The Oval Office has only existed for about half of the history of the White House. The story of the design, creation, and evolution of the office reveals much about the changing nature of the White House and the presidency, as well as its connections to broader American culture and media.

No room in the White House is more famous or photographed than the Oval Office. For many Americans, it is synonymous with the presidency, representing ideals of American democracy and liberty while projecting executive power to the world; however, this was not always the case. In fact, the Oval Office has only existed for about half of the 225-year history of the White House. The story of the design, creation, and evolution of the Oval Office reveals much about the changing nature of the White House and the presidency, as well as its connections to broader American culture and media.

When initial White House construction concluded in 1800, there was no Oval Office. In fact, the West Wing, where the Oval Office now sits, also did not exist. There was only the Executive Mansion, often referred to today as the Residence, which served as both the home and office for the president, as a living quarters for first families, and as a workplace for staff. Each president chose their own space inside the house for their respective office; for example, Thomas Jefferson used the spacious State Dining Room. Today, it is used primarily for dinners, receptions, and other events, but were you to visit in the first decade of the nineteenth century, you might find President Jefferson working at his desk, surrounded by maps, potted plants, and a cage for his pet mockingbird. The majority of nineteenth-century presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, preferred a more intimate room on the Second Floor now dubbed the Lincoln Bedroom.¹

By the time Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, the presidency had outgrown the scarce office space on the Second Floor. The number of workers on the president’s staff expanded gradually over the years, culminating in Roosevelt’s team, which was larger than his predecessors. Roosevelt also had six children and fitting everyone in the Residence was a challenge. To solve this problem, President Roosevelt ordered a renovation of the Residence, as well as the construction of the East and West Wings in 1902, with the former serving as a visitor entrance and reception area and the latter functioning as office space for executive office staff. The West Wing also included a small rectangular-shaped office for the president – there was no oval-shaped room in the initial layout – but Roosevelt, like many presidents, also kept an office in the Residence, which he used for most meetings.²

Construction on the expanded West Wing and Oval Office began in the summer of 1909. By October, it was ready for President Taft.⁶ In its earliest days, the Oval Office did not possess the panache or fame that it does now. President Taft often worked there, but initially reserved most ceremonies and bill signings for the Executive Mansion because it was a more historic space. In 1912, however, President Taft held a small ceremony in the Oval Office where he signed legislation admitting New Mexico as the forty-seventh state of the Union and invited a photographer to capture the event. This bill signing set a precedent for the Oval Office as the location for significant moments in American history that the president wanted covered by the media.⁷

Subsequent presidents used the office with greater frequency, until 1929 when a fire broke out in the West Wing on Christmas Eve. The blaze began when papers in the attic of the West Wing caught fire, due either to a blocked chimney vent or faulty electric wiring. Though firefighters quickly put out the fire, it caused significant damage to the West Wing and Oval Office. It took four months until President Herbert Hoover and his staff were able to reoccupy the space.⁸

By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, the Oval Office was repaired from the fire damage and firmly established as a workspace for the president, where he could separate himself from the living quarters of the Residence and be close to his staff and aides working in the West Wing. But Roosevelt’s time as president led to one of the biggest changes in the history of the Oval Office: its movement to a new location. In order to fight the Great Depression, President Roosevelt rapidly expanded the size of the federal government. President Roosevelt’s staff was nearly twice as large as his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, leading one of Roosevelt’s advisors to complain that the office space in the White House was “extremely overcrowded.”⁹ To alleviate the crowding, Roosevelt ordered the expansion of the West Wing in 1934. Designed by architect Eric Gugler, the new West Wing added a second floor and subterranean level, and the entire footprint of the building doubled in size. Gugler also added ramps to the West Wing to facilitate President Roosevelt’s use of a wheelchair. As part of the redesign, Gugler shifted the location of the Oval Office from the center of the south side of the building to the southeast corner overlooking the Rose Garden, where it sits to this day. The new location placed the Oval Office closer to the Residence by connecting it to the West Colonnade, under which a president can travel directly from the Residence to the Oval Office – the famous “forty-five second commute.” The remodeling was completed in 1934, at which point Roosevelt began using the Oval Office on a regular basis.¹⁰

The press popularized the term “Oval Office” during FDR’s presidency. Upon its initial construction in 1909, the space was labeled simply the “President’s Office” or “Executive Office.” Newspaper articles occasionally used the term “oval” but only when providing a physical description of the space or distinguishing it from other office spaces the president used. For example, a 1914 newspaper article described a visitor meeting President Woodrow Wilson “in the oval shaped office where grave affairs of state are daily discussed,” while another article ten years later described guests greeting President Calvin Coolidge in the “beautiful green-carpeted white-walled oval office of the Chief Executive.”¹¹ President Roosevelt’s accelerated pace of executive orders and bills to fight the Great Depression led to more media coverage of him than his presidential predecessors. He also deliberately cultivated a mutually beneficial relationship with the media to advance his agenda. To meet the demand from the press for information on the slew of presidential actions, Roosevelt held press conferences twice weekly in the Oval Office. For most of his day-to-day work, Roosevelt used a study on the Second Floor of the Residence, but he used the newly-reconstructed Oval Office more as a media space where he posed for photographs, met with foreign dignitaries, and held press conferences. Though not the first president to give press conferences, he was the first to do so regularly from the Oval Office. He also increased the number of reporters. Twice a week, dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of reporters crammed into the Oval Office “packed tight as if in a sardine container,” as one attendee stated, and stood around the desk behind which President Roosevelt sat fielding questions one at a time.¹²

While the Oval Office has retained its iconic status, the furnishings and decor have changed much over its history. When Taft first occupied the room, he decorated it with olive green wallpaper paired with cream-colored wood trimmings.¹⁵ Subsequent presidents maintained the color scheme until 1923 when President Warren G. Harding ordered the wallpaper removed and the walls painted cream white, establishing the precedent that each occupant of the Oval Office could change the design. In addition to paint, carpet, drapes, and other design elements, presidents can select artwork, furniture, and objects either from the White House Collection or their own private collections, to suit their tastes and preferences. For example, President John F. Kennedy surrounded himself with model ships and other nautical elements, a nod to his coastal New England roots and his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II.¹⁶ His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, wanted the Oval Office to feel more like his native Texas so he bedecked the walls with paintings of southwestern themes on loan from the Smithsonian.¹⁷ Some of the redecorating between administrations occurs on Inauguration Day, in the few hours between when the former president leaves the White House and the new one arrives. This allows the Oval Office to be ready for work the minute the new president moves in, though some in-coming presidents leave the Oval Office as it was and instead make adjustments throughout their term.

Just as presidents are free to design the space as they see fit, they are also free to use the office as much or as little as they like. While every president since Taft has used the Oval Office to some degree, some have used it more than others. Jimmy Carter, for example, treated it as his every-day office. “I got up quite early in the morning to go to the Oval Office and read the secretary of state’s nightly report, the local newspapers, and my paperwork,” reported Carter in an interview describing his daily routine while president. George H.W. Bush similarly used the Oval Office on a daily basis, and often sat outside on the adjacent patio during warm days. Other presidents preferred to use more intimate spaces as their daily office, including the small study next door, and reserved the Oval Office for formal meetings, televised addresses, or receptions. Richard Nixon, for example, liked to do most of his daily work in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) across the street from the West Wing. His successor, Ford, also preferred smaller office spaces and viewed the Oval Office as “too grand and luxurious for some of the mundane work.” Whether presidents use it as their primary office space or not, all have recognized the advantages the Oval Office brings for significant events that will be covered by the media, whether it be televised addresses to the nation or meetings with foreign dignitaries and celebrities.²³

Today, the Oval Office, like the White House, is synonymous with the presidency, a nearly timeless symbol of American democracy and ideals. But the prestige and fame it holds obscures the fact that its roots lay in a practical need for more office space to relieve crowded conditions in the White House. Practical though its roots may be, the oval design was intended from the start to represent the “dignified” and “high purpose” of the presidency, in the words of the architect.²⁴ While the decor has widely varied by presidency, the room itself has certainly achieved those lofty goals.