The White House and Television (#67)

ON FEBRUARY 14, 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited the nation on a televised tour of the White House—and we never left, individually absorbing the reality and collectively, through decades of TV dramas, imagining even more. It was actually President Harry S. Truman who gave the first televised tour in 1952, but to a small and largely local audience of the early owners of television sets. Within the next decade, television ownership had surged to such an extent that 80 million viewers ultimately tuned into Mrs. Kennedy’s tour. As the articles in our White House and Television issue of White House History Quarterly reveal, for more than sixty years, the televised White House has brought us information, education, and entertainment while shaping our perceptions of the presidency. Noting that television has “contributed to the rise of a new breed of American leader—a charismatic, telegenic individual who understood that a public figure’s image on TV could be vital to his or