Exhibits
Hillary — Happy Valentine's Day! I love you, Bill.
Bill Clinton, Valentine's Day note to Hillary Rodham Clinton.The Clinton Library features numerous items from Clinton's time as president. Clinton's Cadillac One is on the first floor of the main building. The second floor includes the main gallery. It consists of a 110-foot (34 m) timeline of each of Clinton's years as President, as well as 14 alcoves featuring various events during Clinton's terms. There is an orientation theater and full-size replicas of the Clinton-era Oval Office and Cabinet Room as well. The Oval Office exhibit is the only full-size model Oval Office in any presidential library, and was constructed using thousands of photos taken by White House officials of the original office.
The timeline comprises eight panels, each one 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and begins with Clinton's 1993 inaugural address. Items on the alcove displays include the Oklahoma City bombing and Northern Ireland and Middle East peace efforts. Items released by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 are included in the exhibits, including personal letters written to and by the Clinton family, such as ones from Whoopi Goldberg and Arsenio Hall, as well as family photographs and even a Valentine's Day note from Bill Clinton to Hillary. The second floor of the main gallery showcases artifacts from previous state dinners and various state gifts, such as ceramics and other decorative pieces. An exhibit on Clinton's saxophone and another on family pets Socks and Buddy are also on the second floor.
Clinton has been criticized for not including enough details about the Monica Lewinsky scandal and his impeachment. One of the 14 alcoves is dedicated to the "politics of persecution" and is titled The Fight For Power. The alcove includes the Lewinsky affair, the Whitewater scandal, and the Republican Contract with America. Ralph Applebaum, the chief exhibit designer for the center, said that Clinton was heavily involved in the alcove's design, and that Clinton "insisted on a transparent and illuminating exhibition". The scandal is portrayed as a power struggle between Republicans in Congress and Clinton after the Republican Party took control of both the House of Representatives and Senate in 1994. The library has also been criticized for not including much information about the pardons Clinton issued just before leaving office.
Read more about this topic: Clinton Presidential Center
Famous quotes containing the word exhibits:
“Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Every woman who visited the Fair made it the center of her orbit. Here was a structure designed by a woman, decorated by women, managed by women, filled with the work of women. Thousands discovered women were not only doing something, but had been working seriously for many generations ... [ellipsis in source] Many of the exhibits were admirable, but if others failed to satisfy experts, what of it?”
—Kate Field (1838–1908)