Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory

by Benjamin Hufbauer

When Bill Clinton, flanked by Presidents Bush past and present, stood in the rain in Little Rock to open his presidential library, the moment seemed to transcend the partisan fray. The imposing structure itself was carefully crafted to play up Clinton's accomplishments and legacy, while downplaying the impeachment affair that shadowed his second term. That focus-on the higher purposes, meanings, and accomplishments of a particular presidency-also deeply reflected the spirit of most other presidential libraries and memorials.

Expanding on this essential theme, Benjamin Hufbauer explores the visual and material cultures of presidential commemoration--memorials and monuments, libraries and archives--and the problematic ways in which presidents themselves have largely taken over their own commemoration. Describing how presidential commemoration has evolved over the past century, Hufbauer reviews the making and meaning of the Lincoln Memorial, the development of Franklin Roosevelt's archives into the first federal presidential library and museum, and the imperial implications of LBJ's truly monumental library in Austin. He contrasts the recent $20 million reinvention of the Truman Library, designed to boldly tackle controversial issues related to racism, McCarthyism, and nuclear anxiety, with the Nixon Library's and Reagan Library's efforts to minimize fallout from the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals. He also provides the first detailed study of the meaning and influence of the Smithsonian's popular First Ladies exhibit.

Hufbauer sees these various commemorative sites as playing a key role in the construction of our collective political and cultural self-images and as another sign of our preoccupation with celebrity culture. Ultimately, he contends, these presidential temples reflect not only our civil religion but also the extraordinary expansion of executive authority--and presidential self-commemoration--since FDR.

While presidential libraries and memorials have also become media-driven attractions that often contribute significantly to the economies of their home cities, Hufbauer shows that their primary function remains the transformation of presidential history into presidential myth for the general public.

This book is part of the CultureAmerica series.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 10, 2006

Reviews

[Hotavio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whether deserving or not, people have always desired to commemorate departed figures of prominence. The office of president has captivated the public imagination as an embodiment of responsibility, recognition, and power. While it is not uncommon for the government or benefactors to commemorate presidents, the United States may be unique in that this commemoration has come to take the form of a hybrid between museum and library. Benjamin Hufbauer’s Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory examines the relationship between increasing presidential power, beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, and advent of the Presidential Library as a means of molding and eternalizing public memory.
Presidential Temples begins with a nod to classical commemoration, the Lincoln Memorial. Beginning with the Lincoln Memorial in the prologue allows Hufbauer to point out many of the qualities that those who commemorate incorporate into their monuments. The choice of materials, styles, and wording used in the memorial help to stimulate observer’s imagination and alter their conceptions of the commemorated. Hufbauer argues that monuments create a civil religion, that is, they encourage the mass to blindly follow idealistic beliefs about the commemorated. He emphasizes the commemorator’s power to influence the masses as many leftist cultural historians would. However, Hufbauer praises certain examples of hegemonic control throughout his book such as Marian Anderson’s concert in 1939 and Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial and later the Harry Truman Library’s reinvention through its democratizing Decision Theater exhibit.
From the classic example of commemoration, Hufbauer turns to the phenomenon of the Presidential Library. These libraries began with Franklin Roosevelt, who desired to incorporate a place to store house his presidential records with a tourist attraction dedicated to his own legacy. Hufbauer identifies that this way of self-commemoration proved more effective than the traditional monuments in Washington DC in that they would be spread throughout the United States, thus reachable by more people. By fusing the archives with a museum based on the life and times of the president, the library would maximize traffic as it could pertain to the broadest audience possible. While the libraries would give the semblance of democratizing knowledge, Haufbauer acknowledges that in cases such as Roosevelt’s, the president or those closely associated with him have often attempted to lessen access to sensitive records, particularly those which could tarnish the legacy that the museum attempts to bolster. This attempt to monopolize the truth echoed in President George E. Bush’s Executive Order 13233 which gave the president the ability to withhold presidential documents from the public.
Hufbauer weaves Presidential Temples together by approaching the history of Presidential Libraries through a case study analysis. He particularly concerns himself with the Truman Library in Independence, which provides a good model for the classic example of the “American Pyramid” and later for an example of a museum which renders itself more relevant by examining the president’s actions and era outside of the zeitgeist. He also devotes a chapter and many references to the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin. His treatment of the libraries is seldom the same. Here, Hufbauer focuses on how the library’s architecture and planning fit with Johnson’s outrageous personality. While the library fulfilling presidential ego is a central theme throughout Presidential Temples, Hufbauer’s style tends to fluctuate. The Johnson Library chapter seems a narrative in itself, while the chapter on the Truman Library devotes pages on minutiae such as the symbolism associated with the library’s Thomas Hart Benton mural Independence and the Opening of the West and its Oval Office replica, a standard set for later libraries.
Unfortunately, beyond the Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson Libraries, the other libraries only get passing mentions: Kennedy for its architecture, Nixon and Reagan for its biases, Clinton for its implementation of technology, Carter for its center on altering global policies. As a result, the book feels a little limited and even unfinished. Conservative minded readers might also take offense to the generalizations that Hufbauer makes about the libraries of Republican presidents, such as their desire to gloss over the negative history associated with their presidents and the general lack of “architectural and institutional innovation.”
Presidential Temples validly outlines the evolution of presidential commemoration from largely eastern based neoclassical monuments to geographically dispersed testaments to the imperial presidency. Several of the case studies adequately suggest that the presidential museum has immortalized the presidential ego and helped to refashion public memory of these men. Presidential Temples could be more effective by thoroughly examining aspects of all the presidential museums, cutting the misplaced chapter on power that examines display of the First Ladies wardrobes, and by further considering the voices of the hundreds of thousands of people who visit presidential museums and libraries each year. With these complaints in mind, Presidential Temples falls short of making the impact that it could.

[Suzanne LaPierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating study of presidential libraries and how their designers attempt to influence the legacy of the men they represent. It uses a few libraries and memorials (the Lincoln Memorial is explained as a predecessor of current presidential libraries) as examples, but does not attempt to evaluate, or even list, all of them.

The main issue to understand about presidential libraries is that the library/archive material is overseen by the more objective National Archives, but the museum elements are designed by organizations favorable to the president, so they typically glorify his legacy and minimize or even omit any information that might be considered derogatory. (I noticed this when I visited the Reagan Library and there was no mention of his first wife, with whom he had two children.) But rather than just bemoan the lack of objectivity, the author gives examples of how one presidential library, the Truman Museum, updated their displays to be more open-ended, inviting dialog and even criticism.

Another theme is that each presidential library is imbued with the personality of that POTUS, as they all get to have some hand in the planning. Now that each POTUS has his (or maybe someday her) own library built, these buildings will proliferate and become part of more people's lives. Overall, this is a very well-articulated and thought-provoking exploration of such monuments and how they represent history. The book is from 2006, so recent examples aren't included. I would have liked a list of all the libraries and their locations up to the publishing date as a supplement.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hufbauer’s Presidential Temples is an entertaining discussion of how many U.S. presidents over the last 50 years have had memorials to themselves built ... presidential libraries. Describes how many of these libraries attempt to shape the public’s memory of the president, as in the Nixon library downplaying Watergate. Accessible and a good read.