The Map Room, used by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt as a situation room from which to follow the course of World War
II, now serves as a private meeting room for the President or the First Lady.
It was decorated in 1970, and again in 1994, as a sitting room in the
Chippendale style, which flourished in America during the last half of the 18th
century.
Named after the English furniture designer Thomas Chippendale, this
style combines the graceful lines of Queen Anne furniture with carved motifs in
more elaborate rococo, Gothic, and Chinese styles. The handsome, walnut high
chest of drawers on the south wall was made in Philadelphia about 1770 and has
shell carvings on its pediment and apron and the knees of its cabriole legs.
The open-arm easy chair is attributed to Philadelphia
cabinetmaker Thomas Affleck and dates between 1760 and 1770.
The simple sandstone mantel was made from stone removed during the
Truman renovation of the
White House. Above it hangs the last situation map prepared in this room for
President Roosevelt, on April 3, 1945. To the right of the fireplace is a chest
of drawers with a serpentine front made in Philadelphia about 1765. On it rests
a medicine chest that is believed to have belonged to President and Mrs. James
Madison and to have been
taken from the White House just before the building was burned during the War
of 1812.
A rare 1755 French version of a map charted by colonial surveyors
Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (Thomas
Jefferson's father) hangs on
the east wall, covering a case of world maps presented by the National
Geographic Society.
