14. Myth: The Lincoln Bedroom was Abraham Lincoln’s Private Quarters
Fact: It didn’t become known as the Lincoln bedroom until 1961. So how did it get this name?
Americans believe that the room in the White House known as the Lincoln Bedroom earned that sobriquet because it was where Abraham Lincoln slept while in office. It isn’t. Lincoln used the room which was located in the area occupied by the Lincoln Bedroom, which is part of a suite of three rooms, as an office. He chose the room as an office in order to escape the horde of patronage seekers which crowded the downstairs corridors during his tenure. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in the room, and often convened meetings of his cabinet there. His successor, Andrew Johnson, also used the room as an office, as did several other presidents.
It didn’t become known as the Lincoln Bedroom until the renovation of the White House under the supervision of Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961. By then it was no longer the room where Lincoln had worked, the entire interior of the White House had been gutted in 1949, and the mansion was rebuilt, leaving only the exterior shell as part of the original structure, which itself had been rebuilt following the British burning of the mansion in 1814. During Lincoln’s day, the walls of the room were covered with maps of war campaigns, rather than the expensive wallpapers which cover them today.