What do you plan to do right when you retire? For Theodore Roosevelt, his answer was to take a trip to Africa. TR left the White House on March 4th, 1909 and just a few mere weeks later, on March 23rd, he was on his way to British East Africa. TR's trip to Africa was not a simple vacation, but a year-long expedition sponsored by the Smithsonian In...
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At the start of the twentieth century, the world had changed rapidly with the development of new technology and the growth in power of industrialized nations. This placed an increasing importance on international relations, and this month's artifact demonstrates the significance of world leaders - and their daughters - in such affairs. Alice...
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Sometimes I wonder how many visitors notice that the clock on the mantle in the Site’s restored library is set to 3:30. This isn’t by chance. It turns out that 3:30 p.m. is when Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office on September 14th, 1901 and that the clock is the original to the house. It is also March’s Artifact of the Mon...
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This month’s Artifact of the Month conveys the vision that First Lady Edith Kermit Carrow Roosevelt often portrayed to the world. In this stereoview, Mrs. Roosevelt is seated at a desk, depicted as well-dressed, calm, poised - in other words, a perfect First Lady. But there was more to Edith Roosevelt than just a pretty picture. When she ente...
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We think of Theodore Roosevelt as many things – president, soldier, hunter, trust buster, author – but one thing that is sometimes overlooked is TR as a Gold Star father. This devastating title came as a result of the death of Quentin Roosevelt, TR’s youngest son, during World War I. From the declaration of war in Europe in 1914,...
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Looking at the photos of the majestic buildings on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition, it’s hard to imagine that less than two years earlier, the area was just farmland on the outskirts of the city. And, by 1902, almost all of the buildings would be gone! Without physical remnants, these images are what remain to tell the story of the...
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In September 1901, the vast majority of Americans got their news through daily newspapers, which reported everything from extremely local news to stories from around the world. On September 5, the story of the day was President McKinley’s arrival in Buffalo and his visit to the Pan-American Exposition. It is easy to see the excitement in the ...
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Historical research is often compared to detective work. It consists primarily of locating small details and then trying to piece them together into a cohesive story. However, unlike detective work, in historical research you don’t usually have access to first-hand accounts since the characters have long since died. Personally, I know that I ...
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Following the assassination of President William McKinley, the nation looked for ways to express its grief regarding the sudden death of the immensely popular president. These ranged from letters written to McKinley’s grief-stricken wife, to flowers laid in the Temple of Music where the President was shot, to purchasing a wide variety of memo...
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Theodore Roosevelt famously enjoyed leading family and friends – not to mention an unsuspecting diplomat or two – on point-to-point hikes. His philosophy on these outings can be summarized as: “Over, under, or through, but never around.” In 1964, as concern grew that the home where Theodore Roosesvelt first took the presiden...
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Most of the world saw Buffalo’s 1901 Pan-American Exposition through the lens of Buffalo resident C.D. Arnold's camera. Arnold was born in Canada in 1844 and became famous for his photographs of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. He was then awarded the contract to take the photographs of the Pan-Am that would be used on all official publicati...
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As part of the Site’s 50th anniversary celebration, the Artifact-of-the-Month is an object that was in the house when Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office in 1901, but then took a slightly circuitous route back to the Site. The object that I’m referring to is one of the bookcases in the library -- to be more precise, the one in th...
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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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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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When he died on January 26, 1930, Ansley Wilcox was just a day away from his seventy-fourth birthday. Having served as an attorney in Buffalo for decades, Ansley left behind a strong legacy in Western New York. He argued multiple cases in front of the United States Supreme Court. As he aged, however, Ansley focused less on a trial-based legal...
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Theodore Roosevelt’s death on January 6, 1919, came as a shock to the nation. Perhaps it should not have; the former president spent six weeks in the hospital in late 1918 and lived in constant pain from rheumatism, gout, anemia, arteriosclerosis, and more. He continued to suffer from the effects of tropical diseases contracted during his 191...
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President William McKinley’s assassination on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition left the entire nation and particularly the host city of Buffalo is a state of shock and grief. In the aftermath, decisions needed to be made quickly about what private and public – if any – ceremonies should be held in Buffalo to honor this i...
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Throughout his life, Theodore Roosevelt was a frequent contributor to magazines and journals, receiving acclaim for his work. After his presidency ended, TR used his writings to maintain his voice in the public discourse, and he was often featured in national publications. His status as a former president (and an outspoken one at that) meant that h...
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Ansley Wilcox: Buffalo's Philanthropic Hero Visitors to the TR Site are sometimes so excited about Theodore Roosevelt that it’s easy to forget this was also the longtime home of the Wilcox family. Beyond their presidential connection, the Wilcoxes were prominent Buffalonians in their own right: Ansley was a well-respected attorney and Mary G...
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It’s a time of transition at the TR Site. As the spring semester draws to a close and the summer gets underway, we have interns coming and going. We recently bid a fond farewell to intern Leah Glenn, a graduate student in Buffalo State’s Museum Studies program. Leah discovered her passion for collections work while doing ...
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As we head into June and wedding season kicks into high gear, it brings to my mind all of the times that we hear from a visitor that “my parents/grandparents/aunt and uncle/second cousin once removed [or some version thereof] had their wedding reception here.” Many of those folks are referring to the time between 1938 and 1961 when 641 ...
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The official goal of Buffalo’s 1901 Pan-American Exposition was to commemorate the achievements of the 19th century and “to illustrate the progress and civilization of the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” However, for those visitors not interested in solely the educational aspects of the fair and looking to have a little fun, t...
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This month’s Artifact-of-the-Month is a stereoview of Theodore Roosevelt. Stereoviews (or stereographs, stereograms, or stereopticans) are cards that have two nearly identical views of the same image. When placed in a viewer, they give the image a 3-dimensional effect. Stereoviews were popular from mid-1800’s until around the end of Wor...
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Since March is Women’s History Month, we are highlighting paintings of three Wilcox women. Mary Grace Rumsey Wilcox was the “lady of the house” at 641 Delaware Avenue. She was Ansley’s second wife and the sister of his first wife. When Mary Grace and Ansley married in 1883, she became stepmother to her three-year-ol...
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The Site’s historic collection contains a wide variety of souvenirs from Buffalo’s 1901 Pan-American Exposition. I know that, as collections staff, I am not supposed to have favorites, but here is a secret – I do. My favorite type of Pan-Am souvenir are ruby glass pieces. These pieces are called either ruby flashed or ruby ...
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January 6th marks the one hundredth anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s death at the age of sixty, the result of a pulmonary embolism. In the days, weeks, and months following TR’s death, countless tributes and memorials were offered in his honor. Newspapers, as one might expect, began the process and there are several such ...
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Connor Marsherall is a senior at Daemen College, majoring in History & Political Science. He interned at the TR Site during the summer of 2018. During my internship here at the TR Site, I made a discovery that led me through a musical struggle and eventually an end result. To preface, I’m not a musical expert, I can’t read ...
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The Wilcox house at 641 Delaware Avenue is sitting empty. The community is concerned about its fate. But this isn’t the early 1960’s . . . it’s 1936. Mary Grace Wilcox had died in 1933 and the contents of the house had been auctioned off the previous year. In an odd preview of the drive that would, three decades later, successfull...
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In its restored rooms (the dining room, the morning room and the library), the TR Site strives to re-create the way the house looked when TR was here in September 1901. While some of the furniture on display are “period” pieces or items that were similar to those that the Wilcox family may have owned in 1901, the most prized furnishings...
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On Election Day 2016, approximately 10.7 million people will be eligible to vote for the first time in a presidential election. For this group, made up of both young people who just turned 18 as well as newly naturalized American citizens, it may be their first chance to participate in the American political process. Our Artifact-of-the-Month sp...
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Does this man look like Theodore Roosevelt to you? With his pince-nez glasses and his toothy grin, Theodore Roosevelt (TR) has a look that few people could mistake. While this poster proudly claims “Theodore Roosevelt For Governor,” it causes many visitors to do a double-take because it's most decidedly not the TR we know and love. ...
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“What is the most interesting/unique/weird item in your collection?” For me, this frequently asked question has a fairly easy answer - the needle used to sew up President McKinley’s stomach. Yes, you read that right. I know the questions that are swirling around. I had the same questions that I had the first time I saw this obj...
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Curved strands of red and blue script encircle a neoclassical building stitched onto this Pan-American Exposition souvenir handkerchief. The text identifies the structure as the Temple of Music—where President William McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901. Looking at the handkerchief alongside an actual illustration of the Temple of Music, ...
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Here at the Site, we’re preparing for our third annual April Fool’s Fun event, which takes place this weekend (April 2nd & 3rd, from noon to 4pm each day). So, each day, odd things are coming into the collections department, on temporarily loan for this special event that adds all sorts of anachronisitc items to the museum's restore...
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In the aftermath of Theodore Roosevelt’s inauguration on September 14, 1901, Ansley Wilcox appeared to be acutely aware that a significant historical event had happened in the library of his Delaware Avenue home. He took great pains to save some of the objects from the inauguration - most prominently, the frock coat that Roosevelt borrowed fr...
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In the last months of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, larger-than-usual crowds gathered at the festival’s majestic concert hall known as the Temple of Music. Some were drawn to the structure to marvel at its architecture while others came to watch one of its grand performances. Many visited the Temple of Music, however, to stand in the spo...
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A policeman stands guard at the front walk of the stately brick house depicted on this postcard. We see the building in three-quarter view, which leaves much of its façade obscured by trees and a coating of vegetation. Despite the foliage, this view puts one of the house’s most historic features on display. The postcard reads, “...
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The leaves are falling, the air is getting chilly (sigh!), this week is Thanksgiving and I’d like to think that the votes have chosen the perfect Artifact-of-the-Month for this time of year. November’s artifact is a political cartoon entitled “Thanksgiving 1907” which was featured on the front cover of the Puck magazine ...
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The masses have spoken (okay, a few people – where was everyone else?) and the October Artifact-of-the-Month is (drum roll please!) . . . . . . the Pan-American Exposition/Monkey pin!! In 1899, the Pan-American Exposition Company sponsored a competition to design the official logo for Buffalo’s 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Out of m...
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Today is the 114th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt taking the oath of office in the library of the Wilcox home. With that timing, the choice of a souvenir of the 1901 inauguration for our first Artifact-of-the-Month would seem an easy one. Except finding an object to feature wasn’t as easy as one would imagine. Coming in the wake of Will...
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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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