Opinion: There’s a new way to experience US history – for free

Presidents since our nation’s founding have endeavored to make the White House accessible to visitors. But in a nation of more than 330 million, the Executive Mansion can seem like a very distant symbol of power Americans only see on television. 
The good news is a cutting-edge new educational center just opened a block from the White House, offering an inside, you-are-there look at the inner workings of “The People’s House.” 
Making the White House accessible has always been a challenge. On New Year’s Day 1801, just two months after John Adams became the first president to move into the White House, he began a custom of Jan. 1 public receptions. For more than 130 years, with occasional interruptions, New Year’s Day offered ordinary Americans a chance to line up (for hours, in the winter cold and wind) to greet their president.  
President Thomas Jefferson added traditions of his own, like an inaugural open house after his 1805 swearing-in, when attendees followed him home from the Capitol to celebrate in the Blue Room. (He also began the tradition of shaking visitors’ hands instead of stiffly bowing, which had been the custom since Washington.) 
Six inaugurations later, many of Andrew Jackson’s supporters poured into the White House − some breaking crystal and standing on upholstered furniture in their work boots. It was so crowded that Jackson was forced to slip out through a window.
Jefferson held the first White House Fourth of July reception, featuring the Marine Band and horse racing on the north grounds.  
He also first opened the White House for what became a tradition of public tours, which for generations have given Americans a chance to get an inside sense of history that few other experiences can provide. My own fifth-grade visit to the White House sparked my interest in American history and laid the foundation for my work to help preserve it in this role.
As our young nation grew, offering this kind of personal access became more challenging. President James Polk “had to shake, shake, shake, till I should think he had almost shaken his arm off,” reported a witness on New Year’s Day 1846. Visitors took advantage of President Abraham Lincoln’s open-door policy to climb through windows, fill White House hallways and camp outside the president’s office for a chance to see him.  
Lincoln’s experience and assassination in a public theater highlighted the challenges and risks of unfettered access. By Grover Cleveland’s first term, the inaugural open house was converted to a presidential review of troops from a flag-draped grandstand – a precursor to the modern inaugural parade. 
Even as accessibility grew more challenging, holidays offered new ways for citizens to see the Executive Mansion and its grounds.
President Rutherford B. Hayes began the tradition of inviting children to the White House for an Easter egg roll.
President Calvin Coolidge was the first president to participate in a public celebration of the Christmas holiday, turning on the switch for the national tree lighting ceremony in the Ellipse.
Many first families have invited children to the White House for Halloween trick-or-treating.
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President Franklin Roosevelt ended the New Year’s Day reception tradition in 1933, even as his radio “fireside chats” brought the chief executive into American homes for the first time.
Harry Truman’s 1949 inauguration was the first to be televised, giving Americans new access to their president. 
In the new mass media age, the value of experiencing the White House in more personal terms might have seemed less relevant. But it wasn’t − Jacqueline Kennedy understood that concept.  
“The White House belongs to the American people,” she famously said.  
As first lady, Kennedy led a drive to offer White House visitors a museum-quality experience by renovating rooms and gathering historic furniture and furnishings from past presidents. She hosted a televised tour of the White House, which was watched by more than 80 million viewers around the world on Valentine’s Day 1962.
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Kennedy also created the White House Historical Association to carry this legacy forward, and I am honored to lead our work today.
Since 1962, the association has published the official White House guidebook, along with accessible research and scholarship, educational resources for teachers, and a digital library with one-of-a-kind images and photographs from White House history.
This month, we’re excited to unveil the newest innovation to help Americans see the White House and its history from the inside ‒ The People’s House: A White House Experience. This three-story, 33,000-square-foot educational center uses immersive 360-degree projections and interactive technologies to help people see and feel for themselves what it’s like to be in the rooms where history happens.
The People’s House will give visitors – including children and families – a “you-are-there” view of important moments in presidential history, share untold stories of first families and life at the White House, and provide a behind-the-scenes look at how thousands of staff have made the Executive Mansion work for more than 220 years. 
From White House weddings to life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue during wartime, cutting-edge projection technologies will bring iconic White House spaces to life − such as the Lincoln Bedroom, where the 16th president signed the Emancipation Proclamation and where many people claim to have seen President Lincoln’s ghost. Or the East Room, home to historic meetings, White House funerals and the clotheslines where first lady Abigail Adams dried the laundry.
Visitors can also gesture at models of books and objects – from trumpets to telephones and televisions – to open multimedia gateways to stories from White House history. A desk connects to how presidents have signed landmark legislation into law, while a podium is a portal to the White House press corps. Touching a lightbulb brings lessons on the coming of electricity to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Children can tap an Easter basket to learn about the White House Easter Egg Roll or a walkie-talkie to hear about the Secret Service and presidential code names.
Families can also walk in the president’s footsteps through a colonnade alongside the Rose Garden and into a full-scale replica of the Oval Office (complete with duplicates of its current furnishings), where they can post a selfie sitting at the president’s desk. They’ll learn how a diverse mix of free and enslaved workers built and maintained the early White House and learn from a video what it’s like to manage the myriad tasks, big and small, that go into making it work.
The People’s House will let visitors join a virtual White House State Dinner – and give them a seat at the table to advise presidents and Cabinets during critical moments in the Civil War, the Great Depression and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  
I can’t think of a better place for families, school groups and others to learn about American history through the prism of the White House. The People’s House also houses classrooms for teachers and their students to discuss what they’ve learned through a curated visit with our historians.
And it’s all free to the public, seven days a week. 
That’s because I know firsthand how much a visit to the White House can strengthen one’s sense of civic purpose. We want to give anyone visiting or living in the nation’s capital a chance to experience the White House and its legacy in a new way, using 21st century tools to help lift our history from the dust so that our collective experience can be an important part of our civic lives and national conversation.  
As we approach our democracy’s 250th birthday in 2026, only about 20% of eighth graders are proficient in civics and 13% in U.S. history. 
The strength of our democracy is at risk. We must do everything we can to ensure that every generation of Americans understands our history, the legacies of our presidents and why the White House must continue to be The People’s House.
Stewart D. McLaurin is president of the White House Historical Association and director of “The People’s House: A White House Experience.”