White House Library, Presidential library in White House, Washington, D.C., United States
The White House Library is a room on the ground floor of the White House in Washington, D.C., decorated in the Federal style with wood-paneled walls. The room is used for meetings and official events rather than as a reading room open to the public.
The room was established as a permanent library in 1850 after First Lady Abigail Fillmore received funding from Congress to start a book collection. Major renovations in the 1950s reshaped the space and gave it its current wood-paneled appearance.
The library holds books written only by American authors, a rule that has guided the collection since the 1960s. This gives the room a focused identity that sets it apart from other working spaces in the building.
The library is not open to the general public and can only be entered by White House staff and authorized guests. Those joining an official tour of the residence do not typically pass through this room.
The wood paneling in the room was made from timber salvaged during earlier rebuilding work on the White House, so the walls contain pieces of the original structure. This detail is easy to miss, but it means the room itself is part of the building's physical history.
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