section_path: Public access and security/Historical accessibility
section_name: Historical accessibility
paragraph_text: Historical accessibility
  
  Like the English and Irish country houses it was modeled on, the White House was, from the start, open to the public until the early part of the 20th century.
  
  Inspired by Washington's open houses in New York and Philadelphia, John Adams began the tradition of the White House New Year's Reception. Thomas Jefferson permitted public tours of his house, which have continued ever since, except during wartime, and began the tradition of an annual reception on the Fourth of July.
  
  President Jefferson held an open house for his second inaugural in 1805, and many of the people at his swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol followed him home, where he greeted them in the Blue Room. Those open houses sometimes became rowdy: in 1829, President Andrew Jackson had to leave for a hotel when roughly 20,000 citizens celebrated his inauguration inside the White House. His aides ultimately had to lure the mob outside with washtubs filled with a potent cocktail of orange juice and whiskey. The practice continued until 1885, when newly elected Grover Cleveland arranged for a presidential review of the troops from a grandstand in front of the White House instead of the traditional open house.
  
  Those receptions ended in the early 1930s. President Bill Clinton briefly revived the New Year's Day open house in his first term.