White House, Wash., D.C. 1820

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The White House in this view is shown as it stood in the early 1820s, a few decades after the building was completed and during the years when the young capital was still rebuilding after the British burned it in 1814. The record gives the title as 1820, though the caption card itself carries no date, so the year is best read as the title's claim rather than a verified fact. Views like this one were often engraved or drawn from a distance to show the presidential residence as a symbol of the new republic, and they are useful for seeing how the house and its grounds looked before later additions and renovations changed them.

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