LBJ Library and Museum to host Smithsonian traveling exhibit that focuses on the burdens of the American Presidency

What: Traveling Smithsonian exhibit The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden

When: May 29 through September 6, 2004

“The Presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.” Lyndon B. Johnson

Visitors to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum can see how the Presidency affects the men in the Oval Office in the traveling version of The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden .

The exhibition, comprised of various objects related to the presidency, is a full-scale traveling version of the permanently installed exhibition of the same title at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Behring Center.

Among the exhibition's highlights are:

• a surveyor's compass used by George Washington at Mount Vernon
• the brass inkwell used by Abraham Lincoln while writing the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation
• a CBS microphone used by Franklin D. Roosevelt during his “fireside chats”
• a life preserver from John F. Kennedy's yacht, The Honey Fitz
• the gavel used during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial
• top hat and overcoat worn by Grover Cleveland at his First Inauguration on March 4, 1885
• silk pajamas worn by Warren G. Harding

In describing the exhibit, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small said, “We expect our president to be a diplomat, general economist, inspirational leader, and a dozen things more. There's not a tougher job in the world, and this timely traveling exhibition tells the inside story of this job. It's an excellent example of the Smithsonian's effort to reach out to all Americans with fascinating artifacts backed by authoritative scholarship.”

To tell the story of the American Presidency, the exhibit will feature five audio-visual presentations and two interactive experiences. The key storytellers, however, are the more than 350 artifacts on view in The American Presidency , most drawn from the Smithsonian's holdings of more than 3 million objects, by far the largest collection of its kind in the nation.

The traveling exhibit was created by the Museum of American History and The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The national tour has been made possible by the United States Congress, Guenther and Siewchin Yong Sommer, Kenneth E. Behring, the Smithsonian National Board, and The History Channel.

Public Contact: (512) 721-0200
Media Contact: Anne Wheeler, Communications Director, (512) 721-0216 or anne.wheeler@nara.gov