The East Wing’s construction in 1942 reflected a wartime government in expansion. Designed by White House architect Lorenzo Winslow, President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned the additional structure to add working space as well as to conceal the newly built underground bunker. But this project was not without controversy either. The timing provoked criticism in Congress.
Per the White House Historical Association, “Congressional Republicans labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image” and “the secretive nature of the construction, tied to military purposes, further fueled suspicions.” Franklin Roosevelt insisted the work was essential for national security, and ultimately he won.
The bunker became well known to Americans decades later. Known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, Vice President Dick Cheney was taken there on September 11, 2001, and President Donald Trump was also taken there during the riots at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2020.
The Office of the First Lady
The East Wing became the modern home of the First Lady’s staff during the mid-20th century. Eleanor Roosevelt, who hosted official gatherings there, is often credited with professionalizing the position. As noted by The 19th, Eleanor Roosevelt used her office space in the East Wing as a base for activism and for meetings with groups ranging from the Girl Scouts to the Women’s Trade Union League.
It was in the 1970s under Rosalynn Carter that the East Wing became the Office of the First Lady. Carter hired a chief of staff with a rank and salary equal to that of other White House staff, per East West Magazine, as well as a team of 18 employees covering the press, research, and other special projects. “As you get the departmentalization of the First Lady, then you get specialization. Now you get space. The space follows the expertise,” MaryAnne Borrelli, author of The Politics of the President’s Wife, told the publication in 2023. “The emergent bureaucracy of the [First Lady’s role] drives the spatial allocations because space in the White House is power.”
Historians have described this as a turning point for the role of presidential spouses. Katherine A.S. Sibley of Saint Joseph’s University told the 19th that prior to Carter, First Ladies usually worked informally from the Residence, the second floor of the White House where the First Family lives upstairs.