For the President’s Eyes Only? The White House Gardens as Myth-Making Machines
p. 109-133
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1US presidents have entertained a variety of feelings towards the gardens that adorn the White House grounds. For some—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt, for instance—the latter have primarily been a source of aesthetic delight derived from the visual impact of the garden design. For others—Richard Nixon and John Kennedy come to mind—they have been showplaces enhancing their social position in the world. For most, however, they have been political places, meant to accompany the conduct of day-to-day governing—e.g, greeting distinguished visitors, holding press conferences—, demonstrate concern for nature/the environment, educate and/or inspire the American public. The concept of the “Rose Garden strategy”, which refers to incumbents refraining from political campaigning, confronting adversaries or partisan issue-taking, testifies to the metonymical nature of the gardens, which have come to embody presidential power as much as the White House itself.
2This article explores the various uses to which gardens have been put throughout American presidential history, from Woodrow Wilson’s decision to maintain a flock of sheep in his yard and sell the wool to pay for army hospitals during World War I to John Kennedy’s suggestions for redesigning the Rose Garden as a ceremonial place in 1961. The Obamas’ conversion of the South lawn into a vegetable garden in 2009 will be given particular attention because it synthesizes most of the historical functions of the “President’s Park”. My conclusion will be that the White House gardens, whether in their stately or more relaxed layouts, have heavily contributed to the mythicizing of the US presidency by elevating the officeholder to the rank of “steward-in-chief”.
Protean vistas: the many uses of the White House Gardens
3The “President’s Park”, established in 1791, is the official designation of the 18 acres surrounding the executive mansion. It encompasses the White House, a visitor centre, Lafayette Square, and the Ellipse. Currently administered by the National Park Service and contained within an iron fence, White House grounds are composed of the North Lawn, the South Lawn, the East Garden (now the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden), and the West Garden (renamed Rose Garden in 1913), bordering the Oval Office and the West Wing of the White House.
4According to William Seale’s The White House Garden—to my knowledge, one of only four books dealing with presidential gardens from a historical point of view, the other ones being Andrea Wulf’s Founding Gardeners (2011), Jonathan Pliska’s A Garden for the President: A History of the White House Grounds (2016), and Marta McDowell’s All the Presidents’ Gardens (2016)1—the function of the gardens has evolved over the years, from a place to grow vegetables, fruit, or herbs for domestic use, to an overtly political place. From “a working farm”, it has turned into “a battlefield for the nation’s growing pains, to a public promenade with tropical greenhouses to the symbolic media backdrop of today2”. However attractive in its simplicity, such a gradualistic pronouncement downplays the protean dimension that has characterized the White House gardens ever since the end of the eighteenth century. Extensive research shows that, far from serving a single purpose, the gardens have always performed several functions simultaneously. Presidents may have valued one of those functions more, but that does not mean that they were not aware of all of them.
A Source of Aesthetic Delight and Intellectual Stimulation
5Though most presidents no longer tend the White House gardens themselves—in 1817, when gardening activity was at its peak among the American landed elites, James Monroe hired Charles Bizet, who is considered to have been the first White House gardener—, there is a history of presidents trying to embellish White House grounds. None of them has enjoyed this more than Thomas Jefferson did. “Others again, add Gardening as a 7th fine art. Not horticulture, but the art of embellishing grounds by fancy. I think [Scottish agricultural improver] Lord Kames has justly proved this to be entitled to the appellation of a fine art”, he famously told his granddaughter, Ellen Randolph, in a July 10, 1805 letter3. Six years later, he wrote to the famed portrait painter and naturalist Charles Willson Peale: “No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden4.” When Jefferson referred to “his” garden, he, like most early Americans, was reserving the term for his vegetable garden, a 1,000-foot-long terrace on the southeastern side of a “little mount” (“Monticello”) in Charlottesville, Virginia5. The President’s House, as Jefferson knew it when he was the occupant, was too muddy for serious gardening in the first decade of the 19th century. In the spring of 1807, however, Jefferson made plans for planting trees and flowers on White House grounds and even established winding pathways surrounded by rhododendron and other American shrubbery6. This sudden burst of enthusiasm for the garden at the White House, however, was not matched by the public money available for such a creation. When Jefferson left office in 1809, he had not been able to plant a single tree or shrub. Instead he had to spend the budget on preparatory work such as levelling most of the ground and enclosing it by walls and fences7.
6John Quincy Adams developed the flower gardens (southeast of the East Terrace) that Jefferson had laid out and was the first president to plant ornamental trees on the land purchased by George Washington and known today as the South Lawn. He also and actually tilled the garden’s soil. In 1827, he wrote of two acres covered with at least one thousand “forest and fruit-trees, shrubs, hedges, [edible] vegetables, kitchen and medicinal herbs, hot-house plants, flowers, and weeds8”. Many flowers and trees (including the famous “Jackson magnolia” to the west of the South Portico) were also planted during President Andrew Jackson’s two terms (1829-1837). Jackson was a big supporter of the gardens and hired several labourers to build an orangery in an east side structure.
7In 1913, Woodrow Wilson’s first wife Ellen planted a formal rose garden in the West Garden, on the site of the present one. She also brought a landscape designer to landscape the East Side of the garden. As for Franklin Roosevelt, he commissioned Frederick F. Law Olmsted, Jr.,—son of the man who had designed New York’s Central Park—to redesign the gardens in 1935. Existing trees were removed along the south fence to open up the view of the Washington Monument and produce today’s grand sweep of the lawn. John Kennedy had the Rose Garden (located just outside the Oval Office) and the East Garden redesigned. Lady Bird Johnson created the First Children’s Garden in 1969 and dedicated the East Garden to Jacqueline Kennedy.
8In early 1994, as chair of the Committee for Preservation of the White House, Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the idea of showcasing contemporary American sculpture on the White House grounds. From 1994 to 2001, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden at the White House hosted eight exhibitions highlighting regional themes in current American sculpture and featuring sculpture by Isaac Witkin, Georgia O’Keefe, Alexander Calder, Allan Houser, and Martin Puryear. Each show was curated by a major American museum9. Such an endorsement in the most prestigious public space in the United States—and one of the most visited sites in the country—represented an important recognition of the role of sculpture in the cultural life of the United States. It also highlighted the First Family’s conception of the White House Gardens as places of aesthetic contemplation.
9The tall trees and wide green lawns surrounding the White House today make it appear like a mansion of the Old South. The West Wing is a fairly recent (1934), L-shaped addition with a Doric colonnade around an open courtyard, which is the Rose Garden. Since there is no interior passage, the president leaves the White House every morning and walks under the portico around the garden to the Oval Office at the other end. By then, the gardeners have already done their day’s work. A lot of presidents have said how they enjoy that short walk down the garden path, and how it gives them time to think before making tough decisions. Interestingly enough, the cover of George W. Bush’s memoirs, Decision Points, which is all about justifying decisions that he made in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina or the financial crisis, shows a contemplative Bush in a navy suit walking through the White House’s Rose Garden colonnade10. More generally, presidents go to the garden to be alone. The contemplative setting allows them to meditate, reflect, escape from conflict or surveillance11. Its therapeutic value during periods of stress has been hailed in many presidential letters and memoirs12.
A Utilitarian Space
10Beyond this aesthetic, soothing quality, the White House gardens have always maintained a utilitarian dimension. Growing their own food especially made sense for early presidents, whose $25,000 annual salary was supposed to cover all household expenses, including the wages of domestic staff and servants, entertaining, dry cleaning, phone bills, and food13. Jefferson’s 1,000-foot-long kitchen terrace garden at Monticello, Virginia, not only supplied the family table, but also served as a kind of laboratory where he experimented with seventy different species of vegetables. So eclectic was the variety found in his plantings that Charles Peale wrote to him: “Your gardens must be a museum to you.” Food historian Damon Lee Fowler reminds us that Jefferson was acutely conscious of the relationship between garden and table and sought to grow and eat fruit and vegetables based on the season. This devotion to fresh produce and sustainable gardening probably explains why Jefferson has become such an iconic figure in the organic and local movements of today14.
11Following Jefferson’s example at Monticello, John and Abigail Adams requested that a vegetable and fruit garden be planted before his arrival at the White House in 1800 in order to feed their family. Unfortunately, Adams was defeated by Thomas Jefferson barely four months after moving into the White House and thus never got to enjoy produce from the White House Grounds. Since then, the First Lawn has often been an edible landscape, both for animals and people. Instead of buying vegetables, the Wilson family ate what they grew in the White House garden. Eleanor Roosevelt and Michelle Obama also emphasized this utilitarian dimension when they promoted their own versions of the White House kitchen garden.
A Ceremonial and Convivial Space
12While the South Lawn is conducive to a utilitarian treatment, the Rose Garden—that is, the 38-metre-by-18-metre patch closest to the West Wing and the Oval Office—has had a different purpose since it was established in 1913 on the site of Edith Roosevelt’s colonial garden. Based on a traditional, 18th-century American garden, it is meant to resemble the formal, leisure gardens of the elite. It is a showplace, a consciously manipulated landscape, meant to add a graceful note to presidential life, to enhance the president’s social position as well as his country’s standing in the world.
13The current design dates to the Kennedy Administration. In 1961 John Kennedy had just returned from a triumphant tour abroad and a string of state visits to the Schönbrunn Palace garden in Vienna, the gardens of the Palais de l’Élysée in Paris, and, finally, the Buckingham Palace gardens15. He was chagrined that the White House did not have an attractive garden for official occasions. On a summer visit to his friend, art collector Paul Mellon, Kennedy expressed his desire for a ceremonial outdoor space at the White House and asked Mellon’s wife, landscape designer Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon to redesign Edith Wilson’s garden16. At that time, all she found of interest in the garden area was an old Magnolia grandiflora planted by President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. Mellon, who designs gardens with what she calls “bone structure,” distinct lines that can be broken down into subdivisions, thought that Magnolia soulangeana, set at all four corners, would enhance the garden even with bare branches to catch tufts of snow in winter. Mellon’s refined design is intact today. It features a rectangular grass panel surrounded by flowerbeds and crab-apple trees. All of the trees are delicately pruned. Heavy-blooming iceberg roses reflect the whiteness of the colonnade, and summer plantings suggest a patriotic palette with a preponderance of red and white geraniums, white begonias, heliotrope, ageratum, and blue salvias.
14Since 1962, the Rose Garden has been the stage for numerous receptions. Memorable garden occasions include a dinner for Queen Elizabeth II in 1976 for the bicentennial of the American Revolution and Tricia Nixon and Edward Cox’s wedding in 197117. In October 1963, Kennedy welcomed the seven astronauts of the NASA Project Mercury to given them the Collier Trophy for 1962. His successors have frequently hosted American Olympic and major league athletes in the Rose Garden. For example, President George W. Bush congratulated the New York Yankees on their 2000 World Series victory in a May 2001 garden ceremony.
15More generally, the garden provides the perfect background for bill signings and media events (press conferences, presidential speeches, even the pardoning of the turkey at Thanksgiving). Every time presidents have an important announcement to make, an honour to confer, they now step out of the Oval office into the Rose Garden, where the press corps awaits them. Joint news conferences with the president and a visiting head of state also take place in the Rose Garden. Since the first year of any administration is a heavy time for news-breaking events and appointments, almost weekly front-page news photographs appear of the president standing outside in his elegant garden.
16How ceremonial or formal the Rose Garden may seem, President Lyndon B. Johnson, returning from a trip, caught the real spirit of the place when he remarked: “The best thing about going away is to come back home and find so many old and dear friends here in the backyard18.” For the English, “backyard” means a rather disconsolate paved area for dustbins and the like. In America, the backyard is a cherished place. Located behind the house, it includes a lawn bordered by a garden and, perhaps, a patio area for sitting. It is a private space for family. It is also a ceremonial space for significant events like weddings and graduations, where family and friends gather to celebrate. The Rose Garden is, in a way, the ideal American backyard—Michelle Obama referred to it as “our Nation’s backyard” in the 2012 White House Fall Garden Tours booklet19—which leads us to the idea of the White House gardens as exempla.
The Gardens as Exempla
17Good leaders set good examples, or so the saying goes. During World War One President Wilson brought sheep in his yard to graze and fertilize the lawns. This was a way to save manpower, fuel, and money required to take care of the lawns, since all resources were needed to fight overseas. It was also an attempt to demonstrate the Commander-in-Chief’s concern with wounded soldiers, since the sheep’s wool was sold to raise money for the Red Cross and pay for army hospitals. But most of all, Wilson wanted to set an example and show Americans that they should sacrifice, too.
18Similarly, Eleanor Roosevelt insisted on planting a “Victory Garden” in White House grounds in 1943 to encourage people to start one in their own backyards and thus mitigate the impact of immense labour and transportation scarcities alongside food rationing programs20. As a result, millions of them were planted across America, as historian Amy Bentley recounts in Eating for Victory: “Victory gardening reached its peak in 1943, when three-fifths of the population produced more than 8 million tons of food, some 40 percent of the fresh produce consumed that year21.” Not only did victory gardening rally the public with a sense of common purpose in aiding the nation’s war effort; Amy Bentley explains that while they inspired hard work, these gardens also gave citizens the opportunity to connect with a pre-industrial national past and as such performed an almost spiritual and cleansing function. More recently, Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden has given material form to a similar apparent yearning for a pre-industrial past, while also representing a call to action.
19Just as the levees of Louis XIV influenced the architecture of the bedroom, president’s open-air apparitions and gardening habits affect the way people think about and use their own gardens and backyards. When Thomas Jefferson added ornamental and fruit trees to his Monticello vegetable garden in 1801, this supposedly inspired many Virginian families to plant gardens in their yards—contests with Charlottesville neighbours to see who could raise their crops first were organized, for instance22.
20Mentioning Louis XIV can seem odd in an article that deals with a decidedly non-French garden and a decidedly republican institution. What unites Versailles and the President’s Park is the fact that both of them (as, indeed, most gardens, which is why historians often examine a period’s gardens in order to expose its uses of power and its social ideals) have been used to express political power.
The Gardens as Locales of Power
21The garden is a source of action requiring intimate and direct involvement. One cannot dig, plant, trim, water, or harvest with detached passivity. Gardening gives people a sense of control over a small patch of earth in spite of all that is left to chance, such as the possibility of drought and insect infestation. With control comes responsibility, commitment to “stewardship of the earth23”. The maintaining of the White House gardens fits into that picture—to wit the controversy around the White House conservatory that took place in 1902.
22In 1835, President Andrew Jackson created an orangery (i.e, a hot house for citrus fruit trees, roses, and camellias) in an east side structure never attached to the East Terrace. It was replaced with a full-scale greenhouse in 1857. The latter stood in various forms for about fifty years atop the West Wing or terrace of the house. When in 1902 it was decided to remodel the White House, architect Charles McKim assured Theodore Roosevelt that the “glass houses” had to go, for they were an impediment to the historical authenticity of the original White House. At first Roosevelt absolutely refused, he and his wife cherishing the pleasures of the conservatory. But the symbolic importance of the White House to the nation—which only recently had been recognized as a world power—won out and the conservatory was eventually replaced with the West Wing. This anecdote illustrates the idea that wild, tropical nature is not an acceptable element of the White House environment. Presidents must maintain the illusion that they can control their environment, the gardens being but a metonymy of the American people.
23While using the gardens to reinforce the mystique of presidential omnipotence, presidents who stroll on White House grounds also want to remind Americans that they live in a democracy and that the White House is “the people’s house”. Most presidents since John Adams have used the gardens to create events that encourage people to feel that they have access to the leader of a democratic society. Thomas Jefferson opened the lawn around the White House in celebration of the Fourth of July. Abraham Lincoln gave several speeches from the window over the north door, with thousands of listeners crowded below. Throughout the nineteenth century, the North Grounds remained open every day for tourists and individuals with appointments to walk directly up to the house. The South Grounds were kept slightly more private, but the public were invited to attend weekly concerts there by the President’s Marine Band. In 1878 Rutherford B. Hayes started the Easter Monday custom of children rolling eggs on the South Lawn after Congress cancelled the event on Capitol Hill. The tradition has continued into the twenty-first century, now drawing over 30,000 guests each year. First families have also hosted Christmas tree lightings, garden parties, and picnics.
24These events symbolize the unique relationship between the US chief elected official and the voters he serves. “This is one of the greatest White House traditions because it reminds us that this is the people’s house”, Obama said of the Easter Egg Roll in April 2009. No president can afford to appear aloof or distant from the public for too long. Symbolically the White House embodies the principles of the US democratic form of government, a government in which the elected representatives of the people lead lives that are roughly similar to those they represent. In keeping with that democratic tradition, the president and his family live in a house, not a palace. More pragmatically, the gardens can play a role in electoral campaigns by showcasing the president’s concern for the environment or being part of a more global communication strategy.
25With 70 million of the 90 million American households engaged in gardening in 1992, it might well be called a national pastime. On any given weekend, according to recent Gallup polls, up to 78 percent of American households are out working the earth24. Gardening enjoys more public support than any president of the last two centuries. No wonder presidents frequently seek to demonstrate their intimacy with nature by weekending at ranches or farms. The presidential retreat of Camp David in part serves this symbolic purpose—just as the prime minister’s country house, Chequers, does in a British context.
26To consolidate their progressive credentials, presidents since Theodore Roosevelt sometimes go beyond visiting “the old country” and try to remind Americans that not only are they “Gardeners/Farmers-in-Chief” but they are also “Conservators-in-Chief”. When, shortly after taking office, President Obama decided to install a two-storey swing set on the South Lawn for his children, he made sure the builders used environmentally responsible and recycled materials as a way to prove his concern with protecting the environment.
27The gardens also feature heavily in presidential communication strategies. Woodrow Wilson often met journalists in the Rose Garden for informal questions. Herbert Hoover began a tradition of welcoming and being photographed with prominent citizens here. Calvin Coolidge used it for making public announcements about policy and staffing decisions. Since the 1970s, a specific area of the North Lawn located just outside the West Wing lobby and the press briefing room has been devoted to provide network and affiliate television correspondents with an ideal backdrop for “stand-ups” while they report on the White House. The camera angles there give television viewers a nice look at the White House in the background. However, due to its constant use over the years, the spot turned muddy and it became increasingly more difficult to maintain the grass on this part of the lawn. What’s more, the light and heat from the television lights, sometimes fourteen hours a day, were confusing the trees, many of them historic. Some of the elms even started leafing in winter. This was especially bad during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. As a solution, in 1998 the reporters were moved to the other side of the driveway that leads from Pennsylvania Avenue towards the entrance to the West Wing and the White House installed honeycomb grating and gravel to create “Pebble Beach”. Under the Bush administration, the gravel was replaced with fieldstone and in 2008 “Stonehenge” emerged as another nickname for the spot when the area was paved over with concrete25. These anecdotes highlight the tensions between the aesthetic/conservationist ideals and the communicational dimension of the garden, which successive administrations have tried to circumvent in order to safeguard the presidential image.
28During electoral campaigns, the White House gardens are a powerful asset for the incumbent president; they provide for great photo-ops and allow him to play on the down-home image they naturally create. Until the 1920s, presidential candidates who declined to travel and remained close to home were said to engage in “front porch campaigns”. The successful presidential campaigns of Ohio Republicans James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Warren Harding in 1880, 1888, 1896 and 1920 are perhaps the best known of those26. The aim was to emphasize the modesty and accessibility of the candidate while sometimes concealing his lack of eloquence and/or intelligence. Pennsylvania Senator Boise Penrose thus advised Harding’s campaign team in 1920: “Keep Warren at home. Don’t let him make any speeches. If he goes out on a tour, somebody’s sure to ask him questions, and Warren’s just the sort of […] fool that’ll try to answer them27.”
29Since the 1970s, the term “Rose Garden strategy” has gradually replaced the term “front porch campaign” to refer to a rejection of political campaigning. The term was popularized in September 1976, when President Gerald Ford decided to spend his entire time in the White House rather than to appear on the campaign trail. Almost daily, he had a bill signing or an awards ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Using the full trappings of his office was supposed to allow him to step out of the political arena, project an image of power and role-enact an idealized conception of the presidency for the purpose of re-election. Jimmy Carter also opted for a “Rose Garden strategy” in 1980, hoping that his daily discussions with his close advisers in the White House would help end the Iran hostage crisis and thus contribute to his re-election.
30Today, the term is also used to describe presidential challengers’ refusal to engage in frequent Q&A sessions with reporters on the trail or sit down with TV anchors for more extended interviews. Mitt Romney, for instance, was said to carry out a “Rose Garden strategy” in the first half of 2012. He believed that if the November election was a referendum on President Barack Obama and his handling of the economy, he would win. But a mere “I’m not that guy” strategy has severe limitations. There is no question that beating an incumbent in any election starts with convincing people why he/she deserves to be fired. But there is at least a tiny bit of the equation in which the challenger must prove that he/she is up to the job they are seeking. Candidates need to show they can offer a real alternative. The “Rose Garden strategy” is therefore a risky one to follow28. Clearly—forgive the cheap pun—, voters are not led up the garden path so easily.
Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden as “Myth-Making Machine”
31In Part 1, we have seen that the White House gardens fulfil many of the presidents’ needs, from the need for food or privacy to the need for popularity and power. In Part 2, I would like to focus on one garden that both illustrates and complements the aforementioned typology: Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden. Indeed, the rationale behind the Obamas’ decision to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs on the South Lawn in 2009 encompassed utilitarian, patrimonial, educational, and political concerns. My conclusion will be that, while the garden failed to herald real legislative change on the issue of food, it achieved its goal as a pedagogical tool and a political weapon in Obama’s re-election campaign, thus calling attention to the overall political efficacy of White House gardens.
How the Project Came into Being
32The idea of a White House food garden had been championed in the 1990s by two of the “good food movement”’s leading lights, environmentalist journalist Michael Pollan and restaurateur Alice Waters. The Clintons had warmed to the idea, but had been denied such a garden by the White House curators, who had said that it was not in keeping with the formal nature of the White House grounds. The Clintons had resorted to planting a small vegetable garden on the roof of the West Wing itself29.
33Then came Roger Doiron, founder of the nonprofit group Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI). Doiron’s campaign began by trying to leverage the web and policy platform of the UN Foundation, which was running an online contest (OnDayOne.org) for generating the best proposals for the next president to enact upon taking office. In February 2008, the idea was sent into first place after Doiron asked his fellow gardeners to vote for it. This first place status caught the attention of a reporter from the New York Times. As the idea grew, it got its own website (EatTheView.org) and a petition30. In October 2008, Michael Pollan wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled “Farmer in Chief” in which he urged the next president to replant an organic victory garden at the White House with surplus food going to local food banks. “If what’s needed is a change of culture in America’s thinking about food, then how America’s first household organizes its eating will set the national tone [and communicate a] set of values that can guide Americans toward sun-based foods and away from eating oil”, Pollan wrote. By eating “oil” he was referring to the fact that the industrial agricultural sector is the second largest consumer of fossil fuels in the American economy, right behind automobiles31.
34With the election of Barack Obama, food and environmental reformers pinned their hopes of change on the new administration. Alice Waters wrote an open letter to the President and his wife, directing their attention to the issues of food and environmental reform. More specifically, she asked the Obamas to set up a special “Kitchen Cabinet” in the form of an advisory group to help them find the most competent White House chef: choosing a “person with integrity and devotion to the ideals of environmentalism, health, and conservation would send a powerful message to our country: that food choices matter32”. Post-inauguration, Roger Doiron made contact by phone and email with members of the First Lady’s staff to lobby for the idea. On March 20, 2009, on the first day of spring, his wish was fulfilled. Michelle Obama, accompanied by twenty-three fifth-graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington D. C., White House gardener Dale Haney, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, planted an organic, 1,100-squarefoot kitchen garden on the South Lawn of the White House. 55 species of fruits, vegetables and herbs were selected, some of them common—hot peppers, eggplant, cilantro (coriander), tomatillos, red leaf lettuce, spinach—some of them less so—chard, black kale, anise hyssop, Thai basil.
The Utilitarian Dimension of the Garden
35According to Sam Kass, who cooked for the First Family and oversaw the garden from 2009 to 2014, one of the key reasons for planting the kitchen garden was that this was a cost-effective way of providing the First Family with a continuous supply of fresh greens year round. The total cost of seeds, mulch and so forth was $ 200. This was pretty low, considering the garden’s yield—the White House garden produced more than 2,000 pounds of vegetables from 2009 to 2016, a portion of which was donated to a local soup kitchen (Miriam’s Kitchen) and the Food Bank Organization.
The Patrimonial Dimension of the Garden
36Utilitarian considerations did not exhaust the list of concerns that led to the decision to break the ground of the South Lawn, however. To Michelle Obama, the planting of a kitchen garden on White House grounds also meant reconnecting with family tradition. In May 2012, the First Lady recounted her four-year gardening experiment in a 271-page book entitled American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America. There, Michelle Obama explained that her father worked as a boy on one of the vegetable trucks that would deliver produce to neigh-bourhoods—he had a reputation for sneaking pieces of fruit—and that her maternal grandmother used to tend a community garden in the South Side of Chicago—actually a victory garden meant to reduce demand on the food supply. The kids had to eat their vegetables or go to bed without supper33. Tending a kitchen garden on White House grounds may thus have been a way for the First Lady to pay tribute to her forebears.
37It may also have been a way of reconnecting with White House and national heritage. Far from breaking with presidential tradition, the Obamas indeed followed in the footsteps of many White House occupants, including Eleanor Roosevelt, one of Michelle Obama’s avowed heroines. Michelle Obama clearly envisioned her kitchen garden as a “new victory garden” and the symbolism of this parallel has not been lost on the American public. While the challenge faced by the nation was not that of a war (although the nation was then mired in two wars), it was one that asked Americans to recalibrate their taste in food. It asked Americans to feed their children better and to teach their children healthy and ecologically reflexive behaviour. “Do it for yourselves, do it for your country”, insisted food writer Clara Silverstein in the very patriotic White House Garden Cookbook34.
38Set in this historic frame, the White House garden gave contemporary continuity to the idea of America as garden. More specifically, the White House garden was constituted as a “site of memory” that recalled the Jeffersonian ideal of the yeoman farmer. It summoned back a nostalgic vision of agrarian subsistence and did so to counter hegemonic eating standards that were deeply rooted in an industrial food system. In his seminal work, The Machine in the Garden, Leo Marx showed the extent to which Americans deify nature whilst simultaneously celebrating technological progress as a means to achieving access to the pastoral dream, even though the pastoral sphere is degraded by the intrusion of the machine35. Using Leo Marx’s formulation, the White House garden was in a sense an enterprise that sought to exclude the machine from the garden. As a metaphor, this was indicative of defining progress in a way that “subordinates economic considerations to a concern for the quality of life and to political priorities such as justice and egalitarianism36”.
39The Jeffersonian reference was further warranted by the fact that many of the heirloom vegetables grown at the White House were descended from seeds planted by Thomas Jefferson in Monticello. These included the seeds for brown Dutch and Tennis Ball lettuces, Choux de Milan Savoy cabbage, Prickly Seed spinach, Marseilles fig, arugula (rocket), Sea Kale, Brussels sprouts and tree onions, Florence fennel, Scarlet Runner beans, Case Knife Pole beans, and Whippoorwill cowpeas (also known as Crowder peas).
The Pedagogical Dimension of the Garden
40However great Michelle Obama’s reverence for the past may have been, the decision to plant a garden at the White House cannot be separated from economic and social issues of the late 2000s. It came at a time when food access and food security were becoming national concerns. In 2008, one in six Americans (i.e, about 50 million people) struggled to feed themselves37. Simultaneously, there had been a substantive rise in food deserts that had contributed to an obesogenic environment38. Unhealthy fast food restaurants were often the only options available for people struggling with poverty, which was exacerbated by bleak economic conditions. Note that at the same time, the average American household wasted approximately 14 percent of their food purchases39. This situation brought to mind Harvey Levenstein’s prescient formulation of the “paradox of plenty”, where the land of ample promise is also the land of scarcity and hunger40.
41Within this frame, the image of the garden worked to symbolically rehabilitate these contradictory and adverse tendencies by renewing a belief in American abundance. It offered a resolution to the issue of food access by enabling citizens to grow their own food while at the same time mitigating the issue of the obesity crisis by illustrating a pathway to healthful eating. “My hope”, the First Lady said in a 2009 New York Times interview, “is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities41”. In American Grown, she held out the raised vegetable beds on the South Lawn as “an expression of [her] hopes” for the nation’s children. “Just as each seed we plant has the potential to become something extraordinary, so does every child”, she wrote42.
42Of course, this was not the first time a First Lady had been advancing a cause. Hillary Clinton had written the bestseller It Takes a Village (1996) to remind Americans of the importance of community in raising children. Laura Bush had collaborated with her daughter Jenna on a picture book about a reluctant reader, Read All About It! (2008), in order to boost anti-illiteracy campaigns. As one begins to study the rationale and rhetoric of the garden, however, one is struck by the ostentatious strategy that was used by the White House to foreground it. Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden was located in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street, just below the Obama girls’ swing set. It was evocative of a lifestyle and life choices that ought to be emulated and, like museum artefacts, was part of a pedagogic agenda. It was a quintessential teachable moment, an “exemplum” meant to show the public how to eat and live healthfully in an ecologically reflexive manner, just like the First Family did. It functioned as a site of expertise that guided and directed the thinking and actions of the public without the use of coercive regulation or the threat of discipline. In other words, it embodied the ethic of “liberal governmentality”, which seeks to regulate events, conduct and actions within the private and public spheres of its citizenry whilst simultaneously maintaining a distance by promoting autonomy and the practice of self-regulation and self-responsibility. I use the term “governmentality” in the Foucaldian sense that refers to liberal arts of government that operate in large part through a “bio-politics of the population”.
43According to Foucault, bio-politics is “focused on the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health […] their supervision effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls43”. These interventions function as largely indirect mechanisms that diffuse knowledge and technologies, not at the individual level, but at the level of the entire population. At stake, of course, is the biological vitality of the body politic. Processes that nourish or hinder the production of an ideal, optimally productive population are integral to the bio-political realm. As such, bio-politics is concerned with the social, economic, cultural, environmental, geographic conditions under which people live and this includes family, housing, living and working conditions, issues of lifestyle, public health and standards of living44. Discourses on nutritional, healthful and ecological living are bio-political expressions, as they aim to establish normative modes of behaviour.
44It is my belief that Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden was just such a rational enterprise that sought to influence and recalibrate the eating habits of the American public. It was promulgated through the use of bio-political knowledge by the Obamas, who, by virtue of their political stature, were rendered as exemplary sites of authority in the public sphere. “I wanted to be able to bring what I learned to a broader base of people. And what better way to do it than to plant a vegetable garden in the South Lawn of the White House?”, Michelle Obama told Marian Burros in 200945, before adding that for urban dwellers who have no backyards, the country’s one million community gardens could also play an important role. This desire to shape the culture from the White House without making people feel guilty if they do not have time for a garden (“You can begin in your own cupboard by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables,” she said in that same East Wing office interview) was further illustrated in February 2010 by the launching of the “Let’s Move” initiative, which meant to address the epidemic of childhood obesity by bringing healthier food into schools and communities and encouraging kids to be more active.
45One of Foucault’s great contributions to political philosophy was the idea that modes of governmentality are multi-nodal and exert themselves from what can be referred to as globalized positions. Here I am interested in seeing the Obamas as sites of authority that existed beyond their prescribed roles within the established state apparatus, that is, beyond their legal and legislative functions. By this, I am referring to the role the Obamas played in shaping the culture of the nation by virtue of their unique spatial-temporal location at the White House.
461600 Pennsylvania Avenue is an architectural icon that is discursively constructed as a utopic ideal, symbolic of the American nation and American democracy. In 1988, the American Museums Association accredited it as a museum. Functioning as the President’s home, it also represents an ideal homestead. In this context, the White House may be categorized as a “living history museum46”. It is an exhibitionary space that displays the lives of the First Family on a national stage. By positioning the Obamas within the museological frame of the White House, I read their actions to affect the discourse around food through the lens of a cultural display that is largely pedagogic in rationality but performative in methodology. It is important to remember that the Obamas determined the agenda of the White House as a cultural institution. Additionally, functioning within the logic of governmentality, the Obamas employed technologies of display that enabled them to shape cultural mores by acting “at a distance”. According to Nikolas Rose, “such action at a distance is made possible by the dissemination of vocabularies for understanding one’s life and one’s actions, vocabularies that are authoritative because they derive from the rational discourse [and] operate not through coercion but through persuasion […] through the tensions generated in the discrepancy in how life is and how much better it could be47”.
47Thus the Obamas’ dissemination of knowledge, in this case bio-political knowledge, was successful in shaping the culture of food primarily because they were seen as representatives of a cultural ideal, an ideal that if emulated would guide the public in collapsing the distance between their existent selves and their ideal selves. In the Obamas the public found an embodiment of national ideals, morality and cultural mythos. They were the first citizens. The way in which they lived influenced the public’s conception of Americanness.
The Garden as a Political Instrument
48As a place where matter is transformed from one state to another, the White House kitchen garden was not only a pedagogical tool but also a potent symbol for political change. It allowed for a transformation of Americans’ partial perspectives of ego and nation-state into a collective, global awareness of the environment in which they lived.
49Jimmy Carter talked about how gardening was an important aspect of America’s future in his campaign but declined calls in 1978 to plant a vegetable garden at the White House. Barack Obama felt he had to prove his environmental good faith to satisfy his base, which was then largely made up of highly educated, urban and suburban cultural liberals who believed that growing more food locally, and organically, could lead to more healthful eating and reduce reliance on huge industrial farms that used more oil for transportation and chemicals for fertilizer48. While planting a vegetable garden could seem like the most innocuous of actions, this “soft policy” initiative represented a powerful counter-hegemonic stance taken against conventional and industrial food in favour of alternative agriculture and sustainable practices, hence the enormous amount of press and public attention. In a front-page article, The New York Times claimed that the garden was much more than mere landscaping; it was a powerful political and environmental symbol49. Exuberant cheers rang forth from food activists and conservationists.
50Not all, however, were ecstatic at the prospect of this highly visible emblem of a progressive food system. Sarah Palin reacted against what she rightly perceived as a symbol of federal activism against child obesity, federal “conduct of conduct” in Foucault’s terms, by deliberately bringing 200 sugar cookies to the students at Peace Valley Elementary, Pennsylvania, where a debate had been going on over whether schools should condemn sweets. Clearly, watching what you eat had become politically suspect for most conservative politicians50.
51The day Michelle Obama broke ground on the new White House vegetable garden, a letter arrived for her from MACA, the Mid-America Croplife Association, extolling the virtues of the industrial agricultural sector, contending, “if Americans were still required to farm to support their family’s basic food and fibre needs, would the US have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?” MACA went on to urge the use of pesticides in the garden to increase crop yield so it could free more people51. In spite of that letter, Michelle Obama decided to use organic seedlings started at the Executive Mansion’s greenhouses and non-chemical fertilizers for the White House kitchen garden, thus ending the organic vs. non-organic controversy and cementing Obama’s reputation as “conservator in chief52”.
52Michelle Obama never publicly discussed the other cultural crisis to which the garden symbolically offered a palliative: the environmental crisis. Rather than debate food policy in conjunction with Big-Agriculture, she used food to discuss the health of the nation’s children, avoiding the political ire of the Big-Ag/industrial food lobby and instead positing herself as a nurturing national mother. In the official White House video on the history of the garden, it was Sam Kass, the assistant White House chef and Michelle Obama’s Food Initiative Coordinator, who took on the mantle to discuss the ways in which the garden was ecologically sustainable. The First Lady’s silence on the matter was indicative of the power wielded by corporate agri-business in Washington, suggesting just how politicized the debate really was.
53Despite the First Lady’s omission, the fact that the garden was pesticide-, herbicide- and chemical-free indicated a privileging of the organic and sustainability movements. It spoke to a worldview informed by an ecological consciousness and, as such, was powerful in its symbolic rejection of conventional agriculture’s reliance on chemical additives. In this way, it was also an instrument that promoted ecological literacy aimed at constructing environmental subjectivities that took responsibility for their part in the eco-system. “The power of Michelle Obama and the garden can create a very powerful message about eating healthy and more delicious food. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it could translate into real change”, said Dan Barber, an owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, an organic restaurant in Pocantico Hills, N. Y., that grows many of its own ingredients, in 200953. Evidence of that change and of the power of the White House exemplum soon became available. In 2009, 43 million American households were engaged in food gardening, up almost 20% from the previous year54. In 2010, Michelle Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack successfully lobbied Congress to review the Child Nutrition and Woman, Infants and Children Reauthorization Act in order to improve the nutritional quality of school lunches55.
54More prosaically, the garden played a political role from 2009 to 2012 by contributing to Michelle Obama’s popularity as a First Lady. Until 2009, Michelle Obama was a controversial figure. Her gaffe during the 2008 campaign (“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country”, she had said after her husband had won the Iowa Caucus) had categorized her as an “angry black woman” who supposedly scared white middle-class housewives. Her opponents, using statements from her thesis at Princeton, in which she examined the effect of being black at a predominantly white college, had pictured her portrayed as obsessed with race. The cover of the July 21, 2008 of The New Yorker featured an ironic cartoon showing Barack and Michelle Obama—dressed as a Muslim and a gun-toting militant—performing what right-wing commentators called a “terrorist fist bump” while burning the US flag in the fireplace of an Oval Office decorated with a portrait of Osama bin Laden. Then the great image rehabilitation began. Mrs. Obama appeared in an affordable dress on “The View”. Her brother outed her as a Brady Bunch fan before she gave a convention speech about her middleclass upbringing on Chicago’s South Shore. Her new persona slowly supplanted images of the unpatriotic Michelle. She was now a busy “Mommy-in-chief” who worried about work-life balance and getting the kids to soccer practice on time.
55Tending a kitchen garden and fighting against childhood obesity fit perfectly in that image makeover. What’s more maternal than taking care of your children and paying attention to what they eat? When she picked the White House chef—a move always analysed by foodies and Beltway insiders—Obama said she decided to keep Cristeta Comerford, the Bushes’ executive chef, because she was “a working mom who understood the importance of providing families with nutritious meals56”. The 2009 White House Egg Roll she organized focused on healthy living, with yoga classes and food demonstrations in addition to the traditional roll (the President even invited families to join him on the basketball court to shoot some hoops). During the 2012 presidential campaign, she neglected to appear on Sunday political shows and favoured TV channels such as The Food Network. She invited the contestants of the TV reality show “The Biggest Loser” to the White House to encourage weight loss. She did push-ups with Ellen De Generes, played tug-of-war with Jimmy Fallon in the White House, served veggie pizza to Jay Leno and promoted her book American Grown: The White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America instead of giving her opinion on healthcare reform.
56Her willingness to follow a more established, conservative path as First Lady (she maintained an office in the East Wing, instead of the West Wing as Hillary Clinton did; she did not sit in on Cabinet meetings like Rosalynn Carter or launched a major policy initiative) was rewarded: within her first 100 days alone, her public popularity jumped 4 percentage points. Her approval ratings steadily increased in 2011-2012, rising to 72 percent in August 2012, thus surpassing her husband’s (52%). She officially became the most popular First Lady since Barbara Bush and a political figure with bipartisan appeal. So much so that, at a Democratic fundraising dinner during the 2012 Republican primaries, Robert de Niro quipped: “Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white First Lady?”
57Naturally, some of that popularity rubbed off on Barack Obama. Often described as distant, arrogant even, he benefited from Michelle Obama’s seeming practicality and levelheadedness. Every time Michelle Obama mentioned the fact that he did not like beets during the last presidential campaign, she made him less threatening and more approachable. Emphasizing the “normalcy” of the Obama family allowed the American people to connect with them more, without precluding an appreciation of their exceptionality (only a family as handsome as this First Family could have a garden that looks this good)57. Indirectly, therefore, the White House kitchen garden proved to be a powerful tool in the re-election arsenal. This just goes to confirm the electoral rule according to which the less overtly political a strategy seems, the more politically efficacious it may be.
***
58The initial purpose of this article was to categorize the functions that White House gardens have performed for U.S. presidents since Jefferson, with a view to debunking the simplistic “working-farm-to-promenade-to-media-backdrop” description that can be found in most non-academic books about the President’s Park. While the presidential institution has evolved considerably since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the “President’s park” itself has not been viewed any differently by, say, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Barack Obama. Whether in their early or current, stately or relaxed, designs, the White House gardens have always served a multiplicity of purposes, among which providing a ceremonial space to greet foreign visitors, connecting the incumbent with the nation’s history (through the planting of commemorative trees, for instance), and producing food for the First Family. More importantly, no president has ever been oblivious to the pedagogical or political potential of the White House’s surroundings. As my focus on Theodore Roosevelt’s agreement to destroy the eastside glasshouses or Michelle Obama’s decision to plant a kitchen garden in 2009 suggest, presidents have continually used gardening as a way to showcase their concern for the well-being of their fellow countrymen, foster patriotism or, more crudely, maintain some semblance of homeliness that may help them drum up support during electoral campaigns.
59From this, it appears that White House gardens cannot be reduced to a peripheral place in the American geography of power. Indeed, they are more than just a place. Their power lies in their simultaneous existence as a place, an idea, and an action. As Mircea Eliade pointed out in 1957, all myths feature gardens as places set apart, where heaven and earth are most closely aligned, and places with some power of centrality—either geographic centrality or the centralizing focus of human striving58. The White House gardens perfectly epitomize this centrality: they summarize the country’s history by calling upon the myths of the pastoral, agrarian and abundant, while also projecting a utopian future that is less mediated by the hand of commercial interest and is reflective of the contemporary zeitgeist.
60This combination of history and soothsaying gives the president symbolic power over his people and elevates him to the status of “steward-in-chief” who can make a real difference in people’s lives by modifying the environment in which they live, by re-allocating privilege to an agenda that esteems environment over industry, self-reliance over consumerism and sustainability over exploitation. As much as the White House itself, therefore, the gardens that surround it have contributed to the (self-) mythicizing of the presidential figure that has characterized U. S. politics since George Washington. As such, they probably deserve more attention from political scientists, cultural historians, and anthropologists alike.
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Notes de bas de page
1Seale William, The White House Garden, Washington (DC), White House Historical Association, 1996; Wulf Andrea, Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, Londres, William Heinemann, 2011; McDowell Marta, All the Presidents’ Gardens: Madison’s Cabbages to Kennedy’s Roses. How the White House Grounds Have Grown with America, Portland (OR), Timber Press, 2016; Pliska Jonathan, A Garden for the President: A History of the White House Grounds, Washington (DC), White House Historical Association, 2016. Wulf’s book, however, only deals with the gardening habits of the more prestigious members of the revolutionary generation.
2White House Historical Association, Press Release, February 1996, [https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-releases/the-white-house-garden-natures-personal-diary-of-ouramerican-past], last consulted May 4, 2017.
3Betts Edwin Morris (ed.), Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766-1824: With Relevant Extracts from His Other Writings, Chapel Hill (NC), UNC Press, 1999, p. 304.
4Ibid., p. 461.
5Hatch Peter, “A Traditional Kitchen Garden: Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello”, in Turner Carol (ed.), Kitchen Gardens: Beyond the Vegetable Patch, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1998, p. 8-11.
6What exactly prompted Jefferson’s enthusiasm is unclear. Perhaps he felt that he should finally do something after six years of neglect in the garden. Or maybe, having decided to retire at the end of his second term, he thought it would be better to create a republican garden while he could, rather than risk his successors turning it into a mini-Versailles.
7Wulf Andrea, Founding Gardeners…, op. cit.
8Quoted in White House Historical Association, The White House Fall Garden Tours Booklet, Washington (DC), 2012, [https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/2012_fall_tour_book.pdf], last consulted May 4, 2017.
9Finn David, Twentieth-Century American Sculpture in the White House Garden, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 2000.
10Bush George W., Decision Points, New York, Crown Publishers, 2010.
11In Debating The Kennedy Presidency, James N. Giglio explains how in June 1963 John F. Kennedy spoke to Martin Luther King in the White House Rose Garden about the danger of associating with long-time adviser Stanley Levison, whom the FBI suspected of being a key figure in the Soviet intelligence apparatus in the United States. Kennedy warned that “the FBI had King’s associates under electronic surveillance, causing King to conclude that Kennedy’s stroll in the garden must have reflected the president’s own fears of Hoover”. Giglio James and Rabe Stephen, Debating the Kennedy Presidency, New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, p. 160.
12See for instance Roosevelt Theodore, Letters and Speeches, New York, Library of America, 2004, p. 332; Nixon Richard, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1990, p. 1075-1084.
13Watson Robert, Laura Bush: The Report to the First Lady, Hauppage (NY), Nova Publishers, 2005, p. 15.
14Fowler Damon Lee, “Thomas Jefferson’s Place in American Food History”, in Fowler Damon Lee (ed.), Dining at Monticello: In Good Taste and Abundance, Chapel Hill (NC), UNC Press, 2005, p. 1-11.
15Deitz Paula, Of Gardens: Selected Essays, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
16Jackie Kennedy and Rachel Mellon had begun their close friendship by working together on the floral decorations for the White House.
17Eight daughters and one son have tied the knot in the White House in all.
18Quoted in Deitz Paula, Of Gardens…, op. cit., p. 133.
19White House Historical Association, The White House Fall Garden Tours Booklet, op. cit., p. 6.
20Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith, had also planted vegetables during World War I to inspire a Liberty Garden campaign, in which thousands of students, called “Soldiers of the Soil”, grew their own food in their schools and communities. As the Allied powers began to win, the name Liberty Garden was changed to Victory Garden. Raver Anne, “Out of the Yard and Onto the Fork”, New York Times, April 17, 2008, p. F1, [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/garden/17garden.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
21Bentley Amy, Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity, Champaign (IL), University of Illinois Press, 1998, p. 117.
22Higgins Adrian, “Thomas Jefferson the Gardener Set His Sights High to Reap the Earth’s Bounty”, Washington Post, April 5, 2009, [http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-04-05/news/36785994_1_peter-hatch-home-vegetable-contemporary-gardens], last consulted May 4, 2017.
23Francis Mark and Hester Randolph, The Meaning of Gardens: Idea, Place, and Action, Boston, MIT Press, 1992, p. 6.
24Ibid., p. 8.
25Faure Guillemette, American Dream: Dictionnaire rock, historique et politique de l’Amérique, Paris, Don Quichotte, 2012, p. 285.
26Boller Paul, Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush, New York, Oxford University Press, 2004.
27Morello John, The Selling of the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding, Westport (CT), Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 51.
28Ericksen Keith and Schmidt Wallace, “Presidential Political Silence: Rhetoric and the Rose Garden Strategy”, Southern Speech Communication Journal, 47: 4, 1982, p. 402-421.
29Black Jane, “Vegetable Garden Will Be Installed on White House Grounds”, Washington Post, March 20, 2009, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031902886.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
30Nardozzi Charlie, “Edible Landscaping. Mr. President, Eat the View”, Garden.org, May 1, 2010, [https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/4165/], last consulted May 4, 2017.
31Pollan Michael, “Op-Ed: Farmer In Chief”, New York Times, October 12, 2008, [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policyt.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
32Waters Alice, “Open Letter to the Obamas”, Gourmet.com, January 15, 2009, [http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2009/01/alice-waters-letter-to-barack-obama.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
33Obama Michele, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, New York, Crown Publishers, 2012.
34Silverstein Clara, A White House Garden Cookbook, New York, Red Rock Press, 2010.
35Marx Leo, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000 [1964].
36Cannavo Peter, “American Contradictions and Pastoral Visions: An Appraisal of Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden”, Organization and Environment, 14: 1, 2001, p. 74-92.
37Debusmann Bernd, “A Paradox of Plenty—Hunger in America”, Reuters.com, November 24, 2009, [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5AN0LR], last consulted May 4, 2017.
38Swinburn Boyd, Egger Garry and Raza Fezeela, “Dissecting Obesogenic Environments: The Development and Application of a Framework for Identifying and Prioritizing Environmental Interventions for Obesity”, Preventive Medicine, 29: 6, 1999, p. 563-570.
39Sefton Dru, “Study: Lack of Education Main Reason So Much Food Thrown Out in U.S.”, Spokesman-Review, February 9, 2005, p. D4, [http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2005/feb/09/study-lack-of-education-main-reason-so-much-food/], last consulted May 4, 2017.
40Levenstein Harvey, The Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America, New York, Oxford University Press, 1993.
41Burros Marian, “Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden at White House”, New York Times, March 19, 2009, p. A1, [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
42Obama Michelle, American Grown…, op. cit., p. 23.
43Foucault Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, New York, Vintage Books, 1990.
44Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, Thousand Oaks (CA), Sage Publications, 2009, p. 19.
45Burros Marian, “Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden at White House”, op. cit.
46Delehanty Randolph, “The Nation’s House”, Museum, 88: 1, January-February 2009, p. 40.
47Rose Nikolas, Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 73.
48Rae Nicol, “The Democrats Under Obama and Beyond”, IFRI, Potomac Paper 16, March 2012, p. 6, [https://www.ifri.org/en/publications/enotes/potomac-papers/democratic-party-underobama-and-beyond-0], last consulted May 4, 2017.
49Burros Marian, “Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden at White House”, op. cit.
50Bruce Mary, “Cookiegate: Sarah Palin Takes on ‘Nanny State’ Nutrition Guidelines”, November 9, 2010, [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/11/sarah-palin-tackles-schoolnutrition-debate-with-cookies/], last consulted May 4, 2017.
51McCarvel Bonnie and Braun Janet, “MACA Letter to White House About Organic Garden”, Croplife.com, March 31, 2009, [http://www.croplife.com/article/1984/maca-letter-to-whitehouse-about-organic-garden], last consulted May 4, 2017.
52More than six years after its inception, the Kitchen Garden is not officially certified organic, but is grown with exclusively organic methods. The plots are raised beds fertilized with White House compost, crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. No chemical or synthetic pesticides are used; instead, the gardening team relies on integrated pest management practices (ladybugs and praying mantises help control harmful bugs) and a campaign of aggressive removal.
53Burros Marian, “Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden at White House”, op. cit.
54National Gardening Association, “The Impact of Home and Community Gardening In America”, 2009, [https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/3126/], last consulted May 4, 2017.
55Henderson Nia-Malika, “President Obama Signs Child Nutrition Bill, a Priority for First Lady”, Washington Post, December 13, 2010, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121302407.html], last consulted May 4, 2017.
56St. Clair Stacy, “Michelle Obama Image Makeover”, Chicago Tribune, April 28, 2009, [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-04-28/news/0904270591_1_mrs-obama-michelle-obamafirst-lady-laura-bush].
57Similarly, introducing second First Dog Sunny in August 2013 has allowed to bring a “reassuring public presence” in a foreign policy context characterized by deep uncertainty surrounding military action against Syria. Maltzman Forrest, Lebovic James, Saunders Elizabeth and Furth Emma, “Unleashing Presidential Power: The Politics of Pets in the White House”, PS: Political Science and Politics, 45: 3, July 2012, p. 395-400.
58Eliade Mircea, Mythes, rêves et mystères, Paris, Gallimard, 1957.
Auteur
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Aurélie Godet
Ancienne élève de l’École normale supérieure de Lyon, agrégée d’anglais, est depuis 2013 maître de conférences en civilisation américaine à l’université Paris Diderot. De 2009 à 2013, elle a consacré l’essentiel de ses recherches aux idées et aux mouvements conservateurs (elle a, notamment, publié Le Tea Party. Portrait d’une Amérique désorientée en 2012). Depuis 2014, elle étudie l’évolution des pratiques festives aux États-Unis depuis la période coloniale. Elle a dirigé un numéro de la Revue française d’études américaines sur cette question, organisé un colloque international sur « Carnaval et politique » en février 2015 à l’université Paris Diderot, et rédige aujourd’hui une histoire politique du carnaval de La Nouvelle-Orléans provisoirement intitulée Politics in Disguise : Carnival and Power in New Orleans. En parallèle, elle s’intéresse à l’histoire des jardins comme lieux de pouvoir dans le cadre du projet « Jardins » porté, entre autres, par l’université Paris Diderot, l’université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle et l’université de São Paulo.
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