C-SPAN FIRST LADIES / CAROLINE HARRISON JUNE 12, 2014 11:30 P.M. EST SUSAN SWAIN, HOST: Caroline Scott Harrison was born in 1832 in Oxford, Ohio, where she met Benjamin Harrison. Married when she was 21, she grew into an accomplished artist, interested in women's issues. Although the Harrison presidency has been rated as fairly unsuccessful by some historians, those who track first ladies consider Caroline Harrison as one of the more underrated to serve in this role. We'll learn why in this segment of "First Ladies: Influence and Image." And here to tell us more about the story of Caroline Harrison are two guests who know the office well. Edi Mayo, first ladies historian, the director emeritus of that enormously popular first ladies exhibit at the Smithsonian. Edi, thanks for coming back. EDITH MAYO, CURATOR EMERITA, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY: Thank you. SUSAN SWAIN: And Bill Seale, White House historian, has spent his professional career understanding the history of that building. Among his books is "The President's House." Bill and Edi are both members of C-SPAN's Academic Advisory Committee for this series. And, Dr. Seale, we're going to start with an illustration tonight. I'd like to -- the White House itself is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, I think you'll agree. WILLIAM SEALE, EDITOR, WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION: Certainly, yeah. SWAIN: If Caroline Harrison had had her way, it would look very different today. And we have an illustration from your book of her designs for the White House that we'd like to show people at home right now. What were her plans? What was she trying to do with this big expansion of the White House? SEALE: Well, it was a time of big spending in his administration. The government was spending a lot of money. And she got into it by wanting to create a house -- they were crammed in this house. They only lived upstairs. You see, to understand that on the picture, the middle of the upper picture, the columns and just the floor windows to each side of it, the office was on the left, the East Room was just below that, and the other public rooms on the ground floor. Then the other end, the West End or the right side, was the family quarters, which were seven rooms, that was all, and a bath-and-a-half. And she wanted something big to live in, but something also to entertain in, because the Harrisons entertained all the time. And so she had this plan done, which you see here. You're looking at the south or the back part of the White House with the round porch where President Truman later built a balcony. The center part is the old White House, built -- finished in the turn of the century, 18th century, and the White House is on a bank about 17 feet up from -- on one side, it's one story, two-story house. It's a three-story house walk out on the back, about 17 feet, I guess. And so what you see here was a quadrangle with the greenhouses that they had had, which are really specimen conservatories, orchids and things like that. You see, that's dropped. So the windows would still have the beautiful view of the Potomac. It would not have been an enclosed area. On the right side was to be, as I recall, the National Gallery or the National Museum -- it was not one -- and then other public rooms on the other side. And the second floor then had guest rooms, family quarters, and such as that to make it a much more livable house, as well as the office. SWAIN: Looks a bit like some of the grand houses of Europe. Okay, this is going to brand me as a traditionalist, but are you happy she wasn't successful? SEALE: Well, yes, I am, from our point of view. It was basically Theodore Roosevelt who insisted that it be restored. SWAIN: Edi Mayo, what's interesting about the story, though, is that this woman came into the White House not being seen as political, but she had an innate sense of how to lobby for this. MAYO: Yes, she did. SWAIN: She was, in fact, successful in getting it passed the Senate. So tell the story of how she put together that winning coalition for the Senate. MAYO: Well, she went about lobbying through her entertaining in the first place, but she also called in the press and showed them the plans and got their -- you know, got them to sign on that this was really a good idea. And, of course, they were in the White House at the centennial of the presidency, so she thought this would be a wonderful plan as a memorial for the 100th anniversary. And the nation had grown in land and in power and she wanted a residence that reflected the global power of the United States. So this was a perfect opportunity. So she called in the press. She got a lot of major people in Washington interested. She lobbied the Senate. She lobbied the House. And I will let Bill tell why it failed. SWAIN: Before we do that, she also enlisted the help of a former first lady. MAYO: Yes, Harriet Lane. She brought her in, and she also used the name of George Washington and how this would be, you know, a fitting memorial and so forth. SEALE: He had built the house, and she was just making it work. MAYO: Right. That's right. SWAIN: And hadn't Washington also envisioned that it could have been added on as he did to Mount Vernon? SEALE: Yes, he did, in years to come. And... SWAIN: So she won the Senate, but in the House she ran into a formidable foe, which was the Speaker Reed. SEALE: Speaker Tom Reed from Maine. He was a great adversary of Benjamin Harrison. They fought a lot over bills. And Leland Stanford of California was Mrs. Harrison's great ally. And he spent the night sleeping in the cloak room hoping the act of appropriation would go through, but Speaker Reed, looking -- he was a very razor-tongued kind of sharp guy, and he cooked up this story that Harrison had dared to appoint a postmaster in Maine without his approval and he crashed the whole thing. He wouldn't let it come up. SWAIN: So lacking her ability to expand the White House, she turned to restoring what she already had. SEALE: She redecorated, thinking and hoping it was a minor thing to do, and she became interested in the historic house and began researching the attics and so forth and pulling out antiques and stuff and putting in the different rooms. And she had a decorator in Boston made things spiffy. See, Tiffany had been the last one to do the rooms. And they were very run-down, the special effects and all that nobody could reproduce. SWAIN: Well, when she got to the attic of the White House, she didn't just find old furniture that had been stored. And here's a quote of what else she discovered in the White House. This is from her diary, and we'll be using quotes from her very prolific diary throughout our program tonight. "The rats have nearly taken the building, so it has become necessary to get a man with ferrets to drive them out. They have become so numerous and so bold that they get up on the table in the Upper Hall, and one got up on Mr. Halford's bed." Tell me the story of the rats in the White House. MAYO: Well, Washington has a very prolific and well-known rat community, so they had infested the White House and were both in the basement and, I guess, also in the attic. SEALE: Attic, yeah. MAYO: And so apparently the man with the ferrets was brought in to help reduce the rat population, but there was also a man with a gun, I think... SEALE: With a pistol, yeah. MAYO: ... who was shooting the rats whenever he saw them. So... SEALE: He would proceed her through the attic. Now, strangely enough, the attic had no access to it. When the elevator was put into the White House, the little back stair that Lincoln made famous was taken out and the elevator was put in there. And so you had stair access to two floors, so they had to go in a ladder up above the elevator. And she went, the little tiny woman, she went up there with this guard with a gun, and they began pulling things out of boxes, and a rat would appear, and he'd shoot it. And they were big ones, too. SWAIN: He'd shoot, she'd scream. SEALE: She'd scream, right. SWAIN: Is how the story goes. Well, we would like to invite you to participate. This series, which has been really learning so much and I hope you are, too, this is our next to last for season one, and we'd love to have your comments and your participation and question tonight. You can do it three ways. You can call us, and our phone numbers in the Eastern and Central time zones, 202-585-3880. If you live out West, Mountain and Pacific or beyond, 202-585-3881. Make sure you dial that 202 area code.