One of the two revolving serving devices
at Adena, near Chillicothe, Ohio, built
1806-7. Benjamin Henry Latrobe planned
this house for Senator Thomas Worthington,
one of Thomas Jefferson’s frequent
dinner guests. The senator may have based
the design of these rotating shelves on
those he admired at the President’s
House. Ohio Historical Society
Click
here to learn more about domestic servants
in the Jefferson era
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Dumbwaiters in Place
of Servants
When Thomas Jefferson
entertained informally, he ordered five
small serving stands to be placed at strategic
points around the room. These "dumbwaiters" were
small tables, equipped with shelves placed
at varying heights. Some might hold salads
and wine; others would accommodate cutlery
and serving utensils. Servants brought
in hot food, but did not remain in the
room during the meal. Conversation
could flow freely, without the possibility
that workers might overhear sensitive information
and repeat it outside the White House.1
Margaret
Bayard Smith visited both the White House
and Jefferson's Virginia home, Monticello,
during the first decade of the 19th century.
She writes that the dumbwaiter "contained
everything necessary for the progress of
the dinner from beginning to end, so as to
make the attendance of servants entirely
unnecessary."2
Smith also describes an apparatus that Jefferson
installed at both Monticello and in the White
House:
"A set of shelves were so contrived
in the wall, that on touching a spring they
turned into the room loaded with the dishes
placed on them by the servants, . . . and
by the same process the removed dishes were
conveyed out of the room."3
1 William Seale, The President's
House (Washington: White House
Historical Association, 1986), 104-105;
Margaret Bayard Smith, The First
Forty Years of Washington Society, Portrayed
by the Family Letters of Mrs. Samuel
Harrison Smith (Margaret Bayard), From
the Collection of Her Grandson, J. Henley
Smith, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York:
Scribner, 1906), 388.
2 Ibid., 387.
3 Ibid.
Read more:
Robert L. Self and Susan R. Stein, “The
Collaboration of Thomas Jefferson and John
Hemings: Furniture Attributed to the Monticello
Joinery,” Winterthur Portfolio 33
(1998): 231–248.
Stuart D. Hobbs, “The Adena Dumbwaiters:
A Glimpse into Jefferson’s Executive
Mansion?” White House History 17
(2006): 44–49. |
