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Satanic Tomatoes and Other Weird Details Not Taught in History Class

Khalid Elhassan July 4, 2020 33 min

South Lawn - Goat — Wilson's sheep. Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum

35. White House Sheep

Wilson’s sheep. Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum

It began in the spring of 1918, when President Woodrow Wilson was motoring around the countryside with a friend, and remarked that he would like to see some sheep at the White House. It sounds a bit weird now, but it was not that weird a century ago. Wilson and his wife wanted to be the model family for supporting the war effort, and indeed, over the next two years, wool sheared from the White House’s sheep would yield $52,000 for the American Red Cross at auction – a princely sum back then.

However, it was not all smooth sailing. As a Washington Post article reported on May 12^th, 1918, just a few weeks into the sheep ranching experiment: “President Wilson is having no end of trouble with the flock of sheep he purchased recently to graze on the White House lawn“. The sheep were scared of the cars and trucks that had recently started to appear in the District of Colombia in increasing numbers. It was just the start of an ongoing sheep drama.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.