"It would be far more architecturally correct to have a balcony up here!" -- President Harry S. Truman

2014 WHITE HOUSE GIFT SHOP ANNUAL ORNAMENT: TRUMAN’S BALCONY

The 2014 White House Gift Shop’s official annual ornament honors President Harry S. Truman, thirty-third president of the United States from 1945-1953. Truman came from modest beginnings, grew up on the family farm in Independence, Missouri, and did not attend college. After high school, he worked as a time keeper, clerk, bookkeeper, farmer, then joined the National Guard. When World War I erupted, Truman volunteered for duty. Truman’s organization and leadership skills were soon recognized, and he was quickly promoted to captain in France. Despite his often shy and modest temperament, Truman captured the respect and admiration of his men, leading them successfully through heavy fighting during the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Among Truman’s accomplishments as President were ending World War II, containment of the conflict in Korea, initiating the Berlin Airlift, creation of his Fair Deal, banning racial discrimination in federal hiring practices, and desegregation of the military. Truman was not afraid of contentious or unpopular causes, one of the core traits of presidential leadership.

HISTORY OF PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S CREATION OF THE WHITE HOUSE SOUTH BALCONY

“It would be far more architecturally correct to have a balcony up here!”

President Truman spoke these words during the week of February 1946 and subsequently forged ahead to make the first change to the White House since 1872-- the replacement of the canvas canopies on the south face of the White House with the now iconic South Balcony of the White House. Truman's proposal for a balcony sparked outrage and debate in America about the mutilation of the White House. Critics abounded at Truman’s proposal to change the White House face, the first exterior change of the White House in 117 years. Members of the Commission of Fine Arts argued that the Classic Greek style of the White House would be mutilated simply to create a leisure space for the First Family. It got worse: Political cartoonists satirized the balcony project, claiming that Truman could lose the 1948 presidential election because of his proposed degradation of the White House. The Fine Arts Commission eventually agreed to the proposed balcony but only if the change was approved by the renowned architect William Adams Delano. The Commission believed that Delano would never approve Truman’s balcony. Truman argued that the addition of a balcony would provide shade for the first floor portico, avoid the need for new awnings, and would balance the south face of the White House. While Truman’s reasons were logical and aesthetically accurate, he had personal reasons for wanting a south side balcony: The view from the Oval Room was magnificent but more importantly, Truman hoped that his wife, Bess, would spend more time at the White House given a South Balcony with such a splendid view.

In small acts of vision and leadership amidst resistance to innovations, the vision, acumen, strategic-mindedness, and leadership resolve is often revealed of a great President or great future president. Despite opposition from the Fine Arts Commission and funding from Congress uncertain, Truman forged ahead with the construction of the now quintessential South Balcony of the White House. Well known for his position that the Buck Stops with the President and given the resistance from Congress, Truman made no request to Congress for the $16,050.74 cost of constructing the South Balcony, for he paid for the balcony from his own household account. Once completed, many of those who vigorously opposed Truman’s Balcony quickly wrote to the President to say that the new balcony substantially improved the south face of the White House. Today, the South Balcony is the favorite place in the White House for President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.