White House with CBS reporter Charles Collingwood; her restoration efforts included both interior spaces - such as the Blue Room, Green Room, Red Room, Yellow Oval Room, and Treaty Room - as well as exterior, and involved (among other things) restoring furniture pilfered over the years by outgoing presidents. Throughout the tour Mrs. Kennedy spoke knowledgeably about many of the pieces found in the house and their relationship to the executive mansion's former tenants.

Her efforts on behalf of restoration and preservation at the White House left a lasting legacy in the form of the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House which was based upon her White House Furnishings Committee, a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.

Following her husband's assassination in November 1963 the East Garden was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in honour of the woman who had done so much to return sophistication and grandeur to a White House which had become dowdy and lacklustre through lack of care.
*