Eisenhower and the Revival of the White House Easter Egg Roll

A large crowd at the 1953 White House Easter Egg Roll. Eisenhower Presidential Library.

The White House Easter Egg Roll is one of the White House's most popular yearly events. Rolling eggs at Easter is thought to have begun in Scotland, where people rolled oatcakes down a hill for the holiday.

From the Capitol to the White House

The public first held informal, disorganised egg rolls on the Capitol lawn on the Monday after Easter. After the event damaged the grounds, Congress passed the Turf Protection Law in 1876, banning egg rolls and other events on the Capitol lawn. Rain cancelled any festivities the next year. In 1878 crowds gathered at the Capitol again and found the law enforced — and President Rutherford B. Hayes, moved by how much the public, and children especially, cared about it, let them roll eggs on the South Lawn of the White House instead. The tradition began there.

A twelve-year gap

During the Second World War the event was suspended, because of food rationing and because its safety could not be guaranteed in wartime. After the war, continued rationing and the renovation of the White House under President Truman kept it away. The egg roll did not return until President Dwight D. Eisenhower revived it in 1953 — the Washington Evening Star noted it was the first time since 1941 that egg-rollers had been invited onto the grounds.

As preparations began, Eisenhower wrote to William H. Burnham on April 2, 1953, that the White House staff was "girding itself for the Easter Roll on Monday", with fences put up — like New England snow fences — to keep the activity to the circle of lawn on the south side of the house. The public greeted the news with delight. Special Easter baskets were made for the Eisenhower grandchildren to carry the eggs they collected.

The 1953 roll

Thousands came to the gates. The Burlington Daily News of Vermont expected more than 50,000 people; the first wave through the gates numbered 12,000. They were so eager to see the President that he and his family had to withdraw from the lawn as the crowd surged toward them. Once things calmed, the Eisenhowers came out on the White House balconies above the South Lawn so everyone could see them. Ike and Mamie kept the egg roll going for the rest of his presidency.

An Eisenhower family occasion

Easter mattered to the Eisenhowers. Mamie always dressed carefully for the Sunday church service and the next day's egg roll, and newspapers reported her Easter outfits in detail — the Evening Star described a two-piece black suit, a white hat and a white fox fur cape for a service at the National Presbyterian Church. Her Easter clothes shaped public fashion: the outfit she was to wear in 1954 was modelled in New York before it was sent to her, and a Jackson, Mississippi, paper called her Easter outfit one of Washington's best-kept secrets.

The couple understood the value of being seen. At the 1956 egg roll the President met children and families at the gates, receiving and handing out Easter eggs. His last year in office was the last time a president appeared in person at the egg roll for over a decade.

The rules

Under Eisenhower, the Burlington Daily News explained, a child needed only to look 12 or younger to get in; adults were admitted only with a child; and everyone brought their own eggs. Press Secretary James Hagerty said bringing your own eggs went back to the first White House egg roll in 1878. Children race brightly coloured hard-boiled eggs with wooden spoons down marked lanes to a finish line.

New traditions

The event has kept its old customs while adding new ones:

• Pat Nixon was the first to have an Easter bunny at the White House.
• Rosalynn Carter and Betty Ford gave children plastic eggs with paper autographs inside.
• Nancy Reagan began giving every young visitor a collectable wooden egg signed by the President and First Lady, a custom that continues.
• Over the years there have been egg hunts, antique cars, a petting zoo, readings by the President and First Lady, folk dancing, talent shows, live bands, and even a lesson on the egg roll's history.

Postponed now and then by war, bad weather and, most recently, a global pandemic, the egg roll remains a favourite because it brings the President and the public together — a celebration the Eisenhowers' 1953 revival passed on to later generations.

Sources

• National Park Service, "History Rolls On: Eisenhower and the Easter Egg Roll." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/eisenhower-easter-egg-roll.htm
• Newspaper passages quoted in the original (Evening Star, Burlington Daily News, Clarion-Ledger) are paraphrased here.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.