Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center
Spiegel Grove
Fremont, Ohio 43420
Nan Card
Curator of Manuscripts
1/800-998-7737
ncard@rbhayes.org

JUNE 2009 Dear Friends and Members of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center : Below is a press release issued yesterday by the Hayes Presidential Center.. The budget cuts proposed by Governor Ted Strickland will have a severe impact on the Hayes Center. We ask for your help in preventing these cuts from taking place. Please call or email the governor's office or your Ohio state representative. Your help is greatly appreciated. The web address is http://capwiz.com/ohiohistory/home/ Public access to Ohio history jeopardized by State budget cuts FREMONT – The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center and the people it serves stand to lose big if the state budget proposed by Governor Ted Strickland passes. Strickland’s most recent budget outlines a reduction in funding for the Hayes Presidential Center from $452,490 to $281,043 – an almost 40 percent decrease in one year! If the Governor’s proposal goes into effect, the public’s access to Ohio ’s premier presidential facility –and the nation’s first presidential library - will be severely impacted. “With such a substantial loss in funding the Hayes Presidential Center will be forced to decrease its hours of operation, reduce an already minimal staff, and suspend community and educational programming,” said Executive Director Thomas Culbertson. The Hayes Presidential Center already operates with 10 percent less state funding than it received a year ago and receives no federal funds for operations. Yet, the facility has not increased admission fees, reduced hours of operation, or canceled popular programs. It has been able to maintain this tenuous status quo through the generosity of individual and business donors and by aggressively pursuing grants. However with the potential loss of half of its state funding in the upcoming fiscal year, drastic measures will be necessary. “In the last few years, we have reduced our full-time staff from 22 to 17, yet continued seven-day-a-week operation. A budget reduction of 48 percent in two years will force the Hayes Presidential Center to limit its hours of operation and, out of necessity, cut back components of its educational programming,” Culbertson said. “We ask people, from children to senior citizens, to consider what such a loss would mean to them and to act. It takes less than a minute to express your opposition to this radical budget cut using the Ohio Historical Society’s website.” The web address is http://capwiz.com/ohiohistory/home/ . Culbertson stresses that immediate action is imperative. The 2010 state budget will be enacted on June 30. Progress and Poverty: The Gilded Age in American Politics and Literature, 1877-1901 Early this month, the Hayes Center hosted its second successful week-long 2009 NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop. Dr. Rebecca Edwards, Dr. Brooks D. Simpson, Dr. Timothy Messer-Kruse, Dr. Robert Fogarty, Dr. Sanford Marovitz, and Dr. Michael J. Kiskis presented lectures to 49 community college faculty from around the nation. Participants deepened their knowledge on key Gilded Age social, political, and economic issues. Project Director Dr. Steven Culbertson and the Hayes Center's Executive Director Thomas Culbertson led the workshop. Some faculty are already making use of the Hayes Center's primary source materials in their course work! Fremont: Then and Now: A Pictorial History of Progress and Change Deeply interested in the area's past, Larry Michaels and Krista Michaels worked for more than two years to create a visual record of Fremont, Ohio's amazingly rich history. Arranged in a "then and now" format, their 186-page work contains over 250 images. More than 100 historic photographs were carefully selected from the holdings of the Hayes Presidential Center's Local History Photograph Collection . The authors paired many century-old images of homes, streets, businesses, schools, and the Sandusky River with modern views of the same scenes. Fremont: Then and Now chronicles the change and continuity of this vibrant Northwest Ohio community. Also included are key dates in Fremont's history, the origins of street names, and an index. You can purchase this fascinating book, Fremont: Then and Now, at the Hayes Presidential Center's Museum Store. Thanks to the continuing support of the Sidney Frohman Foundation, we have been able to make hundreds more images of Lake Erie and the Erie Islands accessible on Lake Erie's Yesterdays , the OhioLINK online searchable image database. Providing access to more historic images of Great Lakes freighters and passenger ships has been our focus this spring. Dr. Thomas Huxley Langlois Collection Above is a print of Lake Erie's Buckeye Island (South Bass Island) taken during low water in early spring 1955. It is just one of thousands of black and white prints taken by the late biologist Dr. Thomas Huxley Langlois. He was for many years the director of the Stone Laboratory on Lake Erie's Gibraltar Island. His research focused on Lake Erie and the Erie Islands. Prints, negatives, research papers, correspondence, and publications from the 1940s and 50s were donated to the Hayes Center by his daughter Zoe Titchener. Many now appear on the Hayes Center's website . ***************************************************************** IN RECOGNITION OF DONORS TO THE HAYES PRESIDENTIAL CENTER MANUSCRIPTS FUND ************************************ Doris Flack Dr. Earl J. Hess Ohio Daughters of the War of 1812 The Manuscripts Collections at the Hayes Presidential Center are available to all researchers who wish to discover, learn, and share new information about our historic past. We deeply appreciate your continuing support. As a donor, your name appears on our web site, in the Statesman newsletter, and in the Hayes Presidential Center Annual Report. You can donate safely and conveniently online at Donations to the Hayes Presidential Center Manuscripts Fund . - or you can send your donation to Hayes Presidential Center Manuscripts Fund, Attn: Nan Card, Curator of Manuscripts, Hayes Presidential Center, Spiegel Grove, Fremont, Ohio 43420 THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN AMERICA'S HISTORY! ************************************ RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND STUDIES USING THE HAYES PRESIDENTIAL CENTER'S PHOTOGRAPH AND MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS Rocky Point Park Rhode Island by David Bettencourt & Stephanie Chauvin Charles Darwin's Shorter Publications, 1829 - 1883 by John van Wyhe The Faith of American Presidents by Daniel J. Mount Robert Green Ingersoll (Documentary) by Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum (Dresden, New York) "The President's Turnout: The Story of the Brewster Landau Belonging to President Rutherford B. Hayes" by Roger & Susan Murray in The Carriage Journal John Brown: The Man Who Lived by Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. Presidential Races: The Battle for Power in the United States by Arlene Morris-lipsman "Rutherford B. Hayes and the Anti-Catholic Bugbear in the Election of 1876" by Michael Jacobs in Northwest Ohio History Broken Treaties: United States and Canadian Relations with the Lakotas and the Plains Cree, 1868-1885 by Jill St. Germain Fremont Then and Now: A Pictorial History of Progress and Change by Larry Michaels and Krista Michaels " Federal Failures: The Ohio-Michigan Boundary Dispute" by Stephen Badenhop (thesis) In the Ranks with the 55th Ohio Volunteer Infantry: the Story of the "Sixty-Round Boys" During the Civil War by Stephen M. Burr *************************************************** First-Lady Style: White House Gowns is on exhibit now at the Hayes Museum! Come with a friend or bring a group and enjoy a look at the fashions of America's First Ladies through the decades . Nan Card Curator of Manuscripts Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center Spiegel Grove Fremont, Ohio 43420 1/800-998-7737 ncard@rbhayes.org www.rbhayes.org Ohio's Yesterdays