With microphone in hand, President Wilson demonstrates ground-to-air communication in 1918 - National Archives First Lady Helen Taft loved entertaining and White House hospitality during the Taft administration centered on the dining table, where the Tafts' tastes were regal. A "Forty-quart Peerless Ice Cream Freezer," with a direct current motor and a twelve-foot long Imperial French Coal Range were added to the large kitchen in 1912. On January 25, 1915, Woodrow Wilson placed a ceremonial phone call from the Oval Office to inaugurate the first transcontinental telephone line, from New York to San Francisco. President Wilson also demonstrated ground-to-air radio communication in 1918. Source: William Seale, The President's House, 754, 794.