January 2026
#BlueStarByte: Do you know where the term “Kitchen Cabinet” comes from?
Region: BlueStarByte
Author: The Blue Star Strategies Team
The term “Kitchen Cabinet” has been used in the United States since the 19th century to describe a group of unofficial and informal advisors to the U.S. president, who have often held more influence than the president’s official cabinet or official advisory committees. The kitchen cabinet has taken many forms in presidential administrations, with friends, family members, and other non-political figures making up the kitchen cabinets of several former U.S. presidents. Do you know where the term comes from?
The term “Kitchen Cabinet” was popularized during the first term of Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1827-1837). Often credited as the United States’ first populist president and as a political outsider, Jackson turned to a group of long-standing friends, family members, journalists, and political allies for advice because he distrusted the members of his official cabinet, which was composed mainly of Washington political insiders.
While it is unclear who exactly coined the term, it was popularized by public discourse by opposition newspapers, which viewed Jackson’s reliance on informal advisors rather than cabinet members in a conspiratorial light. The term was used as a derogatory label to claim that Jackson’s informal group of advisors met in the White House kitchen and other private rooms, rather than his official meeting spaces.
The term has endured to this day, gradually taking on a less derisive character. The term has since been used to describe the informal advisory groups of several U.S. presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Some have even acquired distinct coinages, including Theodore Roosevelt’s “Tennis Cabinet” and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet”.