January 22, 2009 

n keeping with the 'theme' for the week, another thing about the White House (andI did not intend to make a theme, but it is ending up that way). "Eat the View!" is a campaign to urge the Obamas to replant a large organic Victory Garden on the First Lawn with the produce going to the White House kitchen and to local food pantries.

Why not? John Adams was the first president to occupy the White House in 1800; one of his first additions was a vegetable garden. In 1853, during the administration of Franklin Pierce, the White House orangery was expanded into a greenhouse. In 1857, workers demolished the White House orangery to make way for a new wing for the Treasury Department; a replacement greenhouse was constructed on the west side of the White House, adjoining the State Floor.

Eleanor Roosevelt started a victory garden on the White House lawn in 1943, which encouraged millions to do the same in their own front yards. When WWII ended, home gardeners were producing 40 percent of the United States' produce.

Although at first the Department of Agriculture objected to Eleanor Roosevelt's (one of my mom's hero's) institution of a Victory Garden on the White House grounds, fearing that such a movement would hurt the food industry, basic information about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the Department of Agriculture, as well as by agribusiness corporations of the time. By 1943, beans and carrots were growing on the former White House lawn.

In a Victory Garden in Pennsylvania, which was 40x40 feet, a gardener kept a careful record during one entire year of the quantities of food produced in that garden. His figures are as follows:

         Beets–25 bunches                               Cucumbers–100
            Carrots–2 pecks                                   Celery–450 stalks
            Radishes–15 bunches                         Rhubarb–10 bunches
            Rutabaga–64                                         Scallions–12 bunches
            Early peas–32 quarts (pods)               Parsley–used freely
            Potatoes–7 pecks                                 Dried beans for winter –20 quarts
            Cabbage–20 heads                               Peaches, 2 trees –7 baskets
            Cauliflower–14 heads                           Lettuce–equivalent of 60 heads
            Tomatoes–6 baskets                            Horseradish–all desired
            Bunch beans–2-1/2 pecks                   Onion sets–3 quarts
            Telephone peas–40 quarts (pods)     Onions dried–1/2 bushel
            Peppers–9 dozen                                   Pole beans–108 quarts

At the National First Ladies Library, there is a collection of Audio-Video on all the first ladies. The collection includes: television, film, and radio recordings of the First Ladies through the years, whether they are part of documentaries, newsreels, news footage or even feature and entertainment news interviews. The ones that interests me today and I wish I could listen to them are:

1. Radio Broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt 10/05/1941. Mrs.
Roosevelt and the increase cost of living. AER-28630.

2. Radio Broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt 01/04/1942. Family and Home Defence. Mrs. Roosevelt speaks with a mother of three. American children and war.AER-28770

3. Radio Broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt 01/18/1942. Secretary of Agriculture, will discuss war and the family food supply. AER-28790

4. Radio Broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt 03/08/1942.Mrs. Roosevelt speaks about Farm Security, and our National Defense. AER-28920

To view or listen to any of these materials please make an appointment at 330-452-0876 ex 303 or contact Martha Regula at regulam@firstladieslibrary.org.

Video of Elenor Roosevelt urges women to go out and volunteer to help their neighbor.

Video of a man who works a Vicotry Garden during WWII.

And I think this one below everyone should watch. (My appologies to those on dialup)!!