""It has long been a space of female power and a female niche in the White House," said Elizabeth Rees, a historian and research fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. "With the West Wing being a traditionally male-dominated space, the East Wing was a unique physical space for women to workand provided them with their own environment in which to flourish.""
"Jacqueline Kennedy's flagship project as first lady was restoring the White House. That move inspired a trend for first ladies to foster at least one key project. First ladies thus needed bigger staff, but they lacked sufficient office space. "Betty Ford and earlier First Ladies were pretty much working out of their bedrooms, literally," said MaryAnne Borrelli, author of The Politics of the President's Wife and professor of government at Connecticut College."
The East Wing demolition to create a new presidential ballroom removed the public entrance to the presidential grounds, the first lady's office, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, and a movie theater. The East Wing began in 1902 as a terrace built by Theodore Roosevelt and was expanded in 1942 to cover an underground bunker and add offices. The Kennedy administration saw rapid growth of the first lady's staff driven by rising mass media and public interest, and first ladies initiated signature projects that required larger staffs and dedicated office space. The East Wing historically served as a distinct, female-centered workplace apart from the male-dominated West Wing.
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