An Atwater Kent radio and cabinet similar to one owned by Herbert Hoover while he was president By the 1920s electric vacuum cleaners were cleaning the White House carpets, and an electric refrigerator was humming in the kitchen. Warren G. Harding had the house's first radio set installed in his study in 1922 on the second floor. To further advance the use of electricity, Calvin Coolidge celebrated the holiday season of 1923 by lighting the first National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse. Herbert Hoover installed 13 radios when he took office in 1929, and also ordered an expansion of the telephone system. Source: William Seale, The President's House, 886.