{"id":1711,"date":"2026-06-17T20:04:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1711"},"modified":"2026-06-17T20:04:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T20:04:05","slug":"a-look-at-presidential-libraries-as-the-obama-presidential-center-opens-to-the-public-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1711","title":{"rendered":"A look at presidential libraries as the Obama Presidential Center opens to the public this week"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Whenever historian Geoffrey Ward visits the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum to do research, he finds himself caught up in the spirit of FDR himself, the sense of landed contentment and cheerful disarray that helped define his public image.<\/p>

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\u201cIt feels like you\u2019re stepping back into his world,\u201d Ward said of the grounds in Hyde Park, New York, that once were home to the Roosevelt family. \u201cThe library and home collections reflect all his many interests \u2014 stamps, coins, birds he shot and had stuffed as a boy, model ships, children\u2019s books, books about naval history, the pony-drawn sleigh he rode in as a child, and on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since FDR helped launch the modern system of presidential sites in the late 1930s, a network of museums and research facilities has grown nationwide, overseen in part by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, but otherwise as varied as the men they honor. They are set everywhere from the scenic Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in California\u2019s Simi Valley to the small-town setting of the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, to the vast Barack Obama Presidential Center that opens to the public on Friday, Juneteenth, in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Historian Douglas Brinkley, who says he has visited all of the post-FDR libraries, calls them vital hubs for lectures, research, school tours and tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of the libraries have their own aura,\u201d Brinkley says. \u201cRoosevelt came up with a perfect idea by gifting his home in Hyde Park to the people of America, instead of having his papers stored in a warehouse in Virginia or Maryland. He started a tradition of having them go where the president lived.\u201d<\/p>\n