E-Books →Presidential Libraries as Performance Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush

Kanter considers the moments in the presidents' lives the museums choose to interpret, and not to interpret, and how the libraries approach common subjects in the presidential museum narrative-the presidents' early years in relation to cultural ideals, the libraries' representations of presidential failures, personal and political, and the question of presidential legacy. Identifying the limited number of strategies the libraries currently use to represent the diversity of the American experience and American character, Kanter offers concrete suggestions for reinventing and reshaping the practices of museum professionals and visitors within the walls of these institutions.
Presidential museums can tell us important things about the relationships between performance and politics, entertainment and history, and leaders and the people they lead. Kanter demonstrates how the presidential libraries generate normative narratives about individual presidents, historical events, and what it means to be an American.
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