Presidential libraries: from Boston to Honolulu ... or maybe Chicago

Presidential libraries can be found coast to coast, and may even go beyond that once a site is selected for President Obama's future repository of documents and artifacts. To quickly hopscotch around to the 13 official presidential libraries and museums overseen by the National Archives, plus that of Abraham Lincoln, check out this library list.

8. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

AP/File
In a file photo President Gerald Ford reads a proclamation in the White House on Sept. 9, 1974 granting former president Richard Nixon "a full, free and absolute pardon" for all "offenses against the United States" during the period of his presidency.

Website: www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/

Location: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Ford's birthplace: Omaha, Neb., 1913)

A separate but affiliated library – The Gerald R. Ford Museum – is located in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Admission: $7 adults, $6 seniors (there is no admission fee for the library)

Opened: 1981

Attendance: 303,713

Bestselling gift shop biography: “A Time to Heal” by Gerald Ford

Hot-selling souvenir item: ruler featuring presidents and state flags

Lesser-known facts: President Ford is the only president with his library and museum in two separate locations, although both are within his home state of Michigan. Although most of the museum's artifacts date from the 20th century, there are two much older items in the collections: an 18th -century printing press purportedly used by Benjamin Franklin, and a 1st or 2nd Century C.E. Roman vessel, both gifts of heads of state.

8 of 14

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.