From The New York Times:
The Crowds Have Grown Bigger, the Hats Shorter
By JIM RUTENBERG
By JIM RUTENBERG
There is certainly no denying the singular historical importance of the swearing-in of the nation’s first black president.
But the many superlatives attached to the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday also happen to make it like so many inaugurations that have come before it, each with its own set of “firsts,” “mosts” and “unprecedenteds.”
Mr. Obama will break new technological ground by being the first to use text-messaging and YouTube as part his festivities. James Polk plowed a path in 1845 by holding the first inaugural to be covered by telegraph, while James Buchanan’s inaugural in 1857 was the first known to be photographed. Calvin Coolidge’s inaugural in 1925 was the first covered nationally by radio, and Harry S. Truman’s inaugural in 1949 was the first to be televised nationally.
(John Adams was the first president to wear long trousers during a swearing-in, according to a list of inauguration trivia kept by the office of the architect of the Capitol. Apropos of nothing, this irresistible factoid certainly deserves its place in these parentheses.)
Mr. Obama will set new standards in inaugural protection, with some 20,000 officers requiring potentially millions to pass through metal detectors as they enter the largest security zone established for an inauguration. Lyndon Johnson in 1965 was the first to use a fortified, bullet-proof limousine and the 1997 inauguration of Bill Clinton was the first to have protection from a Marine Corps unit specializing in chemical and biological weapons.
But an examination of inaugural-week customs provides more than a sharp lens capturing the country’s striking political, technological and sociological shifts. It also offers, over the course of 43 presidencies, a refresher in those constants that have been stubbornly immune to the changing times.
“It’s a sign of constitutional stability and endurance that I find actually quite reassuring,” the presidential historian David M. Kennedy said of the inaugural tradition. “If you mapped out the extreme regularity of the cycle of elections and inaugurations and swearing-in ceremonies against the very mercurial changes in the economy and technology and world affairs, I think it’s actually quite comforting.”
Perhaps no previous presidency has been referred to more since Mr. Obama’s election than that of Lincoln, and one fears that even Lincoln could “jump the shark” before this inaugural season is over. But reports from his two swearing-in ceremonies in 1861 and 1865 provide a striking mix of similarities and differences when compared with those planned for next week.
Mr. Obama is to take his oath upon the same Bible that Lincoln used. And the president-elect said last week that he had been studying Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address and its stirring call for national unity.
That inauguration came during the Civil War, and dispatches from the day tend to be brief and terse, with The Associated Press reporting the groundbreaking inclusion of African-Americans in the inaugural parade with a single clause: “One feature in the procession is the colored troops and the Odd-Fellows, with their band of music.”
The second inaugural had an in-person audience of 50,000 people, The New York Times reported at the time. Mr. Obama’s inauguration is expected to have an audience of two million to four million people.
Lincoln’s first inaugural, in 1861, was small enough that, according to an account in The Times the following day, “everybody who was entitled to admission got in, and everybody who could not go in could see from without.” On Tuesday, that will only happen with the help of 20 Sony JumboTrons.
Even with the Civil War looming, Lincoln and his predecessor, James Buchanan, headed to the Capitol that day for the swearing-in ceremony in an open-air carriage. Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush will also head to the Capitol together — in the closed and heavily fortified presidential limousine.
Then, as now, the Washington press corps seemed to revel in the search for meaning in every facial tic or expression of its subjects. A reporter for The Times noted that as Buchanan sat and waited for Lincoln to take his oath, he “sighed audibly, and frequently, but whether from reflection upon the failure of his administration, I can’t say.”
Then, as now, the public was transfixed by the glamour of the inaugural ball — though there was only one then as opposed to several now — and the style of dress of those lucky enough to go. “Mrs. Drake Mills is gorgeously attired in two thousand dollars’ worth of laces and twenty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds,” The Times reported in a lengthy recap of Lincoln’s first inaugural ball.
In an online style blog The Los Angeles Times advised those going to this year’s balls, “Go easy on the cleavage and don’t try to upstage the First Lady.”
Yet, during Lincoln’s inaugurals, women did not get much farther than the balls. Nellie Taft was the first first lady to ride with her husband from the Capitol to the White House, in 1909. Women were first included in the inaugural parade for Woodrow Wilson in 1917.
While Mr. Obama’s status as the first African-American to be president will be the most important “first” of the day, it is not the only first along demographical lines: Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the inaugural committee, reported that this will also be the first time that a gay and lesbian band has marched in an inaugural parade.
That is just the way these things work. Inaugurations tend to break ground in several areas. For instance, John F. Kennedy’s inauguration marked not only the first time a Catholic was taking the presidential oath, according to the architect of the Capitol’s office; it was also the last time a president-elect arrived to be sworn in wearing a top hat.
