Happy Birthday to Harry Truman, born on May 8 in 1884!
This post-Presidential photograph shows Truman holding a copy of the famous Chicago Daily Tribune declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The newspaper had relied on early Gallup polls to predict the winner, but the polls were wrong. Truman was reelected.
The 33rd President grew up in Independence, Missouri, (now the site of Harry S. Truman Library & Museum) and after serving in World War I, he returned home and he married Bess Wallace, his childhood sweetheart. In 1934, he was elected to the Senate. He had only been Vice President for a few weeks when FDR died, and Truman was sworn in as 33 President of the United States.
For more Presidential photos and history, visit the new Our Presidents boards over on Pinterest!
http://pinterest.com/ourpresidents/
from the U.S. National Archives
President Obama is in Mexico today, and will speak from the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. In 1947, Mexican President Miguel Aleman greeted Harry Truman in the nation’s capital.
Here’s a photo of Aleman and Truman’s Presidential motorcade touring Mexico City. March 3, 1947.
-from the Truman Library
Happy May!
May Day in 1929 was Child Health Day. Here’s First Lady Lou Hoover receiving a basket of flowers at the annual May Day festivities held at the White House.
-from the Hoover Library
Source: facebook.com
FDR’s funeral train en route to Hyde Park, New York. April 15, 1945.
Turns out that tomorrow is National Puppy Day—
Here’s Lyndon B. Johnson showing a basket of beagle puppies to Courtney Valenti.
LBJ had several dogs, including two beagles, Him and Her. These puppies were sired by Him. 1/5/1966.
-from the LBJ Library
Puppies!!!
Source: lbjlibrary.net
“Where is Mamie Eisenhower’s 1955 Chrysler limousine? I would like to see it again. I once installed some Secret Service equipment on it when Mrs. Eisenhower was using it after the presidency.”
- Anonymous
This week’s “Ask and Archivist” question at the Eisenhower Library comes from Washington State. For the answer, read more here.
PHOTO CAPTION: On November 14, 1955, President Eisenhower rode through Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in the rear of a 1955 Chrysler Imperial limousine that was part of the White House fleet.
-from the Eisenhower Library
“I am a little country boy eight years old.”
-Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson letter to FDR
A guest post from Sherri DeCoursey, who used the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library to find a special piece of history for her father.
For as long as I can remember, a photo of FDR and a letter have hung side-by-side in the den of Mom and Dad’s home. The yellowed letter, written by FDR’s secretary Missy LeHand, was in response to a letter my father wrote the President in 1941. My dad—Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson—was eight years old in 1941. Dad will be 80 in June of this year…
Wouldn’t it be amazing, I thought, to have a glimpse of my father at such a young age—however small that glimpse was—if only to expand what I already knew about him as a father, business professional, family provider, veteran, jokester, and as we’ve grown older—a friend. What in the world would eight-year-old Forest Delano Roosevelt Ferguson have to say to the man running the country during such perilous times?
Seventy-two years after my father penned his letter, I discovered the answer to these questions in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. Read more on The National Archives blog
The Kennedy Family returns from Palm Beach
President and Jacqueline Kennedy with their children, Caroline and John, Jr., at the south entrance of the White House. The First Family had just returned from a trip to Palm Beach, Florida. 2/4/61.
from the JFK Library
Inaugural Love
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon were inaugurated in 1957, photographers captured an image of them on the Inaugural Parade viewing stand with the President’s grandchildren, Anne and David Eisenhower, and the VP’s daughters, Julie and Tricia Nixon.
David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower are now married, and in the most recent book that they co-authored, they recall that the event may have been the start of their lifelong romance.
David Eisenhower writes in “Going Home to Glory” that in one version of “the resulting photograph, I am staring intently at Julie and she is looking at me.”
-from the Eisenhower Library
President Harry S. Truman with Christmas packageson a trip home to visit family in Independence, Missouri. December 25, 1945.
Source: trumanlibrary.org
