Cats in the White House

[David Lockmiller]

(02-20-2022 04:04 PM)Anita Wrote:  Here's a Smithsonian article; great photos.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a...180979561/

Though Abraham Lincoln was the first president to keep cats as pets—Secretary of State William Seward gifted him two kittens he named Tabby and Dixie—Andrew Hager, historian-in-residence at the Presidential Pet Museum, believes that the first cats to pad through the White House were likely nameless. “There were probably cats on the grounds beforehand because that’s how people took care of rodent problems in food storage areas in the mid-19th century,” says Hager, who also authored All-American Dogs, a history of White House canines.

I add from "American Marriage" by Professor Michael Burlingame:

"[Mrs. Lincoln] also disapproved of the way her husband used Executive Mansion cutlery to feed a cat during one White House dinner. When the First Lady asked a guest rhetorically, 'Don't you think it's shameful for Mr. Lincoln to feed Tabby with a gold fork?' the president observed: 'If the gold fork was good enough for [James] Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.'"

I think that both Rob Wick and I would agree with President Lincoln on this point of White House etiquette.