Postcard Shows the First Oval Office in the White House

A tinted postcard photograph from around 1909 offers an early view of the first Oval Office, created during the presidency of William Howard Taft in the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C. At the time, the room was generally called the “President’s Office” or “Executive Office,” rather than the Oval Office. The postcard shows its original interior with green wall coverings and carpeting, white woodwork, brass lamps and mahogany furniture. Among the furnishings visible in the room was the Theodore Roosevelt desk. The office was part of Taft’s 1909 expansion of the executive office building that is now known as the West Wing. The original West Wing had been constructed in 1902 during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, but Roosevelt’s presidential office there was rectangular. After taking office in 1909, Taft ordered the wing enlarged and made permanent. Washington architect Nathan C. Wyeth designed the expansion, replacing Roosevelt’s smaller presidential office with a larger oval-shaped room positioned in the center of the West Wing’s south-facing wall. Construction began during the summer of 1909, and the new office was ready for Taft by October. Taft became the first U.S. president to work in an Oval Office. The room shown on the postcard was not in the same location as today's Oval Office. Taft's office remained in use by subsequent presidents until Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw another expansion of the West Wing in 1934. During that project, the Oval Office was relocated to the southeast corner of the West Wing, where the presidential office remains. Historical Significance: The 1909 postcard preserves the appearance of the original Oval Office at the beginning of a presidential workspace tradition that continues today. It also documents the transition of the president's principal working space away from the White House Residence and into the expanded executive offices of the West Wing.