President Andrew Jackson’s First Inauguration, 1829

This illustration by the British satirical artist Robert Cruikshank, entitled President’s Levee, or All Creation Going to the White House, depicts crowds attending Andrew Jackson’s White House inaugural reception in 1829. As Margaret Bayard Smith, a well-connected Washington insider, described the scene, “The Majesty of the People had disappeared, and a rabble, a mob, of boys, negros, women, children, scrambling, fighting, romping. What a pity! what a pity!”