Abraham Lincoln never slept in the Lincoln bedroom because, when he was President, the room wasn’t a bedroom. He used the space as an office and cabinet meeting room. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation in that room. Here is a painting of that event by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. I can’t swear this is an accurate depiction of the room, but by all accounts the room had green wallpaper.
I don’t know which presidents used the space as an office after Lincoln, but at some point it was taken over by senior staff while the presidents set up offices elsewhere. The space was turned into a guest bedroom and dubbed the “Lincoln bedroom” during the Truman Administration.
You’ve probably heard that Trump is mightily proud of his remodeling of the bathroom adjacent to the Lincoln Bedroom.
We can be reasonably certain Trump didn’t use the Lincoln-era marble, since the bathroom didn’t exist until the Truman Administration. This is probably why the thing looked like a standard 1950s-era bathroom. People keep calling it “art deco,” but I’m not seeing the art deco. I’m seeing postwar bleh. I’m not sure what era Trump’s remodel resembles — late Roman Empire, maybe? — but it looks nothing like any 1860s interior I’ve ever seen. Lincoln was POTUS right smack in the middle of the Victorian age, which was all about dark furniture and fussy details. Here’s a Victorian-age bathroom:
UNITED KINGDOM – NOVEMBER 16: Victorian bathroom, c 1880s. Victorian bathroom showing water closet and sink. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)
Yes, wealthy Victorian age people did have indoor plumbing and flush toilets. Indoor plumbing and flush toilets were installed in the White House in the 1850s. Lincoln’s house in Illinois had a well and an outhouse, however, like the homes of most folks at the time.
More on what Trump did with the bathroom:
Lots of gold, notice. Just like Lincoln would have wanted, right? Do see Margaret Hartmann in New York magazine, Trump Adds Gold and Marble to Lincoln Bathroom, As Abe Would Have Wanted. She notes that “Marble walls and floors with polished gold fixtures certainly weren’t common for bathrooms of the time.”
Hartmann also recalls a big source of friction in the Lincoln household. When Mary Lincoln moved into the White House she was shocked at how run down the place was. So she went on a redecorating spree, She bought new rugs and wallpaper and drapes and paintings and chandeliers and furniture. She went over a congressional appropriation for redecorating by 30 percent. When Lincoln learned of this from the White House Commissioner of Public Buildings, a fellow named Benjamin Brown French, Lincoln was furious.
“It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said that the president of the United States had approved a bill over-running an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets,” he shouted at French.
We cannot know what Lincoln would have thought of the Trump bathroom. He might have thought it more worthy of Napoleon III, who was Emperor of the French in Lincoln’s day. than of an American president. But if you then told him that Trump was spending money on statuary marble and gold bathroom fixtures while denying food to 16 million children, I suspect he would have interesting things to say about that. Never mind the $300 million ballroom.
Which is why Lincoln was a great president, and Trump isn’t. But it also underscores, once again, that Trump knows absolutely nothing about U.S. history and doesn’t seem interested in learning. And if he thinks Lincoln would have approved of the bathroom project he knows nothing about Abraham Lincoln, obviously, especially what sort of man he was.
Last night Chris Hayes tied several things together. He noted that regime change in Venezuela has long been an obsession of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller appears to be running the anti-immigrant secret police, and Russell Vought is seizing control of all government spending. All while Trump is throwing parties and remodeling the White House.
I can’t say I’m too worried about Trump getting a third term, because even if his health holds out that long (fat chance) his political capital will be long spent. Even Republicans will finally want him gone, I suspect. But he’s not really doing the job now. His senior staff are all just running their own projects while he happily travels and plays golf and redecorates.
Bezos, Zuckerberg, Thiele, Tim Apple – they are going to have to pay to tear down all the awful shit Trump has done (and will do) to the historic building and national treasure that is the White House. And this time we’ll pay the contractors.
Oh I'm sure they could offer Americans swings of a sledgehammer on the ballroom monstrosity at $5 a swing and make a whole lotta money
" because even if his health holds out that long (fat chance) his political capital will be long spent. Even Republicans will finally want him gone"
I wish I shared your optimism. To me if Jan. 6th didn't deplete his political capital I don't know what will. Trump voters are going to stay with diaper don until they plant his fat stinky ass into the ground. If Stump builds gold palaces and red states lose their SNAP benefits, so what, the important this is that liberals and brown folk aint getting any free shit either! And I certainly don't see any political courage coming from the tea-tards in congress they are all on the Trump train until the end!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg1NCNh1Sdc
"Trump voters" aren't a monolith. A lot of people who voted for him last year weren't that crazy about him, but they foolishly thought he'd be better for the economy, getting prices down in particular, than Biden. His approval ratings have been underwater for months now, meaning that a substantial percentage of people who voted for him last year wouldn't do so again. And I don't see him doing anything that's going to turn that around. Yeah, he's probably got a base support of about 33 percent or so that would follow him off a cliff, but 33 percent is not going to get him back in the White House.
In particular, he keeps putting Republicans in terrible positions, to support him or else even if it's pissing off their own constituents. At some point a lot of them are going to have to choose between Trump and getting re-elected.
Regarding January 6, probably a lot of voters managed to rationalize it away somehow. Things can get out of hand. There was enough disinformation put out about it that I'm sure many people are confused about what happened. What's not going to confuse them is higher prices for food and utilities and insurance. Local news stations all over the country are running stories about long lines at food pantries and mothers not knowing how they'll feed their children. This while Trump is focused on his marble bathroom and $300 million ballroom.
American voters can be fooled about foreign policy pretty easily. they can be fooled about things that they aren't directly experiencing themselves. But when government policy directly affects them, they do notice.
See Ryan Cooper, Voters Did Not Understand the Stakes in 2024.
Your analysis is certainly better than mine. I'll just never understand how anyone could vote for him after J6 and 34 felony convictions. Then again I never understood why anyone would vote for his obviously fake phony ass the first time?
I think a lot of people still believe he's some kind of genius businessman, which he never was.
The pinnacle of modern civilization is indoor plumbing with the bathroom the crowning glory for sure. Sure, there is plumbing to the kitchen but to many that is a part of the house that they would not even have unless houses normally came with one. Now a home with just one bathroom is almost considered uninhabitable. You need a spare at least. Many people also have motor homes and trailers that let them take their bathroom on vacation with them. They cannot even imagine leaving home without one. It has gotten that bad and worse.
So much have bathrooms taken over our culture that political wars are often waged over them. Blue states tend to have more of them than red states in public facilities I have noted. I have been told that in some red states a connection from the bathroom to a waste disposal system is considered optional by some. That is a troubling sign for sure.
Toilet paper we found as the most hoarded and essential necessity during the pandemic. Sure, food and bottled water were in demand, but toilet paper shelves were bare first. This makes one wonder if Maslow's hierarchy of needs is in need of revision. Self-actualization in this age might really be a stretch for so many, it also might need replacement in the theory as a need. That could have been a need before modern civilization reached this pinnacle and obviously began its gilded decent. When function and form give way to god-awful gawdy we can deduce the decline of civilization is well underway.
As we de-evolve as a species so goes the civilization. Some see it as a natural and predictable outcome of all human civilizations. A pinnacle is like that, there just is nothing more that is up. Indoor plumbing could be as close to self-actualization as this civilization will ever get. It is for sure as close as I got to self-actualization. I also got the great toilet paper insecurity pathology that comes with it. The overuse of marble does nothing to counter that problem. No vicarious self-actualization there at all. Another indicator our best future is behind us or should we say, down the drain.
I can't say I share your opinion of bathrooms. I've stayed in places with outhouses, and you can keep them. Note that flush toilets are a big reason we don't worry about dying from cholera any more.
I'm with you on out-houses, way too minimal. Let's hope things stay more civilized than that. Let's all also hope we don't feel ashamed that our bathrooms do not have chandeliers or other gawdy elements in them. That's not good either.
IMO, indoor plumbing really /is/ the [visible part] of 'the pinnacle of modern civilization.
The more important aspect is the vast public infrastructure attached to both ends of our toilets, tubs, etc. The 'upstream' equipment provides [reasonably] clean, safe water, which is the one of the most important ingredients for human life (second only to breathable air). The output side – sewers to waste treatment plants – has probably saved more lives than all the Doctors and Shamans that have ever lived (Cholera, etc).
The popularity of bottled drinking water drives me nuts. If your local water isn't safe to drink, go raise hell at Town Council meetings until they fix it.
Heh, out here on the farm I poop in bucket (well, it is a compost toilet, but nothing more than a high-tech bucket). I shower in an old cistern and get washing/drinking water directly out of a well, and live in, whet the city-folks kindly define as a "tiny house". I have never been happier in my life. I suspect I am gonna die destitute down here and be known as the crazy guy at the end of the road, but here at the end of time, and before we cook each other with our own toxic emissions, I will have pulled my wages from the ground honestly and though diligent labor. And, I have kept my principles while doing it. I will show the alien archeologists land here in the dark future that some lived a simple, humble, low impact life, and died with dignity keeping up an ancient tradition.
Take that, Diaper Don and your golden toilet altar and palaces wrought of human suffering.