We were discussing Clinton’s Presidential Library (post about this visit linked here) with our friends the Cunningham’s and they noted Harry S. Truman’s Presidential Library and Museum was very interesting. It is located in Truman’s hometown of Independence, Missouri.
It didn’t have as many artifacts as Clinton’s Library but similarly, it focused on Truman’s many accomplishments and I have to say we learned a lot about him and world history from this wonderful museum.
If, like me, you don’t know much about Truman, here are some interesting facts:
- He was born in 1884 and spent his early 2os as a farmer on his grandparent’s farm from 1906 to 1917.
- He memorized an eye chart to pass the physical needed to join the Army in WWI and once in, worked his way up from lieutenant to captain and then major.
- After WWI, he begins a men’s clothing store with an Army buddy, but by 1920, the haberdashery fails due to a troubled economy.
- In 1919, he married a girl he had known since the 5th grade.
- In 1922, he serves as a county judge in Jackson County for 2 years, but doesn’t win re-election.
- In 1934, he’s elected to the US Senate and during WWII, he gains national acclaim by uncovering waste and fraud in the defense industry that ends up saving the government millions of dollars.
- In 1944, he’s elected Vice President of the United States but he only has two meetings with FDR and spends only 82 days in the office before he’s sworn in as President when FDR dies on April 12, 1945.
- The allies declare a WWII victory in Europe on May 7, 1945, but the war the Pacific rages on and after consultation with advisors, Truman orders that atomic bombs be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 to bring a quick end to the war with Japan.
- He ushered in the United Nations as FDR intended.
- He then began developing his own plans like the Fair Deal with expanded Social Security, Fair Employment Practices, and public housing in the US along with the Marshall Plan with his Secretary of State to stimulate economic recovery in Europe after WWII.
- In May of 1948, Truman officially recognizes the State of Israel.
- He used executive orders to desegregate the federal workforce and the military in July of 1948.
- Truman, his wife, and daughter crisscrossed the states by rail during his campaign for re-election in 1948. He was not favored to win and when he did it was called the “upset of the century”.
- The Cold War with Russia had begun and he negotiated a military alliance to protect western nations called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949.
- In 1950, when communist North Korea attacked South Korea, Truman and UN forces held the old boundary of South Korea.
- He had a lot of folksy sayings and said and/or popularized some very poignant ones including “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit”, “imperfect action is better than perfect inaction”, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”, “a society will be judged by how it treats its weakest members”, and “the buck stops here”.
Truman faced enormous challenges domestically, internationally and politically and left the office with the lowest approval rating of any president up to that time (below 30% in popularity polls) as people were frustrated with the stalemate in Korea, his inability to enact many of his domestic programs, and some staff scandals, but given all that he accomplished, historians now typically rank Truman in the top 10.
