WASHINGTON — Jill Biden on Monday unveiled what she says is a reimagined White House public tour that will engage visitors' senses to teach them about the mansion's history and events that happened there.
New to the tour is the Diplomatic Reception Room, which previously had been off-limits. This ground-floor room is where President Franklin D. Roosevelt recorded his ''fireside chats.'' Snippets of some of those conversations will now play for visitors.
Tourists will also be able to go into several other ground floor rooms that previously were cordoned off at the doorway: the library; the China Room, which houses the collection of presidential place settings; and the Vermeil Room, which houses a collection of gold-plated silver tableware.
There's also greater access to the East Room and State Dining Room, and the Red, Blue and Green Rooms, all located on the floor above, known as the State Floor.
New displays, or reader rails, provide written details about the rooms, their contents and some of the history that happened there, in addition to offering experiences that encourage visitors to touch, see and hear.
For example, the display in the China Room plays a brief loop of some of the place settings. In the State Dining Room, there's a replica of a prayer that's on the mantel beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln so people can now read it because they were kept too far away from it.
''As a teacher for 40 years, I know that we all learn in different ways,'' the first lady, who teaches English and writing at a community college, said Monday at a White House event to mark the unveiling of the updated tour. People use all of their senses to learn, she said.
'We've made replicas so that you can feel the features of some of the sculpture's faces and touch the shining fabric on the furniture of the Blue Room," she said. ''You can now hear President Roosevelt's ‘fireside chats' in the room in which he recorded them, so you can feel as if you are there right beside him."
