When bulldozers began to tear down the East Wing of the White House this week to clear the way for President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom, historians raised alarms that important American history was being buried in the rubble, including chapters about previous first ladies and their roles uplifting women going back nearly a century.

Among the offices housed in the East Wing is the Office of the First Lady, first professionalized by Eleanor Roosevelt during her husband’s administration. Roosevelt used the East Wing for official functions, as a base of operations for her activism and as a space for interacting with groups representing the American people, from the Girl Scouts to the Women’s Trade Union League. 

Betty Ford argued to increase pay for her staff in the East Wing. Rosalynn Carter became the first first lady to keep her own office there, in 1977. It was also in the East Wing that Laura Bush launched her literacy efforts, and where Michelle Obama oversaw her “Let’s Move” campaign.

Katherine A.S. Sibley, a professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said that before Carter, first ladies had offices in the presidential residence, often in their bedrooms. Roosevelt establishing a staff and presence in the East Wing — and subsequent first ladies having dedicated staff and their own offices there — were acknowledgements of the significant role presidential spouses play on key initiatives.

“To me, this demolition suggests that the current White House does not think that the first lady does anything of value,” Sibley said. “I’m not talking about [Melania Trump] particularly, but the office itself — they’re not cognizant of the history.” 

The demolition of the East Wing took many by surprise. In July, when Trump signed the executive order authorizing the construction of the ballroom, he said: “It won’t interfere with the current building. … It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

The ballroom is being financed by contributions from private companies with business before the Trump administration, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and OpenAI, according to news reports. At a dinner with donors last week, Trump said: “Everything out there is coming down and we’re replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms you’ve ever seen.” 

The National Capitol Planning Commission, an Executive Branch agency that Congress tasked with having a “comprehensive, consistent, and coordinated plan for the National Capital,” is now chaired by a top Trump aide, Will Scharf. He has said the commission does not have oversight over demolition, it only approves construction. 

The agency’s website states that it is closed due to the ongoing government shutdown. The 19th received an automated response to its email to the White House press office, saying there are staffing shortages and they are unable to respond to all inquiries, also citing the government shutdown. 

In a statement released Monday night, the White House characterized the response to the East Wing demolition as the “latest instance of manufactured outrage, unhinged leftists and their Fake News allies … clutching their pearls over President Donald Trump’s visionary addition of a grand, privately funded ballroom.”

Former East Wing staffers told East Wing Magazine that seeing the offices where they once worked torn down was “jarring,” a “gut punch” and “revolting.” Members of the Nixon administration asked the White House to stop the renovation or at least allow them to provide input on the preservation of artifacts. One said they feared a “time capsule” they had installed near a window would be destroyed.

Historian Alexis Coe told The 19th that “serious work would happen” in the East Wing, “on issues that were significant to the American population.”

From the East Wing, Roosevelt expanded the role of first lady, working to highlight women with intention. Her first news conference, on March 6, 1933, featured 35 reporters, all of them women. During her tenure, she held nearly 350 news conferences, helping to elevate the role of women in national and political life, as well as in journalism. 

People have also historically chosen to protest outside the East Wing as a way of making themselves seen and getting the attention of the first lady, including on the issue of civil rights in the 1960s, which Lady Bird Johnson supported. 

“Serious work is not going to happen there anymore. This is another instance in which Trump has said one thing — that the East Wing would not be altered — and he’s altering it,” Coe said.