An Insider’s View of the TR Site
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It can be helpful at times to step back and look at how many of the basic features of life, and in this case politics, have changed over America’s history. During the turn of the last century, it was well within the bounds of cultural and legal acceptance to exhibit the president’s face on all manner of things. The advertisement card, O...
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Before any big event, there are always last minute details - finalizing the menu, putting out extra chairs, some light cleaning, etc. But what happens when a key piece of your event has been lost in the mail? That’s the position that the Site was in when, less than a week before its opening on September 14th, 1971, a large box of custom-made ...
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The city of Buffalo began its exponential expansion after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. Seventy-six years later, in 1901, Buffalo hosted the Pan-American Exposition, which highlighted the glory of both Buffalo and electricity. August’s Artifact-of-the-Month is a sepia tone postcard with images of the homes of John Milburn and Ansl...
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Every day at the Pan-American Exposition was a special day. With 350 acres (or more than half a mile) of education and entertainment, the grounds of the Pan-Am were bustling with different daily activities. To help visitors keep track of the plethora of events, the Pan-American Exposition Program Company published an official daily program for ever...
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After his inauguration in 1901, the not-quite-43-year-old Theodore Roosevelt moved into the White House with his wife, Edith, and six children, ranging in age from 17-year-old Alice to almost-four-year-old Quentin. The energetic family quickly grabbed the attention of the American public with stories of kids roller-skating through the hallways and ...
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There is an often-used saying about Buffalo weather: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change.” In 1901, with the Pan-American Exposition’s May 1st opening day approaching rapidly, construction crews battled an abnormally wet winter and spring. Then, a freak April snowstorm dropped almost 10 inche...
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When I was in college, my Intro to Museum Studies course started out the section on collections management with the premise that “a person walks into a museum with a box.” For most museums, both large and small, this is how the vast majority of their collections are acquired -- from individual donors who have an item or items that they ...
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"Happy and fortunate is the man who can spend three days at the exposition. If he spends his time rightly it will be worth to him a year at college for the attainment of useful knowledge." (Leslie's Weekly, May 11th, 1901) For a man such as Theodore Roosevelt with his varied interests and a voracious appetite for knowledge (it was said...
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As the organizers of Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition planned for the event’s May 1901 opening, they used a variety of ways to promote the fair. For example, the Pan-Am’s Publicity Bureau sent a series of posters to postmasters throughout the United States and the Western Hemisphere. The posters were designed to entice viewers to...
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When Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley, he moved into the Executive Mansion with his wife (Edith), and their six energetic children. In January of 1902, less than six months after arriving at the White House, Theodore Roosevelt’s oldest daughter, the not-quite-eight...
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UPDATE: Since the Speaker Nite presentation referenced in this blog post -- and, indeed, since this blog post was written -- the American Museum of Natural History has requested that the Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt be removed from the museum’s steps. Read more here. Follow this link to watch the Speaker Nite presentat...
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Note: Digital images of the entire Log Cabin register are available by following this link. One of the most intriguing items in the TR Site’s collection is a visitors’ log [1986.010.001] that looks pretty unremarkable at first glance. This book was the guest register from a Pan-American Exposition building called the Log Cabin &...
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Looking for something to keep your mind occupied during the coronavirus shutdown? We’ve pulled together some of our favorite Speaker Nite recordings and grouped them into thematic playlists. Enjoy! Theodore Roosevelt is inextricably linked to the Progressive Era -- he is one of the most recognizable presidents from that period and when he sp...
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Looking for something to keep your mind occupied during the coronavirus shutdown? We’ve pulled together some of our favorite Speaker Nite recordings and grouped them into thematic playlists. Enjoy! TR is often remembered as the conservation president. After all, he established 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national gam...
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Looking for something to keep your mind occupied during the coronavirus shutdown? We’ve pulled together some of our favorite Speaker Nite recordings and grouped them into thematic playlists. Enjoy! The history of Buffalo and Western New York is long and has many twists and turns. These recordings highlight just a few elements of that ...
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The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation, a registered non-profit organization, through a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.
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