Welcome to the January edition of The Throwback, your monthly hit of entertaining and informative history tales that will make you say, “Wait! What?” If you are receiving this e-mail, you have signed up on my website or at one of my lectures or author events.
Happy New Year! And here's hoping that 2021 isn't quite as historic as 2020.
History will be made, though, on January 20 as Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Amid the throes of the pandemic, this inauguration will lack much of the pageantry that we have been accustomed to seeing, but there is historical precedent.
With World War II still raging, Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term in 1945 in a low-key ceremony held on the White House’s South Portico. Less than three months later, after Roosevelt’s sudden death, Harry Truman took the oath of office in the White House Cabinet Room. In another subdued swearing-in, the White House’s East Room was the setting for Gerald Ford’s 1974 inauguration in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
A handful of inauguration sites have faded from the cityscape of Washington, D.C. With the Capitol being rebuilt following the War of 1812, James Monroe was inaugurated outside the Old Brick Capitol, now the site of the Supreme Court. Following the death of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler took the oath of office at the defunct Indian Queen Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, and after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson was sworn in at the Kirkwood House, which used to stand on the corner of Twelfth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
There are six presidential inauguration sites located outside Washington, D.C., and history buffs will get a kick out of visiting these locations once we can start traveling freely again. The only one of the six I haven’t visited is the Air Force One aboard which Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It’s on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
On September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office inside the parlor of the Buffalo mansion owned by his friend Ansley Wilcox when President William McKinley succumbed to wounds sustained when shot at the Pan-American Exposition in the upstate New York city. The mansion still stands and is known as the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. (Between 1939 and 1959, the mansion was home to a tea room and restaurant, and it was almost lost to the wrecking ball after its closure.)
New York City, the country’s first capital, is home to two inaugural sites. One is a national landmark—and one is so clearly not. On April 30, 1789, George Washington was sworn in as the country’s first president on the balcony of Federal Hall. The original Federal Hall was demolished, but its successor, fronted by a statue of Washington, still stands steps away from the New York Stock Exchange. Inside you can see the weighty Bible upon which Washington took his oath as well as the stone on which he stood while being inaugurated.
Uptown at 123 Lexington Avenue, you’ll find little evidence of the history that happened behind the brownstone’s façade. There in the early morning hours of September 20, 1881, Chester A. Arthur received word at his residence that President James Garfield had finally succumbed to his gunshot wounds after lingering for 80 days. Arthur took the oath of office in his parlor, with the green blinds drawn to block the view of the newsmen swarming outside. The history is just as hidden today. The brownstone’s ground floors are now home to an Indian supermarket, and the only sign of the history that happened there is a plaque behind the glass of the entrance foyer that also notes that the house was later occupied by publisher William Randolph Hearst.
Further south in Philadelphia, John Adams and Washington (for his second term) were sworn in at Congress Hall in Philadelphia. The Georgian-style structure, adjacent to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is part of Independence National Historical Park.
The most intimate of the presidential inauguration sites is nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont at the humble homestead of Calvin Coolidge. When President Warren G. Harding suddenly died in San Francisco, his vice president was 3,000 miles away in his hometown of Plymouth Notch, population 29. Coolidge took the oath from his father, a notary public and justice of the peace, by the soft glow of a kerosene lamp in the wee hours of August 3, 1923. The homestead, along with iconic Vermont structures such as a one-room schoolhouse and cheese factory, is part of the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site.
Check out these reads for more on the history of presidential inaugurations:
Did William Henry Harrison’s inauguration speech kill him?“Old Tippecanoe” may be best known for dying after only one month in office, but tainted drinking water in the White House rather than pneumonia developed delivering a two-hour (!) oration may have been the true killer.
Why does Inauguration Day fall on January 20? British prime ministers vacate their offices within hours of a defeat at the polls, but in the United States more than 11 weeks can pass between Election and Inauguration Days—and that lame-duck period used to be even longer.
Memorable moments from 230 years of presidential inaugurations. This article is filled with interesting tidbits. For instance, there have been two American presidents who have taken the oath of office four times. Can you name them? (One’s easy. Get the second, and you’re a true presidential history junkie.)
WHAT I’M WATCHING:Yes, a documentary about a documentary filmmaker might sound more than a wee bit meta, but if you’re a PBS viewer, you’ll enjoy Ken Burns: Here & There. This hour-long documentary explores the bond between Burns and the bucolic town of Walpole, New Hampshire. The town’s slower pace—and cheaper rents—drew Burns away from New York City nearly 40 years ago, and it remains the base of his Florentine Films. The small-town life captured in the film by Dante Bellini, Jr. is a pure slice of Americana, and you can see how Burns fell in love with it—and America itself. The documentary goes behind the scenes to show a New Hampshire craftsman at work and explores the importance of place. If you have a PBS Passport account, you can stream the documentary here.
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of talking history with long-time friend Sujit Chawla on his Three to See podcast. I shared my choice of three movies that reveal the essence of Ireland—one a drama, one a historical biopic, and one a documentary. If you are a movie buff, the Three to See podcasts offer plenty of recommendations of flicks to check out.
PLEASE SUPPORT INDIE BOOKSTORES! The publishing industry has hardly been immune from the economic impact of the coronavirus. For businesses operating on small margins and struggling to compete with Amazon.com to begin with, the shutdown has inflicted deep blows on independent bookstores. When shopping for your next read, please consider making a purchase from your local independent bookstore or through Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores. Every little bit helps.
If this e-mail was forwarded and you would like to subscribe to this monthly e-mail newsletter, click here. E-mail to let me know what you’re reading, watching, or listening to that I should check out or say hi on Twitter.
New York City, the country’s first capital, is home to two inaugural sites. One is a national landmark—and one is so clearly not. On April 30, 1789, George Washington was sworn in as the country’s first president on the balcony of Federal Hall. The original Federal Hall was demolished, but its successor, fronted by a statue of Washington, still stands steps away from the New York Stock Exchange. Inside you can see the weighty Bible upon which Washington took his oath as well as the stone on which he stood while being inaugurated. 
block the view of the newsmen swarming outside. The history is just as hidden today. The brownstone’s ground floors are now home to an Indian supermarket, and the only sign of the history that happened there is a plaque behind the glass of the entrance foyer that also notes that the house was later occupied by publisher William Randolph Hearst.
