From Eleanor Roosevelt to Melania Trump, the East Wing of the White House served as a base for first ladies. It was where Michelle Obama spearheaded her Let’s Move public health campaign and where Nancy Reagan and her staff worked on the Just Say No drug awareness initiative.
“It was a place where first ladies could carry out the important work that they do,” said Katherine AS Sibley, a professor of history at St Joseph’s University.
That has changed.
Since Donald Trump took office again, Melania did not need the East Wing office space much because she now mostly lives in New York and Florida. During the first 108 days of Trump’s second term, she spent less than 14 days at the White House, the New York Times reported.
Now, even if Melania moves back to Washington DC and takes a more active public role, she and her staff can no longer use the East Wing. The president ordered its demolition to make space for a $300m ballroom.
In effect, the East Wing’s end exemplifies the diminished and atypical role that Melania has adopted during her husband’s second term. Instead of addressing national or global problems as a prime focus and dedicating significant time to a social cause, Melania has instead largely opted for personal privacy – and in at least one case, it appears, personal enrichment.
“The destruction of the East Wing just shows how little the White House cares about the position of first lady,” Sibley said.
The most recent iteration of the East Wing was built in 1942 under Franklin D Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt’s staff worked there. “She was the greatest white ally Black America had at the time,” said Katherine Jellison, an Ohio University professor emerita of history who has studied first ladies.
That included refusing to sit in the white section of segregated facilities.
“An effective first lady like an Eleanor Roosevelt can make a real difference, not only politically, but in society,” Jellison said.
Decades later, Rosalynn Carter opened an office in the East Wing and professionalized the role. “She sat in on cabinet meetings and was someone who was always at her husband’s side,” said Jellison.
Subsequent first ladies’ efforts included Barbara Bush trying to reduce Aids stigma; Hillary Clinton chairing a taskforce to improve the US healthcare system; and Laura Bush working to increase children’s literacy.
The first ladies often took an active role in championing their respective causes. To address childhood obesity with the Let’s Move campaign, Obama met with food industry leaders; introduced new rules for nutrition labels; and made appearances across TV to promote the initiative.
They also had large teams to help. Before Melania, the three prior first ladies had at least 20 staff members. Melania had a dozen or fewer staff members during Trump’s first term, according to PolitiFact. In July this year, Melania had five full-time staff members, CNN reported.
Conservative media and watchdog groups cited the difference in staff sizes between Melania and Jill Biden as evidence of wasteful spending.
But it’s also indicative of Melania’s small footprint in this administration, which could have made it easier for Trump to demolish the East Wing, Sibley said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania “privately raised concerns about” the ballroom project that has reduced the East Wing – and her own offices – to rubble.
Had Obama proposed such a change, Michelle might have said, “Wait a minute. That is my office,” Sibley said. “It’s not surprising that [Melania’s] wish to keep the building maybe didn’t carry a lot of weight.”
Still, Melania has not been entirely absent from the White House.
About a year and a half into Trump’s first term, she launched “Be Best” an initiative to prevent cyber-bullying. Observers pointed out the irony of Melania trying to stop online harassment while her husband constantly attacked people on Twitter.
At the close of the term, a Siena College survey of historians and scholars ranked Melania last among first ladies since Lady Bird Johnson in terms of how well they addressed their signature issue.
As Trump took office a second time, Melania told Fox News that she did not have much support on Be Best during the first term but planned to expand the campaign.
In May, the president approved the Take It Down Act, which imposed penalties for online sexual exploitation. Melania advocated for it in Congress. The bill received support from Democrats and Republicans, but groups like the libertarian Cato Institute warned that “it will be abused to silence legitimate speech”.
“She called attention to an issue and legislation that was stalled, quite frankly, in the Senate and that was then passed,” said Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush and wrote a book on the impact of first ladies. “That is not a small deal, right? So I am impressed with that.”
Melania also met with tech leaders in September in the East Wing to discuss using artificial intelligence in the classroom. She described AI as the “greatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America” but cautioned that “we must manage AI’s growth responsibly”.
But, in some ways, Melania’s relatively low profile could also be seen as an example of a woman who has agency. By taking a low profile, she has defied convention and what has traditionally been expected of first ladies. She even memorably wore a jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do u?”
“The whole process of being in the political world was not her background, yet she still found a way to define the position the way it suits her,” McBride said.
The first lady has not completely shunned the spotlight. Amazon paid $40m for a documentary about her. She will receive 70% of that money, the Wall Street Journal reported. That was the most the company had spent on a documentary and almost three times the next-closest offer.
Critics saw the deal as evidence of the Trumps monetizing the presidency and of a billionaire trying to curry favor with the president. The film also generated controversy because it was directed by Brett Ratner, who multiple women have accused of sexual misconduct.
Previous first ladies have profited from their books once they left the White House, but doing so while still in office “seems like trading on that position”, Sibley said, “which would have been completely norm busting before”.
While Melania has been a target of criticism, more than three years remain in Trump’s second term, so it’s possible perception of her could change.
What won’t change is the absence of the East Wing.
“It’s unfortunate to see the walls come down,” McBride said. “But the history of the work that went on there lives on.”
