Presidential Places: The William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum
Last year in late August I visited the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, located in Canton, Ohio. The library is owned and operated by the Stark County Historical Society. Canton is where McKinley built his career as lawyer, prosecuting attorney, congressman, governor and president.
The library is adjacent to the McKinley Monument, where the William and Ida McKinley are entombed. The library contains a large collection of McKinley artifacts and chronicles McKinley's life and career from his birth to his death at the hands of an assassin. The exhibit also explores the construction of the McKinley National Memorial and the unfortunate fate of the McKinley’s Canton home, destroyed by fire in 1937.
As for the Museum itself it boasts a science center with some wildlife and fossils. The museum has a temporary exhibit space called the Keller gallery. The museum also has an planetarium show. The museum largely relies on volunteer staff for its operations. The current curator is Kimberly Kenney.
Behind the cut are some of the pictures I took on my visit there last summer.
1-2. The 108 steps and some of the fit-minded individuals using them as their own personal stairmaster.
3-4. The statue of President McKinley halfway up the stairs, along with a close up of its inscription.
5. The inscription above the entrance to the monument.
6. The sarcophagi of President and Mrs. McKinley.
7-8. In front of the McKinleys is this display, from the Masons. Apparently McKinley was a Mason, and is referred to as "Brother William" in the display.
9. The view from the top.
10. The museum is to the left of the entrance to the monument. It's also a museum for Stark County, although to be fair, I understand that the county is paying for the museum, not the national archives.
11. This bust of McKinley is in front of the museum.
12. A display highlighting Stark county's civil war vets, including a young William McKinley. McKinley was a Sergeant in charge of feeding the soldiers. He twice disobeyed orders at the Battle of Antietam by driving a wagon under fire to get food to wounded soldiers. His heroism got him a promotion and he eventually rose to the rank of Major. According to biographer Kevin Phillips, even as President, McKinley still liked to be addressed as Major.
13-14. A couple of the displays in the museum, one about the 1896 election against a young William Jennings Bryan, and one about the Spanish-American War.
15-16. McKinley ran what is known as the "front porch campaign." Apparently it was still thought to be unseemly for a presidential candidate to go out and campaign, so McKinley would speak from his front porch and thousands of people would come to hear him. Pictured below are a giant flag that McKinley used as a backdrop to those speeches, and a rocking chair that he sat in to give some of those speeches.
17-18. These are a couple of McKinley's campaign posters. The second is from the election of 1901 when he ran with Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate.
19. This is McKinley's desk that he used in the White House. There's an interesting story about the red carnations that he always kept in his office. Apparently just minutes before he was shot, a little girl shook his hand in the receiving line and McKinley took out the carnation from his lapel and gave it to her as a souvenir. Some superstitious pundits say that this was bad luck. After McKinley's assassination, the state of Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation as its state flower.
20. Okay this was kind of creepy. These William and Ida McKinley talking plastic figures are activated by sensors and they start talking to people who walk into the room. (The LBJ museum has something like this too, but just of LBJ.) The McKinleys offered me coffee but didn't deliver.
21. Here's a revolver identical to the one that Leon Czolgosz used to assassinate McKinley in Buffalo at the World's Fair. I wish they had displayed the original.
22. One last look up at the monument from the front of the museum before I head off to my next destination in Canton: the NFL Hall of Fame.
Following is more information about this venue:
Website: http://www.mckinleymuseum.org/
Location: 800 McKinley Monument Drive NW, Canton, Ohio
Hours of Operation: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 12:00 Noon to 4:00 p.m. Sunday
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/McKinley-Presidential-Library-Museum-Canton-Ohio/122618678228
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/McKMus
Twitter: @MckinleyMuseum
The library is adjacent to the McKinley Monument, where the William and Ida McKinley are entombed. The library contains a large collection of McKinley artifacts and chronicles McKinley's life and career from his birth to his death at the hands of an assassin. The exhibit also explores the construction of the McKinley National Memorial and the unfortunate fate of the McKinley’s Canton home, destroyed by fire in 1937.
As for the Museum itself it boasts a science center with some wildlife and fossils. The museum has a temporary exhibit space called the Keller gallery. The museum also has an planetarium show. The museum largely relies on volunteer staff for its operations. The current curator is Kimberly Kenney.
Behind the cut are some of the pictures I took on my visit there last summer.
1-2. The 108 steps and some of the fit-minded individuals using them as their own personal stairmaster.
3-4. The statue of President McKinley halfway up the stairs, along with a close up of its inscription.
5. The inscription above the entrance to the monument.
6. The sarcophagi of President and Mrs. McKinley.
7-8. In front of the McKinleys is this display, from the Masons. Apparently McKinley was a Mason, and is referred to as "Brother William" in the display.
9. The view from the top.
10. The museum is to the left of the entrance to the monument. It's also a museum for Stark County, although to be fair, I understand that the county is paying for the museum, not the national archives.
11. This bust of McKinley is in front of the museum.
12. A display highlighting Stark county's civil war vets, including a young William McKinley. McKinley was a Sergeant in charge of feeding the soldiers. He twice disobeyed orders at the Battle of Antietam by driving a wagon under fire to get food to wounded soldiers. His heroism got him a promotion and he eventually rose to the rank of Major. According to biographer Kevin Phillips, even as President, McKinley still liked to be addressed as Major.
13-14. A couple of the displays in the museum, one about the 1896 election against a young William Jennings Bryan, and one about the Spanish-American War.
15-16. McKinley ran what is known as the "front porch campaign." Apparently it was still thought to be unseemly for a presidential candidate to go out and campaign, so McKinley would speak from his front porch and thousands of people would come to hear him. Pictured below are a giant flag that McKinley used as a backdrop to those speeches, and a rocking chair that he sat in to give some of those speeches.
17-18. These are a couple of McKinley's campaign posters. The second is from the election of 1901 when he ran with Theodore Roosevelt as his running mate.
19. This is McKinley's desk that he used in the White House. There's an interesting story about the red carnations that he always kept in his office. Apparently just minutes before he was shot, a little girl shook his hand in the receiving line and McKinley took out the carnation from his lapel and gave it to her as a souvenir. Some superstitious pundits say that this was bad luck. After McKinley's assassination, the state of Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation as its state flower.
20. Okay this was kind of creepy. These William and Ida McKinley talking plastic figures are activated by sensors and they start talking to people who walk into the room. (The LBJ museum has something like this too, but just of LBJ.) The McKinleys offered me coffee but didn't deliver.
21. Here's a revolver identical to the one that Leon Czolgosz used to assassinate McKinley in Buffalo at the World's Fair. I wish they had displayed the original.
22. One last look up at the monument from the front of the museum before I head off to my next destination in Canton: the NFL Hall of Fame.
Following is more information about this venue:
Website: http://www.mckinleymuseum.org/
Location: 800 McKinley Monument Drive NW, Canton, Ohio
Hours of Operation: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 12:00 Noon to 4:00 p.m. Sunday
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/McKinley-Presidential-Library-Museum-Canton-Ohio/122618678228
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/McKMus
Twitter: @MckinleyMuseum