Andrew Jackson (1767 - 1845)
'The Cheese Levee' of 1837
February 22nd 1837: Jackson’s cheese reception
On this day in 1837, U.S. President Andrew Jackson held a reception at the White House where he served a 1,400-pound block of cheese to members of the public. Elected in 1828, Jackson was the embodiment of a new kind of American governance based on the vote of the common man - Jacksonian Democracy. Many of his supporters saw his brand of politics, which was focused on an ideal agrarian republic of small farmers, as an inheritor of the nation’s third President - Thomas Jefferson. During Jefferson’s term, one of his admirers from Cheshire, MA. resolved to make the President the largest cheese imaginable. The cow-owners of the town joined together to create a 1,600-pound block of cheese, which was bought to Washington D.C. and presented to Jefferson in the White House East Room. Several years later, Jackson’s supporters decided to award him with his own block of cheese. A prosperous New York farmer named Thomas Meacham led the project, and the giant cheese was exhibited around Northern cities including New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, before being presented at the White House. During an 1837 reception on Washington’s birthday Jackson, in desperation with what to do with such a mammoth cheese, invited thousands of citizens to come and eat the cheese. Two weeks later, the increasingly feeble Jackson stepped down as President upon the inauguration of his successor, Martin Van Buren. The event resurfaced in national attention when it was mentioned in political drama The West Wing, which has inspired an annual event held by the White House where they invite members of the public to send questions to the administration via social media.
"The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day"
- Benjamin Perley Poore in Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (1886)
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