Woodrow Wilson’s White House Sheep

After the United States entered the First World War in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appealed to average Americans to make personal sacrifices in support of the war effort, using his bully pulpit to stoke American’s sense of patriotism and compassion for soldiers abroad through food rationing and other personal sacrifices. In an attempt to lead by example, the president and First Lady Edith Wilson sacrificed with Wheatless Mondays and Meatless Tuesdays, riding in their horse-drawn carriage instead of an automobile to conserve fuel for the war effort.

A National Example

Setting a further example by encouraging American women to care for American fighting men overseas, the First Lady sewed clothes for doughboys at a feverish pace. To further drive down taxpayer expense for maintaining the expansive lawns that surrounded the White House, in 1918, Dr. Kerry Grayson, a close friend and personal aide to the president purchased twelve sheep and four lambs from William Woodward’s farm in nearby Bowie Maryland, a flock that not only trimmed the White House lawns, but also produced over 90 pounds of wool that was auctioned off for the Red Cross War Fund, raising more than $50,000 or slightly more than a million dollars in today’s currency. Over the next three summers, the White House flock grew to 48 sheep, until glaring problems arose due to an overabundance of destructive, glutinous sheep.

Curious Onlookers

According to a Washington Post article, the White House sheep grew increasingly spooked by the steady parade of cars that ferried tourists past the White House for a glimpse at the president’s sheep, at the same time falling ill with pneumonia at the height of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which infected more than 1/3 of the world’s population, while taking the lives of an estimated 50 million people. They also tore up much of the back lawn of the White House, prompting Wilson to move them to the front lawn after erecting fences to protect the flowers and trees, which the sheep managed to destroy anyway. Sold off in 1920, the legacy of Wilson’s sheep lives on at his presidential library in Staunton Virginia, making Woodrow Wilson, the one and only American president to show his patriotism through sheep.