Inaugural speech in full | Frosty outlook ahead | First Lady passes fashion test | Order of the day | People of Selma | Things to come | No excuse for prejudice | A day out with Mum and Dad | A slave's journey | Musical inspiration | A brave new world | Elizabeth Alexander: poem | Derek Walcott: poem

The inauguration is the first defining presidential moment: it may define the new president for good or ill, briefly or permanently; the occasion can be noble, embarrassing, drunken, freezing, pompous, frugal, moving, momentous or farcical. But for every one of America’s 44 presidents, including Barack Obama, the oath of office, the inaugural speech, the parade and the evening balls have represented an important symbolic foretaste of what is to come, before the hard work starts. Some presidents have seized the opportunity magnificently; others have fluffed it spectacularly.

A presidential inauguration is less a coronation than a sort of public wedding between the electorate and the president, with the thousands of attendees, invited and uninvited, as witnesses. The marriage may endure or it may turn sour, but the ancient ceremony and the party afterwards represent a sacred bonding moment in American political life.

America’s first president clearly could not wait for the event to end. George Washington muttered “so help me God” as he finished the oath, kissed the Bible and then rattled off an inaugural address of only 135 words.

Others luxuriated in the moment. In 1841 William Henry Harrison droned on for nearly two hours, hatless in the rain and bitter cold, caught pneumonia and was dead within a month. His speech ran to 8,444 entirely forgettable words: he was the first and last president to bore himself to death.

For some, the inauguration presented an opportunity for ostentation on a grand scale. In 1893 Grover Cleveland laid on 150 gallons of lobster salad, a 120-piece orchestra and a team of ten barbers to trim his guests’ moustaches. The dessert menu at Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration was an exercise in extravagant lateral thinking: “Tarte à la Nelson, Tarte à l’Orleans, Tarte à la Portuguese, Tarte à la Viene . . .” Dwight Eisenhower’s parade included 73 bands and several elephants.

Jimmy Carter’s inauguration took a contrary direction; he opted for an informal, dress-down occasion that fitted the troubled times. After the swearing-in, he walked the mile and a half to the White House, served pretzels and peanuts and insisted that the balls be downgraded to the less elitist “parties”.

He spent $3.5 million on his inauguration (the next Democratic President, Bill Clinton, spent $33 million), but his modesty did him little good with the electorate, who felt short-changed: they wanted more elephants.

For exuberant misbehaviour, the inauguration of Andrew Jackson in 1829 has never been bettered. Jackson came to power through unashamed populism, and the hairy backwoodsmen who voted for him flocked to Washington in droves, determined to party, hard. On the day of the inauguration, the President was mobbed by 30,000 supporters and only escaped the passionate embrace of the crowd by fleeing on horseback. The throng, many wearing beaver hats, then poured into the new White House, tipped over two barrels of orange punch and proceeded to get loudly plastered. Ladies fainted. Fights broke out. Glasses were smashed. One outraged official guest spotted a “stout black wench” sitting alone in one of the reception rooms, “eating in this free country a jelley with a gold spoon in the President’s House”.

It was a hard party to leave: so hard that guests had to crawl out of the windows. Finally, the revellers were lured away from the soft furnishings and sticky carpet after White House servants had the inspired idea of dragging barrels of bourbon and ice cream on to the lawn.

Mr Jackson was delighted. Congress voted him $50,000 to refurbish the White House in grand style and, like many inaugurations, the chaos and excitement were apt for the historical moment. “It was the People’s day, and the People’s President, and the People would rule,” wrote one observer.

Such vast logistical operations offer plenty of scope for things to go wrong, most notably the weather. At the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant, the ballroom was so cold that guests danced in top hats and overcoats and birds froze to death (their stiff corpses were said to have fallen into the punch bowls, causing some ladies to scream). In 1937 Franklin D. Roosevelt drove through a thunderstorm in an open-top car, waving to the crowd with his feet sitting in puddles of rainwater.

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