Prologue: Pieces of History

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is located in Simi Valley, California—about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles—and holds over 60 million pages of documents, 1.6 million photographs, hundreds of thousands of feet of audiovisual material, and 40,000 artifacts.

In the Air Force One Pavilion, you can tour Air Force One (tail number 27000). This airplane carried Presidents Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush all over the world and the United States. This “Flying White House” was integral to Reagan’s presidency: he wrote many speeches, signed legislation, and relaxed while traveling in Air Force One.

You can also visit an exhibit on Presidential motorcades. Vehicles include one of Reagan’s presidential limousines, Secret Service suburbans, and a Marine One helicopter that flew President Johnson.

The Museum also features a reconstructed Oval Office, showing how President Reagan decorated using warm, earthy colors. He even displayed a collection of bronzed saddles.

One of President Reagan’s greatest goals while in office was to end the Cold War. He held many diplomatic talks with Mikhail Gorbachev. He  addressed Berlin in 1982 and in 1987, when he spoke in front of the Brandenburg Gate—an ornate 18th-century entrance gate that served as a symbol of European division. The museum features a piece of the Berlin Wall, which stands outside the building. Inside the museum, … [ Read all ]

Happy American Archives Month! Throughout October, we’re running a series of “spotlights” on the many locations that make up the National Archives. Remember, YOU can use the research rooms at our Presidential libraries.

The 13 Presidential libraries are part of the National Archives, even the ones that are not finished yet. The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum is still in the final stages of construction, expected to end next month. The Library is set to open to the public in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

The Library already holds over 29,000 cubic feet of textual records (over 70 million pages), 1200 cubic feet of audiovisual records, and approximately 80 terabytes of electronic records—the largest digital collection of any of the Presidential Libraries.

When it opens, the Museum’s permanent exhibit center around the themes of freedom, responsibility, opportunity, and compassion. The exhibit will use artifacts and documents from the Library. Other permanent features are a full-sized Oval Office, a Texas rose garden, and the Decision Points Theater, designed to educate visitors about the decision process and policies during the Bush presidency.

The Museum will also present temporary exhibits meant to complement the permanent exhibit and showcase the mission of the Library.

Online, you can find multiple photo and video galleries. Perhaps the most interesting is the … [ Read all ]

Only 43 men in the history of the United States have held the title of President.

That’s a fairly small group , smaller than your average NFL team. But smaller still is the group of professionals who have held the title as the President’s chief photographer. To date, only nine men have served as the official White House Photographer.

President John F. Kennedy first appointed photographer Cecil Stoughton in 1960 in the role of White House Photographer. In the nearly 50 years following that first appointment, Presidential photographers have served as visual historians of the President’s daily life.

These photographers captured rare glimpses inside the White House and the historic moments of the Presidents they served. In addition to iconic images that enter the public’s memory of the President, private moments are captured as well.

On October 21, 2011, the Truman Library and Museum in Independence, MO, is excited to share the works of these photographers with  the exhibition “The President’s Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office.”

The exhibit displays images from the 1960s, when the first Presidential photographer was hired, to today’s unprecedented coverage of Barack Obama. The National Geographic exhibition features works by veteran presidential photographers including David Hume (who photographed Gerald Ford), David Valdez (George H.W. Bush), Bob McNeely (Bill Clinton), and Eric Draper (George W. Bush).

This tradition continues today as the 44th President’s chief … [ Read all ]

We’ve all seen the photo of when Nixon met Elvis, but the King wasn’t the only celebrity President Nixon brushed shoulders with. Can you identify the famous soccer player in this picture?  Enter your guess below and then click on the image for the answer!… [ Read all ]