Teddy Roosevelt: Which One Is Not Like The Other Ones?

He’s Everywhere!   roosevelt-t-disguise-kit.jpg

As the dream of a flood plain-based Long Island Theodore Roosevelt Library remains but a vision, the Peace Garden State is surging ahead.Teddy Roosevelt once shot a buffalo in North Dakota, and they’ve never recovered.

Theodore Roosevelt was the nation`s 26th president but number one in a lot of North Dakotans` hearts. He has his image forever etched in the side of Mount Rushmore, but lacks one thing that most modern day presidents have: a Presidential Library. Dickinson State University is gearing up to change that.”

Such is the passion for the future president’s passing through the state that North Dakotans have decided to beat Long Island in the race to become the nation’s premier depository of other archives’ Roosevelt documents.

The Long Island effort also promises to be pretty much free of anything original, but KFYR TV reports North Dakota is already creating facsimilies on the ground.  They are part way through the effort to archive other libraries holdings.

China Hand Jobs

hayes-china.jpg“In his inaugural address of March 5, 1877, President Hayes attempted to reassure the nation that change was necessary. He called for “not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country.”3 The Hayes service translated this message to the president’s official table, with the nation united – if only symbolically – through polychrome representations of the diverse flora and fauna from the north, south, east, and west.4 Pictured is an Ice Cream Plate.”

No doubt presidential tableware communicates some message at the time and to posterity. It also demonstrates the limits of house museums, presidential or other. The Woodrow Wilson House [still Washington D.C.’s only “Presidential Museum”!] is opening yet another exhibit of White House china from various administrations.

What lessons do we learn? That plates can unite the [white] nation! Rutherford Hayes err, “complex” service was all about bring some of us together to forget the recent unpleasantness.

“The United States of the 1870s was experiencing vast immigration from Europe as well as continuing growing pains through western expansion. Added to these was the very potent aftermath of the Civil War; Hayes’s 1876 victory was secured through his promise to remove Federal troops from the South, bringing the Civil War to a full close twelve years after its text book ending.”

The Wilsonists claim “…most Americans think that museums and historic sites are the most trustworthy sources for exploring the past,” but many Americans might find the statement above a rather bloodless description of the end of reconstruction and acceleration of black disenfranchisement.

You’ll Come For The Crude Ceramics, You’ll Stay For The Tortured History!

nixon-museum-of-hoaxes.jpgWhatever ropes them in!

From the Los Angeles Times’s Orange County Calender:

Saturday

Children’s swap meet: Children can buy and sell their sample wares. 8-11 a.m. Free. Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace, 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda. (714) 961-7181 or www.nixonlibrary.org

It’s all about headcount! nixon-preschool.jpg

Nixon Is My Dentist

Late of the beloved anarcho-syndicalist one hit wonders Chumbawamba, Danbert Nobacon has released The Library Book Of The World, backed by the musical stylings of the Pine Valley Cosmonauts.

For our purposes the highlight is the song Nixon Is My Dentist, sadly not available on the artist’s MySpace page.

We can enjoy the lyrics though, as the late President contemplates the devastation Bush has wrought:

“NIXON JOLTS, BOLT UPRIGHT IN HIS GRAVE

BANGS HIS HEAD ON THE LID … … HE NEEDS A SHAVE

PAT LOOKS ROPEY, SHE’S SEEN BETTER DAYS

THEY CAN’T BELIEVE HOW WELL THE PRESS BEHAVES

(HE SAYS) YOU DON’T KNOW HOW GOOD YOU GOT IT SON”

nixons-the-one-record.jpg

Flights of Fancy

The American Presidents blog unintentionally called attention to a piece of presidentish flim-flammery when they quote [but don’t link to] the Reagan Library’s story on how come they have that big plane: “Upon leaving office, President Reagan stated that one day he hoped he would be able to share Air Force One with the American people by placing it at his Presidential Library.” reagan-cockpit-air-force-one.jpgThe full text is here.

No doubt a touching scene, but the library copywriters don’t tell us who this great communication was with.

The Reaganites have a history of colorful accounts of the plane’s acquisition. In 2003 their Director of Communication claimed that the Pentagon was “looking at both us and the Smithsonian, and when we got word of that, we actively sought after it….The story goes that President Reagan once said that he wished that his library could have his main Air Force One. So with that, and since we had the room, and the Smithsonian didn’t, the US Air Force thought it would be a great fit for us.”

That’s implausible. In 2000 the Smithsonian broke ground on an immense annex near Dulles Airport in , opening in 2003. The Reagan Hanger opened in 2005 after a 2001 donation by the Pentagon.

The Udvar-Hazy Center is absolutely vast, with room for a Concorde, the Enola Gay and dozens of other aircraft. This photo gives some perspective on the size:reagan-smithsonian.jpg

[So huge they appear to have snuck Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International into the corner.]reagan-tatlin.gif

The Reagan Library ends up with a tourist draw, reagan-air-force-one.jpgdebate hall and fount of schlock, pedaling about 40 Air Force One related items from the gift-shop. Cocktail coasters are available.reagan-cocktail-coaster.jpg