Presidential Inauguration Collection Now at LOC

Forget about the current election and revisit happier times when the status of president-elect wasn't so much as issue. The LOC has a new online collection of materials containing approximately four hundred items from each of sixty-two inaugurations (from George Washington's to Bill Clinton's 2nd.) The material is at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml / .

There are some truly detailed bits here, including a list of inaugurations, where they were administered, and who presided, and a list of the bible inscriptions to which inaugural bibles were opened. There's also a list of precedents, etc set by each president. In 1897 William McKinley had the first inauguration recorded by movie camera; 100 years later Clinton's inauguration was the first one broadcast live over the Internet.

The material is browsable by inauguration or by subject, and of course searchable by keyword. Materials vary by inauguration. Washington's contains several letters and an image; Hoover's contains only three images; and Ford's contains one image and some remarks in text and sound. Very interesting stuff!

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