10 Inauguration Fun Facts

With the presidential swearing in already over with some fourteen hours ago, and the fun events starting tomorrow, let's look back at some more interesting inaugurations in the past.

Parsing through interviews, articles, and posts from Jim Bendat, one of the nation's leading experts on presidential inauguration history, I've compiled a short list. If you find these interesting you should read his book, it is quiet entertaining.  (Book can be found here!)

Inauguration:

1. Back in the 1800's, the presidents would throw reception parties at the White House after the ceremony. In 1829 when Jackson became president, it represented the first time that we had a real Washington outsider as president. Jackson's supporters showed up wearing their raggedy clothes and muddy boots, and they really trampled the White House. They wrecked the carpeting and curtains and created quite a mess! Finally, in order to end the fiasco, someone got the brilliant idea of putting a couple of tubs of whiskey out onto the White House lawn. Slowly but surely everyone went outside.

2. In 1961, Robert Frost became the first poet to recite a poem at an inauguration. He wrote a special poem for the occasion called "Dedication." But it had snowed the night before the ceremony, and on Inauguration Day the sun was shining and creating a major glare - so much so that Frost couldn't read the words he had written! So, he wound up reciting an older poem, "The Gift Outright" - one that he knew by heart.

3. The longest speech was given by Harrison and was over 8,000 words and longer than two hours. To compare, most are around 15-20 minutes long. The shortest speech was delivered by George Washington in 1793.

4. After  giving his long speech Harrison then had the shortest term in office since he grew ill with pneumonia, and died one month later.His death is often attributed to the fact that he didn't wear a coat in the hail and cold of his address.

5. Inauguration Day was March 4th thru 1933. Back in the early days of the country, the politicians seemingly needed a lot of time to cast their electoral votes. We thus used to have a 4-month period between the election and the inauguration. It was finally decided that this lame duck period was way too long, so Congress cut that period down to 2 1/2 months, thereby resulting in a new inauguration date of January 20th. Franklin D. Roosevelt was both the last president with a March 4th inauguration and the first one with a January 20th ceremony.

6.  George Washington's first inauguration was in New York City, which was the nation's capital in 1789. The capital was actually moved to Philadelphia after that, and GW's second inauguration in 1793 was held in Philly, as was John Adams' ceremony in 1797. The first Washington DC inauguration was Thomas Jefferson's, in 1801.

7. George Washington used a Masonic Bible at the first inauguration in 1789. Four other presidents then borrowed that same Bible and used it their inaugurations: Warren G. Harding, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and George Bush (41).

8.  Calvin Coolidge became president in 1923 following the death of Warren G. Harding. At the time of Harding's death, Coolidge was visiting his father who lived in a small town in Vermont; a cottage with no running water, no electricity and no telephone. In the middle of the night, a courier arrived with news of Harding's death. The attorney general wanted Coolidge to be sworn in right away. The question was: who was going to do it? Who was going to administer the oath to the new president?
The answer turned out to be his own father! John Coolidge was the local justice of the peace and a notary public. So, by the light of an old kerosene lamp at 2:27 AM on Aug. 3, 1923, John Coolidge swore in his own son as our new president.

Inaugural Balls:

1. The record number of inaugural balls is 14 - for Bill Clinton's second inauguration in 1997.

2. In 1873 it was a cold night, and they forgot to heat the place where the ball was held. The food froze while people tried to dance in their long overcoats. Worst of all was the fact someone had the brilliant idea of bringing in about 100 canaries to merrily chirp away for the guests. Sadly, those canaries froze to death.


Many more interesting facts on the inauguration of our presidents can be found in Jim Bendat's book: Democracy's Big Day: The Inauguration of our President 1789-2013 which can be found here.
I hope you learned at least one interesting fact about this historic of days, and don't forget to tune into President Obama's speech tomorrow morning.