🤔 Which President Sent The First Email?

Hint: think of John Glenn...

Author

Brooks Dyroff
February 17, 2025

Hey, it’s Brooks. Welcome to Mondays with Money Marketers, where Wall Street meets Madison Avenue.

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DEEP DIVE

🤔 Which President Sent The First Email?

Hi Everyone, Happy Presidents' Day. Yes, that's where the apostrophe goes.

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to do two things:

  1. Highlight how you should ALSO mix fun and lighter emails into your marketing schedule.

  2. Include a picture of the first President who ever used email (because it's hilarious).

But before we share that photo, let's establish what Presidents' Day is quickly.

TLDR: After our first President, George Washington, died in 1799, his birthday was informally celebrated across the country. On January 31, 1879, Washington’s birthday officially became a federally recognized holiday. Somewhere along the way, we decided to make it the third Monday in February. This is the genesis of Presidents' Day.

Now, I love American history, facts, and trivia. So I couldn't help myself from searching, "Who was the first President to use email?".

Lo and behold this AMAZING picture of Slick Willie popped up:

According to the Clinton White House Archives, "In 1993, President Clinton became the first President in history to have a public e-mail address."

And according to Clinton himself, he only sent 2 emails during his entire administration:

“I sent a grand total of two emails as president,” he said. He added: “One to our troops in the Adriatic, and one to John Glenn when he was 77 years old in outer space.”

In fact, the picture above is him writing back to John Glenn while the famous astronaut was in space. Glenn had previously sent Clinton the message below:

Dear Mr. President,

This is certainly a first for me, writing to a President from space, and it may be a first for you in receiving an E mail direct from and [sic] orbiting spacecraft.

In any event, I want to personally thank you and Mrs. Clinton for coming to the Cape to d/see [sic] the launch. I hope you enjoyed it just half as much as we did on board. It is truly an awesome experience from a personal standpoint, and of even greater importance for all of the great research projects we have on Discovery. The whole crew was impressed that you would be the first President to personally see a shuttle launch and asked me to include their best regards to you Hillary. She has discussed her interest in the space program with Annie on several occasions, and I know she would like to be on a flight just like this one.

We have gone almost a third of the way around the world in the time it has taken me to write this letter, and the rest of the crew is waiting.

Sincerely,

John Glenn

When Clinton took office in 1993, according to Fortune “…there were about 50 sites on the Internet, and cell phones were so heavy that they were best used for bicep curls.”

So what's the takeaway?

Well, for me it's the fact that no social media existed and Clinton only sent 2 emails when he was President. Simpler times.

Speaking of which (obligatory plug), if you want to be transported back to simpler times and not have to worry about handling your own email marketing, let us do it for you.

We'll make sure your email marketing pulls a John Glenn and propels your business into the stratosphere.

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