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24-543: Theodore Roosevelt hired architect Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White architectural firm to reorganize the layout and use of the White House. This included constructing the West Wing in 1902 and moving executive offices out of the central White House. The original structure, some of which is still extant in the present West Wing, was originally intended to be temporary. With some modifications by William Howard Taft

48-539: A Presbyterian minister, and Sarah Speakman McKim. They were active abolitionists and he was named after Charles Follen , another abolitionist and a Unitarian minister. After attending Harvard University, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before joining the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1870. McKim formed his own firm in partnership with William Rutherford Mead , joined in 1877 by fellow Richardson protégé Stanford White . For ten years,

72-474: Is lit by a false skylight. A large conference table seating a maximum of 16 is located in the center. The room is painted a buff color with white trim. A triglyph molding, similar to that found in Independence Hall , encircles the room. The furniture is mostly twentieth century reproductions of Chippendale and Queen Anne style furniture . Traditionally paintings of both presidents Roosevelt have hung in

96-776: The American Academy in Rome and the Architectural League. He was an honorary member and former president of the American Institute of Architects , and honorary member of the Society of Mural Painters. He became a National Academician in 1907. He belonged to the university, Lambs , and Racquet and Tennis Clubs of New York, and to the St. Botolph and Somerset Clubs of Boston. McKim received numerous awards during his lifetime, including

120-644: The Pierpont Morgan Library (1903), New York Penn Station (1904–10), and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1919). He designed the Howard Mansion (1896) at Hyde Park, New York . McKim, with the aid of Richard Morris Hunt , was instrumental in the formation of the American School of Architecture in Rome in 1894, which has become the American Academy in Rome , and designed

144-611: The emancipation of enslaved people in the South in 1863, McKim joined the Freedmen's Aid Commission and provided valuable services to that body. He travelled extensively, and labored diligently to establish schools in the South. In 1865, he joined the American Freedman's Union Commission and used every effort to promote general and impartial education in the South. In July 1869, the commission, having accomplished all that seemed possible at

168-634: The McKims and Tyndale, stayed in Harpers Ferry until after the John Brown's execution on December 2, 1859. The McKims prayed and held hands with Mary Brown until the hour of execution passed. Afterward, they assisted her in claiming Brown's body and escorted her to Philadelphia; McKim continued with her to his burial place, the John Brown Farm in remote North Elba, New York , near present-day Lake Placid . In

192-634: The Medaille d'Or at the 1900 Paris Exposition and a gold medal from Edward VII of the United Kingdom . The royal gold medal from Edward VII was awarded for the restoration of the White House . In 1902 Congress appropriated $ 475,445 for this purpose to be spent at the discretion of President Theodore Roosevelt . He received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University , and

216-546: The Oval Office. Charles Follen McKim Charles Follen McKim (August 24, 1847 – September 14, 1909) was an American Beaux-Arts architect of the late 19th century. Along with William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White , he provided the architectural expertise as a member of the partnership McKim, Mead & White . McKim was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania . His parents were James Miller McKim ,

240-489: The West Wing remained largely unchanged until a fire on December 24, 1929, during the administration of Herbert Hoover . Because of the recent stock market crash, Hoover chose only to repair rather than expand. In 1933, early in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the new president began a series of meetings with staff architect Eric Gugler to enlarge and modify the West Wing. Roosevelt moved Taft's Oval Office, centered on

264-410: The West Wing, and FDR who expanded it. The east wall of the room is a half circle, with a centered fireplace and doors on either side. Cast bronze bas-relief plaques with profile portraits of Theodore Roosevelt by James Earle Fraser and of FDR by John DeStefano hung on the south wall until removal during a refurbishment during the second term of President George W. Bush . The room has no windows and

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288-644: The enlistment of colored troops , and as a member of the Union League aided in the establishment of Camp William Penn , and the recruiting of eleven regiments. In November 1863, the Port Royal Relief Committee was enlarged into the Pennsylvania Freedman's Relief Association , and McKim was made its corresponding secretary. As the Civil War dragged on, and, after President Lincoln announced

312-699: The firm became primarily known for their open-plan informal summer houses. McKim became best known as an exponent of Beaux-Arts architecture in styles of the American Renaissance , exemplified by the Boston Public Library (1888–95), and several works in New York City , including the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University (1893), the University Club of New York clubhouse (1899),

336-488: The honorary degree of A.M. from Harvard in 1890, and from Bowdoin in 1894. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1877, and received the AIA Gold Medal , posthumously, in 1909. James Miller McKim James Miller McKim (November 10, 1810 – June 13, 1874) was an American Presbyterian minister and abolitionist . He was the father of the architect Charles Follen McKim . McKim

360-659: The main campus buildings with his firm McKim, Mead, and White. McKim first married Annie Bigelow in 1874, and after divorcing Bigelow, married Julia Amory Appleton in 1885. McKim died at age 62 in St. James, New York on September 14, 1909. McKim was a member of the Congressional commission for the improvement of the Washington, D.C. , park system, the New York Art Commission, the Accademia di San Luca ( Rome , 1899),

384-755: The operations of the Underground Railroad, and he was often connected with the slavery-related cases that came before the courts, especially after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 . In 1859, Reverend McKim and his wife Sarah escorted Mary Brown, the wife of abolitionist John Brown , to Virginia, after his failed raid on Harpers Ferry . The McKims were accompanied in this effort by Hector Tyndale , another Philadelphia abolitionist. After visiting her husband in jail in Charlestown, Virginia [today Charles Town, West Virginia], Mary Brown, along with

408-526: The present room for staff meetings and larger meetings with members of Congress. Franklin Roosevelt kept an aquarium and hung several mounted fish in the room, and the room became known as the Fish Room. President Kennedy continued the fish name and hung a large mounted sailfish on the wall. In 1969 President Nixon gave the room its present name, the Roosevelt Room, to honor Theodore Roosevelt who first built

432-603: The pulpit to lecture on behalf of the cause of emancipation. He delivered addresses throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1840, he moved to Philadelphia to work for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society as lecturer, organizer, and corresponding secretary. That same year, he married Sarah Allibone Speakman. At times, he also served as the editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman . In 1849, he

456-413: The room. Even before President Nixon's formal naming of the Roosevelt Room a tradition existed of Democratic administrations hanging Alfred Jonniaux 's portrait of FDR over the mantel with Theodore Roosevelt's equestrian portrait by Tade Styka titled Rough Rider hung on the south wall. Republican administrations would, in turn, hang Teddy Roosevelt's painting above the mantel and move FDR's portrait to

480-517: The south side of the wing, to its present location in the southeast corner adjacent to the Rose Garden . This made moving to and from the Executive Residence to the Oval Office quicker, and allowed for more privacy, both concerns because of FDR's paralysis . The present Roosevelt Room is located where Theodore Roosevelt's first West Wing office was. When FDR reconstructed the West Wing he used

504-409: The south wall. Bill Clinton decided to keep the landscape formatted Teddy Roosevelt portrait above the mantel and FDR's portrait on the south wall. The Roosevelt Room continues to be used for staff meetings, and is increasingly used to announce the appointment or nomination of new staff members. The room is also used as a preparation room by large delegations meeting with the president before entering

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528-488: The winter of 1862, immediately after the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina , he was instrumental in calling a public meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of the 10,000 slaves that had been suddenly liberated. One of the results of this meeting was the organization of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Committee . He afterward became an earnest advocate of

552-681: Was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1810. He was educated at Dickinson College and Princeton . In 1835, he was ordained as pastor of a Presbyterian church in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania . A few years before, the perusal of a copy of Garrison 's Thoughts on African Colonization had inspired him to become an abolitionist. He was a member of the convention that formed the American Anti-slavery Society ; in October 1836, he left

576-743: Was on the receiving end of an unusual and historic shipment, when Henry "Box" Brown , an innovative and determined man who had escaped enslavement in Richmond, Virginia , arrived in Philadelphia in a small shipping box. McKim was depicted in The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia , a lithograph by artist Samuel W. Rowse , which was widely published to help raise funds for the Underground Railroad . Brown wrote his autobiography in 1851. McKim's labors frequently brought him in contact with

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