Viewing page 91 of 474

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-83-

Origins of
EVERY FOUR YEARS
The Smithsonian Book of the American Presidency

November 9, 1979

[[underlined]] CONCEPT [[/underlined]] 

The concept for this project evolved from the lecture series in American biography held at the National Portrait Gallery on November 13-14, 1978. A common theme of those lectures was that the function of the biographer changes from era to era as his or her interpretation of a leading figure is presented to differing times from varying perspectives. Thus a plan for a Smithsonian book on the American Presidency grew that would engage outstanding biographers or historians to portray groups of presidents not as individuals with well-known destinies but as contemporaries standing forth from their distinctive times--and meaning something new to our times. Suggested groupings and essayists were then discussed with Marvin Sadik, Director of the Gallery.

[[underlined]] INITIAL RESOURCES [[/underlined]]

It was already established that within the Smithsonian there were numerous collections and programs that were offering both long-recognized and recently proposed interpretations of the Presidency. Among these were: 1. the National Museum of History and Technology's campaign and convention memorabilia, the photo files in that museum's Division of Political History, as well as the museum's exhibits of the First Ladies' gowns and White House china plus the [[underlined]] We The People [[/underlined]] show; 2. the Presidential portraits in the main hall of the National Portrait Gallery, plus the gallery's photographic collection and its small exhibits program (which has offered such presentations as [[underlined]] We Have Made a Nation [[/underlined]] and [[underlined]] If Elected. . . [[/underlined]]); 3. the Office of American Studies, which has been collecting the devices and symbols of the Presidency and has published a series of papers on the styles of the respective political eras; 4. the history of the Smithsonian itself and its buildings, several of which have been the scene of Presidential inauguration ceremonies.

[[underlined]] NEW SOURCES [[/underlined]]

As research for the book commenced, it was discovered that several other Smithsonian sources are at hand: 1. a new exhibit at MHT is being planned to commemorate George Washington's 250th birthday which would re-examine the National Collection's treasury of Washingtoniana; 2. a show is scheduled at NPG to mark the crash of 1929 and portray the contributions of Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt toward solving that economic disaster; 3. several visiting scholars at the Woodrow Wilson Center have been writing on the subject of the Presidency (notably Professor Arthur Link and Robert Donovan, both of whom have been engaged to write essays for the book); 4. curators at NCFA have brought forth many genre paintings, cartoons, and studies of the period which depict the presidential political process in imaginative ways.