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,...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
"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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 &...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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! In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt observed, “Altogether, there are few harder tasks than that of filling well and ably the office of President ...
Full Post
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 often remembered as the first modern U.S. President, but he did many other things over the course of his lifetime. ...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site welcomed Dr. Karen Pastorello as our guest and presenter for the August edition of the 2019 Speaker Nite series. Dr. Pastorello is recently-retired from Tompkins Cortland Community College, where she was a Professor of History and also served as Chair of the Women and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Pastorello&rsqu...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Christopher Faricy's presentation on YouTube. The July edition of the TR Site’s Speaker Nite Series was presented by Dr. Christopher Faricy, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His talk, “Me and the IRS: What Am...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site (TR Site) is undertaking a broad reevaluation of its children's/family programming. Summer intern Leslie Hoag, a History major and Museum Studies/Public History minor at SUNY College at Brockport, has taken on the project. In addition to surveying the field to see what other museums are offeri...
Full Post
For the June edition of the TR Site Speaker Nite series, we had the pleasure to welcome Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios, Assistant Professor of Government and Latina/o Studies at Cornell University. His talk, Making it Home: How Immigrants are Redefining Incorporation, Assimilation and Identity, focused on the process by which immigrants in America have dev...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Tom Kerr's presentation on YouTube. The TR Site’s April Speaker Nite featured Tom Kerr, the Audubon Society’s Naturalist and Niagara River IBA Specialist. His presentation, "Community Science: Continuing a Long Tradition,” explored the many ways individuals can get involved with science, the environment...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Caitlin Blue’s presentation on YouTube. This past month, we partnered with the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center to bring Caitlin Blue to the TR Site for our ongoing Speaker Nite series. Ms. Blue is a Visitor Experience Specialist and historian who focuses on making history accessible to t...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Dr. Adam Rome’s presentation on YouTube. For our first Speaker Nite of 2019, we featured Dr. Adam Rome, professor of environmental history at the University at Buffalo. His talk, "Fashion Forward? Reflections on the Environmental History of Style” explored the environmental impact of a world driven b...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
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 ...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Shana Kushner Gadarian’s presentation on YouTube. The TR Site’s ongoing Speaker Nite series recently featured Dr. Shana Kushner Gadarian, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Her presentation, “Anxious ...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Jamila Michener’s presentation on YouTube. This past month, we partnered with Cornell in Buffalo to bring Dr. Jamila Michener to the TR Site for our ongoing Speaker Nite series. Dr. Michener is an Assistant professor in the department of Government at Cornell University and author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid,...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Judi Geer’s presentation on YouTube. Last month, the TR Site had the pleasure of welcoming retired librarian and professor Judi Geer to its ongoing Speaker Nite series. Her talk, “Theodore Roosevelt: America’s Greenest President,” was based on the book The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Dr. Silvestri’s Presentation on YouTube The TR Site’s ongoing Speaker Nite series recently featured Nicholas Silvestri MD FAAN, Associate Professor of Neurology at the University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Science and longtime history buff. His presentation, “Neurol...
Full Post
If you’ve been to the TR Site recently, you know that we’re still decked out in our Victorian Christmas finery (and will be, through December 30th). Victorian Christmas is our biggest annual fundraising event, and we’re very lucky to have a long-standing partnership with the 8th District Garden Clubs, whose members generous...
Full Post
Follow this link to watch Dr. Kowsky’s presentation on YouTube. On Tuesday, October 24th, Dr. Francis Kowsky, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus, continued our lecture series with his talk, Buffalo’s First Preservationist: Olaf “Bill” Shelgren. Dr. Kowsky began by mentioning that the TR Site's Shelgren exhibit (open t...
Full Post**Follow this link to watch Dr. Wendland's presentation on YouTube.** On Tuesday, July 22nd, Dr. Jay Wendland from Daemen College continued our lecture series with his talk, “The Media and the President: Who Shapes Whom?” This topic is always relevant, but particularly so in our current political climate, and this histo...
Full Post**Follow this link to watch Dr. Hochfelder’s presentation on YouTube.** On Tuesday, June 27th, Dr. David Hochfelder from SUNY Albany continued our lecture series with his talk “Thrift in the Progressive Era: Or, Why Teddy & Will Want You to Save Your Nickels”. His discussion of ideas and policies about saving, particularl...
Full Post
**Follow this link to watch Dr. Taylor’s presentation on YouTube.** On Tuesday May 23 Dr. Henry Louis Taylor Jr. visited the TR Site to continue our lecture series with his talk “The Evolution of U.S. Cuban Relations”. His discussion of Cuba is particularly relevant to the Site as, for better or worse, Theodore Roosevelt was as s...
Full Post
**Follow this link to watch Dr. Hamilton’s presentation on YouTube.** On Tuesday, April 25th, Dr. Trina Hamilton visited the TR Site to continue our lecture series with her talk, “Just Green Enough: A New Ethic for Environmental Cleanup and Industrial Revitalization”. Her discussion of changing trends in environmentalism is parti...
Full Post
**Follow this link to watch Dr. Rosenbloom's presentation on YouTube.** Nancy J. Rosenbloom visited the TR Site on Tuesday, March 28th, to continue our speaker series with her talk titled TR’s ‘Little Anarchist’: Sonya Levien’s Journey From the Tenements to the Editor’s Desk. She discussed the relationship between Th...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer: Acadia National Park, on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, is one of my all-time favorite places, ever. Which explains why I was so excited when Ronald Epp (who recently finished the first book-length biography of park founder George Bucknam Dorr) contacted me to find out if the TR...
Full Post
The TR Site’s ongoing Speaker Nite series recently welcomed Dr. Shannon Risk, Associate Professor of History at Niagara University. Dr. Risk has been researching the women’s suffrage movement in Western New York, which has – until now – been largely overlooked by historians. Her talk at the TR Site was the first time t...
Full Post
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. ...
Full Post
Last month, the TR Site had the pleasure of welcoming award-winning author Chris Epting to its ongoing Speaker Nite series. He began his remarks by explaining his passion for finding the places where history actually happened. This has led him to seek out the subway grate where Marilyn Monroe filmed that scene in The Seven Year Itc...
Full Post
“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...
Full Post
Dr. Paul Finkelman, a legal historian who specializes in race relations and the law, was the TR Site’s featured speaker in June. While his talk was called “Race, Federalism, and Diplomacy: Looking at the 1908 Gentlemen's Agreement,” he explained that agreement within the larger context of how the definition of so-called &ldq...
Full Post
Last month, thanks to the generous support of our friends at theNew York Council for the Humanities and itsPublic Scholars program, the TR Site welcomed Margaret Lynch-Brennan, Ph.D., to its Speaker Nite series. Lynch-Brennan is the first person to write a full-length scholarly book on female Irish servants (The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant...
Full Post
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, ...
Full Post
Diana D. Monaco, a dietician and also a Public Affairs Specialist in the Buffalo office of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was the TR Site’s featured speaker in April. Her lively and interesting talk focused on two men who were instrumental in the fight to safeguard the United States’ food supply: Harvey W. Wiley, MD, and ...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
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...
Full Post
Last week, the TR Site kicked off its 2016 Speaker Nite series by welcoming historian Martin S. Nowak, author of The White House in Mourning. His presentation focused on the eight American presidents who died in office: William Henry Harrison (1841); Zachary Taylor (1850); Abraham Lincoln (1865); James A. Garfield (1881); William McKinley (1...
Full Post
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, “...
Full Post
As the train slowly pulled away from the Buffalo station in the early morning hours of September 16th, 1901, newly sworn-in President Theodore Roosevelt could have looked to his right and caught a glimpse of Buffalo’s First Ward. He would’ve looked over an urban landscape buzzing with activity and industry along the Buffalo River. The ...
Full Post
Recently, we welcomed environmental historian Dr. Adam Rome to the TR Site’s ongoing speaker series. His presentation was called “Nature Wars, Culture Wars,” and it focused largely on how immigration and immigrants were viewed by American environmental reformers during the early years of the twentieth century. Based o...
Full Post
One of the categories in our recent TRivia Nite contest dealt with mnemonics –those memory tricks that help you remember things. For example, as a kid growing up on Long Island, my only hope of remembering the order of the Great Lakes involved silently reciting, “She Made Harry Eat Onions” as I penciled in “Superior, ...
Full Post
We’re really excited about this new (to us) platform . . . . . . but as I sit here trying to come up with our very first post, I’m feeling an unexpected kinship with Theodore Roosevelt. I can’t help but think about TR’s draft of his very first presidential proclamation, a copy of which is upstairs on the desk in our...
Full Post
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.
© 2022 | All Rights Reserved
641 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202 • (716) 884-0095
Website by Luminus