In June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Washington. Although the White House had had air-conditioning installed in its offices ten years earlier, family and guest rooms weren't artificially cooled. Despite this, the King and Queen requested hot-water bottles, heavy-duty bedding and glasses of hot milk before bedtime. Perhaps this was the ostentatious stoicism of the aristocracy. Perhaps they were just bonkers. In Washington in June 1939, the temperature hung in the nineties Fahrenheit, with humidity to match. The Foreign Office rated it as a tropical posting and, until the advent of air-conditioning, the political class had evacuated the former swamp between June and September.

LRB 6 February 2003 | PDF Download