Exploring The American Presidency Through 50 Historic Treasures

No person in the world is more recognizable than an American president. These men are larger than life, and as the leader of the free world they have the opportunity to shape history in ways that most of us cannot imagine. Some objects, such as the Resolute desk, Air Force One, or the presidential seal, are symbolic of the position itself, but each president has at least one artifact that largely defines his life and his presidency. For example, George Washington’s ill-fitting dentures plagued him for most of his life, affecting the very image of his face that we have all come to recognize. Millions of Americans were comforted by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” as he spoke into a radio microphone during the Great Depression and World War II. John F. Kennedy memorialized a coconut husk, with a message he wrote after his PT boat was destroyed in the Pacific Ocean, into a paperweight he kept on his desk in the Oval Office. Bill Clinton appeared on late night television playing the saxophone to appeal to younger voters. Exploring the American Presidency through 50 Historic Treasures brings together significant artifacts from the lives of the men who have led our nation through times of great prosperity and terrible tragedy. When we look at our presidents through the lens of the material culture they left behind, it humanizes them and creates relevance to our own lives. This book features full-color images of 50 artifacts that were chosen by the very people who work at presidential sites and historical museums, stewarding the legacies of our presidents.

Exploring the American Civil War through 50 Historic Treasures brings together historic objects, documents, artwork, and the natural and built environments to tell the full story of this important event in American history. The American Civil War still matters. It matters because the war—its causes and its consequences— continue to influence America as a nation. At its core, the Civil War was about slavery. Began as a fight to secure the future of slavery, the Civil War resulted instead in the abolition of slavery. The complex racial issues at its core, however, remain with us today. Exploring the American Civil War through 50 Historic Treasures begins with the causes of the war, examining objects that tell the story of slavery and its expansion in the nineteenth century. Cultural treasures representing the war years explore the battlefield and the homefront and the men and women caught up in the war as well the ways in which the scale of the war forced technological innovations. Given the centrality of slavery, race, and emancipation in the story of the Civil War, one section presents objects that detail how free and enslaved blacks transformed the war effort and were in turn transformed by the war. In the final section, the historic treasures trace the ongoing impact of the war, including the dramatic increase in the removal of Confederate monuments in the summer of 2020. Each object's story is detailed with color photos that draw readers into the story of the American Civil War. Many of these objects appear here in print for the first time.

Exploring American Jewish History through 50 Historic Treasures offers students and general readers new perspectives on the rich complexity of Jewish experiences in America. As one of America's most fascinating and enduring minorities, American Jews have played key roles in every era of American history and every region of the country. The 50 treasures are depicted in full color and range from a family cookbook to a college campus and include items that are iconic, ordinary, and whimsical. Each of the treasures is described in historical, material, and visual contexts, offering readers new, unexpected insights into the meanings of Jewish life, history, and culture.

A full-color exploration of the history of women's suffrage. From hunger strikes to massive parades, the American women’s suffrage movement grabbed the attention of citizens and politicians around the United States. Posters, lapel buttons, and even luncheonette plates carried the iconic phrase, “Votes for Women.” Over time this phrase became not only a slogan, but a rallying cry for the movement. Today, museums, libraries, universities, and historic sites across the country care for the objects and places that tell the story of suffrage. Exploring Women’s Suffrage through 50 Historic Treasures brings together a selection of these cultural gems representing the milestones, people, and legacy of the long campaign for women’s voting rights. Through color photos and short essays detailing each object’s story, readers will not only find themselves in the action of a groundbreaking social and political movement, but they are also transported around the nation to the institutions and sites that are the keepers of the country’s past.

What a thrill it was to visit our first presidential library. It was the beginning of an incredible journey that resulted in visiting all of the presidential libraries, which we seek to share with you in this book. As of this date, there are thirteen presidential libraries, which belong to the National Archives and Records Administration. We would like to take you along on this journey, giving you our impressions and underscoring some of the historic events these visits called to remembrance. The libraries are a glimpse into the lives of the men whose decisions and actions have made our nation what it is today. What a fascinating and revealing journey this has been. To visit one or all of the presidential libraries is an extraordinary experience and has heightened not only our understanding of the presidents but also of American history. It did something else. It gave us a destination, making it possible for us to visit some very interesting places across the country. Both of us are now retired after each of us spent fifty years in our chosen professions. Not only do we have the time to travel but the continuation of our life-long pursuit to learn. Shortly after we began our visits, we broadened our goal to visit at least one or more historic sites associated with each of our former presidents, frequently that would be their birthplace or some major event associated with their life. Eight years later we have achieved our goalwe have visited all thirteen libraries and one or more sites related to each of our forty-three former presidents. We hope you enjoy visiting the presidential libraries through the reading of this book.

Chronicles the rich history of the American presidency, including informative and entertaining biographies of each of the men who have held the office and full coverage of the 1996 election.

Several generations of historians figuratively abandoned the Oval Office as the bastion of out-of-fashion stories of great men. And now, decades later, the historical analysis of the American presidency remains on the outskirts of historical scholarship, even as policy and political history have rebounded within the academy. In Recapturing the Oval Office, leading historians and social scientists forge an agenda for returning the study of the presidency to the mainstream practice of history and they chart how the study of the presidency can be integrated into historical narratives that combine rich analyses of political, social, and cultural history. The authors demonstrate how "bringing the presidency back in" can deepen understanding of crucial questions regarding race relations, religion, and political economy. The contributors illuminate the conditions that have both empowered and limited past presidents, and thus show how social, cultural, and political contexts matter. By making the history of the presidency a serious part of the scholarly agenda in the future, historians have the opportunity to influence debates about the proper role of the president today. Contributors: Brian Balogh, University of Virginia; Michael A. Bernstein, Tulane University; Kathryn Cramer Brownell, Purdue University; N. D. B. Connolly, The Johns Hopkins University; Frank Costigliola, University of Connecticut; Gareth Davies, University of Oxford; Darren Dochuk, Washington University; Susan J. Douglas, University of Michigan; Daniel J. Galvin, Northwestern University; William I. Hitchcock, University of Virginia; Cathie Jo Martin, Boston University; Alice O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara; Bruce J. Schulman, Boston University; Robert O. Self, Brown University; Stephen Skowronek, Yale University