U.S. Presidential Libraries

     There are 13 Presidential Libraries and one Museum in the U.S. Presidential Library System, administered by the Office of Presidential Libraries, representing the 13 most recent presidents in U.S. history: Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, William J. Clinton and George W. Bush. Gerald Ford’s Library and Museum are in two separate cities in Michigan, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. They are all operated and overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The George W. Bush Presidential Library, which is temporarily located in Lewisville, Texas, is number 13. The permanent Presidential Center, still under construction, will be located on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, the alma mater of First Lady Laura Bush. Both the Kennedy and the Carter libraries are slated for upgrades and facelifts.

     And although not officially sanctioned and maintained by NARA, libraries have been organized for several Presidents who preceded the official start of the Presidential Library Office. They are operated by private foundations, historical societies, or state governments, including the William McKinley, Rutherford Hayes, Calvin Coolidge, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson libraries. For example, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is owned and operated by the State of Illinois. The homes of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams have been preserved as museums or historical sites as well. Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello, which Jefferson designed, along with nearby University of Virginia was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, as well as being a U.S. National Historical Landmark. The Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts, preserves the home of Presidents of the United States John Adams and John Quincy Adams, of U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams, Sr., and of the writers and historians Henry Adams and Brooks Adams.

The national historical park's eleven historic structures tell the story of five generations of the Adams family (from 1720 to 1927) including Presidents, First Ladies, U.S. Ministers, historians, writers, and family members who supported and contributed to their success. In addition to "Peacefield," home to four generations of the Adams family and also called the “Old House”, the park's main historic features include: John Adams birthplace (October 30, 1735), the nearby John Quincy Adams birthplace (July 11, 1767); the Stone Library (built in 1870 to house the books of John Quincy Adams and believed to be the first presidential library) containing more than 14,000 historic volumes. United First Parish Church, where both Presidents and the First Ladies are entombed in the Adams Crypt are not now nor have they ever been administered by the National Park service. The Church is owned by the active congregation of Unitarian Universalists. The congregation has used its own resources including its endowments to preserve the building. In the past 10 years the congregation has invested almost $2 million to preserve the building for the next several generations of citizens and members of the congregation.

     The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace was not originally part of the presidential library system. The Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, which administers the Nixon presidential materials under the terms of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, was part of NARA; the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace was run by a private foundation. In January 2004, Congress passed legislation that provided for the establishment of a federally operated Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, CA. In March 2005, the Archivist of the United States and John Taylor, the director of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation, exchanged letters on the requirements to allow the Nixon Library to become the twelfth federally funded Presidential library to be operated by the NARA, by 2007.

On October 16, 2006, Dr. Timothy Naftali began his tenure as the first federal director of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, and in the winter of 2006 NARA began transferring the 30,000 presidential gifts from the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff in College Park, Maryland to Yorba Linda, California. On July 11, 2007, the Nixon Foundation deeded the Library and Birthplace to the government of the United States. On the same day, the newly-renamed federal Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum officially opened.

     Presidential Libraries can be found across the country. Visiting one gives you, your family or your students the opportunity to explore the rich history of our nation and the leaders who helped shape our society. At Presidential Libraries you will find an array of things including museums with interactive exhibits, information on a large variety public programs, important educational and historical events and vast archives and artifacts of our country’s history. The Museum at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, in partnership with NASA's Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston, tell the story of America's exploration into space, the final frontier. The Reagan Library exhibits his retired Air Force One and movie memorabilia from Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Davis Reagan’s Hollywood years as well as artifacts and archives from Reagan’s years as Governor of California and President of the United States. The John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library contains historical information highlighting the careers of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and U.S. Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy as well as the lives of President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.

     If you live close to a presidential library or museum it is worth a yearly trip or visits for special events. If you don’t live close to one it is a worthwhile vacation destination or should at least be a major stop on your vacation trip. Local schools would all benefit from a visit to any of the libraries or museums while studying U.S. History and especially the president whose library they are near. Online visits are also helpful to students.

     With the exception of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, every American president since Hoover is or has chosen to be buried at their presidential library. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery; Johnson is buried at his ranch in the hill country of Texas, west of Austin; Carter plans to be buried near his home in Plains, Georgia.

     Having had the privilege to visit several of these wonderful libraries and sites it would be my hope that every American visits at least one. It would also be my hope that national government would sponsor a general all encompassing Presidential Library highlighting those presidents who do not have individual libraries.

The greatest teacher and guarantee against repeated failure is a good understanding of the past!

By Marion Algier/Ask Marion

Ezine Author

Thought For The Day - 11.08.08

“Wherever you go, no matter

 what the weather, always

 bring your own sunshine.” 

…Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

 Here is a great (true) story about someone who always brought his own sunshine, as he slowly watched things change….

 

The White House Butler

WASHINGTON — For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land.

He trekked home every night, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than the large desk in the Oval Office. Helene didn't care; she just beamed with pride.

President Truman called him Gene. President Ford liked to talk golf with him.

He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. "I never missed a day of work," Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.

When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. "We had never had anything," Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. "I was always hoping things would get better."

In 1866 the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, sensing an opening to advocate for black voting rights, made a White House visit to lobby President Andrew Johnson. Johnson refused to engage in a struggle for black voting rights. Douglass was back at the White House in 1877. But no one wished to discuss his political sentiments: President Rutherford Hayes had engaged the great man — it was a time of high minstrelsy across the nation — to serve as a master of ceremonies for an evening of entertainment.

In the fall of 1901, another famous black American came to the door. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, head of the Tuskegee Institute, to meet with him at the White House. Roosevelt was careful not to announce the invitation, fearing a backlash, especially from Southerners.

Started as 'pantry man'

Before he landed his job at the White House, Gene Allen worked as a waiter at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va., and then at a country club in Washington.

He and his wife, Helene, 86, are sitting in the living room of their Washington home Her voice is musical, in a Lena Horne kind of way. She calls him "Honey."

The couple met in Washington at a party in 1942. He was too shy to ask for her number, so she tracked his down. They married a year later.

In 1952, a lady told him of a job opening in the White House. "I wasn't even looking for a job," he says. "I was happy where I was working, but she told me to go on over there and meet with a guy by the name of Alonzo Fields."

Fields, a maitre d', immediately liked Allen and offered him a job as a "pantry man." He washed dishes, stocked cabinets and shined silverware. He started at $2,400 a year.

There was, in time, a promotion to butler. "Shook the hand of all the presidents I ever worked for," Allen says.

"I was there, Honey," Helene reminds him. "In the back maybe. But I shook their hands, too." She's referring to White House holiday parties, Easter Egg hunts. They have one son, Charles, now an investigator with the State Department.

"President Ford's birthday and my birthday were on the same day," Allen says. "He'd have a birthday party at the White House. Everybody would be there. And Mrs. Ford would say, 'It's Gene's birthday, too!' "

And so they'd sing a little ditty to the butler. And the butler, who wore a tuxedo to work every day, would blush.

"Jack Kennedy was very nice," he goes on. "And so was Mrs. Kennedy."

"Hmm-mmm," she says, rocking.

A State Dinner

He was in the White House kitchen the day JFK was slain. He got a personal invitation to the funeral. But he volunteered for other duty: "Somebody had to be at the White House to serve everyone after they came from the funeral."

The whole family of President Carter made him chuckle: "They were country. And I'm talking Lillian and Rosalynn both." It comes out sounding like the highest compliment.

First lady Nancy Reagan came looking for him in the kitchen one day. She wanted to remind him about the upcoming state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But she told him he would not be working that night.

"She said, 'You and Helene are coming to the state dinner as guests of President Reagan and myself.' "

Husbands and wives don't sit together at these events, and Helene was nervous about trying to make small talk with world leaders. "And my son says, 'Momma, just talk about your high school. They won't know the difference.'

"The senators were all talking about the colleges and universities that they went to," she says." I was doing as much talking as they were.

"Had champagne that night," she says, looking over at her husband. He just grins: He was the man who stacked the champagne at the White House.

Colin Powell would become the highest-ranking black of any White House to that point when he was named President Reagan's national security adviser in 1987. Condoleezza Rice would have that same position under President George W. Bush.

The butler remembers seeing both Powell and Rice in the Oval Office. He was serving refreshments. He couldn't help notice that blacks were moving closer to the center of power, closer than he could ever have dreamed. He'd tell Helene how proud it made him feel.

Gene Allen was promoted to maitre d' in 1980. He left the White House in 1986, after 34 years. President Reagan wrote him a sweet note. Nancy Reagan hugged him, tight.

Interviewed at their home last week, Gene and Helene speculated about what it would mean if a black man were actually elected president.

"Just imagine," she said.

"It'd be really something," he said.

On Monday, Helene had a doctor's appointment. Gene woke and nudged her once, then again. He shuffled around to her side of the bed. He nudged Helene again. He was all alone.

"I woke up, and my wife didn't," he said later.

The lady he married 65 years ago will be buried today.

The butler cast his vote for Obama on Tuesday. He so missed telling his Helene about the black man bound for the Oval Office

 “The One Thing We Can All Count On Is Change!”

(Some things are outside our ability to change… Some, our ability to affect lies in our passion and interest…  But how we react, accept or stand up to change is definitely within all our control.)