Construction of the White House

After Congress passed the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, establishing a permanent capital for the United States along the Potomac River, President George Washington worked with French engineer Peter (Pierre) Charles L'Enfant to choose sites for federal buildings, including the White House and the United States Capitol. In 1792, an encampment was built on this land for American, English, Scottish, and Irish wage laborers and craftsmen, along with barracks for enslaved African Americans hired out by their owners. For the next eight years, free and enslaved workers, both skilled and unskilled, labored side by side to build the White House. Hundreds of enslaved people took part in nearly every aspect of construction, including quarrying and transporting stone, cutting timber, producing bricks, and building the walls and roof. Across every phase of construction, enslaved and free African Americans worked as axe men, stone cutters, carpenters, brick makers, sawyers, and laborers. The use of enslaved labor to build the home of the President of the United States, often seen as a symbol of democracy, reveals the country's conflicted relationship with slavery and with the ideals of freedom and equality promised in America's founding documents.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States