There have been 43 Presidents of the United States, excluding the present President.
But there are only 13 Presidential Libraries, including the recently inaugurated George W. Bush Presidential Library.
How come?
The answer can be found at the National Archives’ “Presidential Libraries” website where we learn that President Roosevelt started the informal tradition of establishing a public repository “to preserve the evidence of the Presidency for future generations” when, during his second term in office, he surveyed the vast quantities of papers and other materials he and his staff had accumulated and wanted to prevent their loss, destruction or even for-profit-sale as had happened in the past with many Presidential papers and records.
Thus, Roosevelt raised private funds for the first Presidential Library and then turned it over to the U.S. government for operation through the National Archives and Records Administration, NARA.
Then, in 1950,
Harry S. Truman decided that he, too, would build a library to house his Presidential papers and helped to galvanize congressional action to establish a Presidential Library system, which Congress did in 1955 through the Presidential Libraries Act, establishing a system of privately erected and federally maintained libraries. The Act encouraged other Presidents to donate their historical materials to the government and ensured the preservation of Presidential papers and their availability to the American people.
Under this and subsequent acts, additional libraries were established including the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum that was dedicated in 1962.
The other 10 Presidential Libraries:
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
• John F. Kennedy Library
• Lyndon B. Johnson Library
• Richard Nixon Library
• Gerald R. Ford Library
• Jimmy Carter Library
• Ronald Reagan Library
• George H. W. Bush Library
• William J. Clinton Library
• George W. Bush Library
OK, you say, all good and well, but how about the other 30 U.S. Presidents.
Well, they may have to wait a little longer, although, according to Wikipedia:
Libraries and museums have been established for other presidents, but they are not part of the NARA presidential library system, and 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.
On April 30, 2013, both chambers of the North Dakota Legislative Assembly passed a bill appropriating $6 million to University to award a grant to the Theodore Roosevelt Center for construction of a building to be named the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library…
Finally, how about our very first President, George Washington, doesn’t he deserve a Presidential Library?
Or, as Ann Bookout of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association says, “No president in American history deserves the honor of a presidential library more than our first chief executive — nor is there a better story to tell…”
Yesterday, September 27, our first president finally got his Library, when the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, opened its doors next to the Washington home on the Mount Vernon, Va. estate.
As USA TODAY reported earlier, the $106 million, 45,000-square-foot library “fulfills one of Washington’s wishes. In April 1787, he told a friend that he needed a place to accommodate his ‘military, civil and private papers, which are voluminous and may be interesting.'”
Today, more than 200 years later, that wish has been fulfilled.
But why the quotes around Presidential Library in the title?
The Library built with private funds will not be part of the presidential library system, run by NARA.
Read more about the newest Presidential Library here, here and here.
Lead Image: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum courtesy http://www.jfklibrary.org/
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.