A White House Mob

President's Levee, or all Creation
going to the White House, Washington,
[March 4, 1829]
Illustrated in The Playfair Papers,
London: Saunders and Otley, 1841
Frontispiece
Rare Book & Special
Collections Division (84.4)

This frontispiece illustrates the raucousness of the crowd in front of the White House at Jackson's first inaugural reception in 1829. During the inaugural festivities, the rowdy mob broke windows, tore down curtains, and stood upon the furniture in their muddy boots. Servants dragged tubs of punch onto the lawn to draw the unruly mob out of the president's house to minimize the destruction. A letter from South Carolina Representative James Hamilton (1786-1857) to Secretary of State-elect Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) the day after the event recounts the occasion as a "regular Saturnalia."