According to the White House Historical Association, President Herbert Hoover was the first to appoint a White House Secretary to provide press briefings and in 1929 selected George Edward Akerson for the position. A journalist and former President of the Minneapolis Press Club, Akerson had worked previously as an assistant to Hoover at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He served in his White House position from 1929 to 1930.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin cites President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the first to institutionalize the position of White House Press Secretary, with the 1933 appointment of former Associated Press correspondent Stephen T. Early. Mr. Early held the position until 1945, returning to the White House again as Press Secretary briefly in 1950 under President Harry Truman.