Presidential Library Tourism
Presidential libraries are a unique sort of special library. They serve the strange dual function of being a museum dedicated to celebrating one of our nation’s leaders, and acting as a repository for all of that president’s papers and records. Presidential libraries I have visited have felt much more like the former, a museum and a celebration of a president’s life. 
Strangely, the earliest presidential library belongs to the undecorated Herbert Hoover, in Iowa. This, however, speaks to the magic of the presidential library. It is not a journalist’s straightforward account of a President’s triumphs and failures – a presidential library allows the public access to Presidential records, but it often highlights the nice stuff – the good things the president did, the stuff that worked out.
It was not Hoover, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt who really began the tradition of preserving presidential papers for the greater good.
According the archives. gov “during his second term in office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt surveyed the vast quantities of papers and other materials he and his staff had accumulated. In the past, many Presidential papers and records had been lost, destroyed, sold for profit, or ruined by poor storage conditions. President Roosevelt sought a better alternative. On the advice of noted historians and scholars, he established a public repository to preserve the evidence of the Presidency for future generations.”
Roosevelt’s library is truly an adventure – it is located on the grounds of his estate in Hyde Park, NY and showcases everything from his famous modified Ford to an entire section on the accomplishments of Eleanor (who actually lived with two ladyfriends at Val-Kill down the road from her husband).
Presidential libraries have not been without their controversy, though. Despite them giving presidents the unique opportunity to showcase their history as they saw it, often presidencies who valued privacy (erm, secrecy) over transparency of records have been more hesitant to preserve and then showcase their legacies.
Before there was Dick Cheney, and the NARA controversy. There was an even trickier Dick, who was wary of sharing his records with the public in a presidential library. Before the Presidential Records and Materials Act came out (perhaps as a direct result of Nixon’s secrecy habit and misdeeds), the records and materials of presidencies were considered to be the personal property of that president once they left office. Nixon’s Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California opened in 1990. The library was operated through private funds until 2006, when it was brought into the presidential library system. The delay in including Nixon’s library in the federal system was the direct result of a 30-year ban on removing Nixon’s presidential papers and tapes from Washington for fear that they might be destroyed by the embattled former President. While the library was privately operated it was known for its tendency to look with blind reverence on Nixon’s years in office. The first library director announced before its original opening that the library would not welcome researchers who were hostile to Nixon’s legacy, specifically naming Bob Woodward. It is not a surprise, then that the Nixon library is mired in controversy today for bringing in former White House counsel John Dean to speak at the library.
While not all presidential libraries have as interesting a founding history as Nixon’s, all are little trips in history where you can see the political history and the intimate objects of a Presidency. If you are a reader located in Providence you might try day-tripping to one of the nearby presidential libraries:
- John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Library in Boston. (46 miles away)
- Calvin Coolidge’s Library in Northampton (not operated by NARA… Coolidge was too early – 101 miles)
- The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. (164 miles)
Filed under: A Day in the Life, By: Miss Information, libraries, library history | 2 Comments
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One of my hobbies is visiting presidents’ homes and libraries, starting when I lived in San Antonio and would take visitors to the Austin-area LBJ library, birthplace and childhood home. Even though I lived in New England for ten years, I never made it to the JFK library.
Now back in Arkansas, I go to the Clinton Center at least twice a year. Thanks for writing about Presidential Libraries!
So far, I’ve only been to the Harry S Truman Memorial Library and Museum http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ but it was wonderful, and I remember it very fondly. I’ve also heard that at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/, there’s an animatronic LBJ who tells folksy jokes. I’m intrigued.