Now Open!
The
Roosevelt Legacy moved into the 21st century on Saturday,
November 15, 2003 with the opening of the Henry
A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center in Hyde Park, New
York. Archivist of the United States John Carlin formally
dedicated the new Wallace Center and Doris Kearns Goodwin,
Pulitzer Prize winning author, historian, and frequent television
commentator, delivered the keynote address on FDR's leadership.
The West Point Glee Club also
performed during the dedication.
The
Center is a public-private project designed to serve students,
teachers, and the visiting public at the Roosevelt Presidential
Library and the sites administered by the National Park
Service in Hyde Park - the Roosevelt Home, Eleanor Roosevelt's
cottage (Val-Kill), FDR's Retirement Retreat, Top Cottage,
and Vanderbilt Mansion.
The
Center's magnificent architecture, first class visitor facilities,
bold new exhibits, and a state-of- the-art High Definition
orientation video will provide a totally new experience
for our visitors.
Named
in honor of the man who served as Secretary of Agriculture
(1933-1940) and Vice-President during Franklin Roosevelt's
third term, the Henry A. Wallace Center offers visitors
an array of new and expanded services designed to enhance
their experiences in Hyde Park. For the more than 125,000
visitors to the Roosevelt Library and National Historic
Site, the Center now provides for the first time a comprehensive
introduction to the historic complex of Roosevelt properties.
Facilities will include orientation exhibits and a new High
Definition film called "A Rendezvous with History:
The Roosevelts of Hyde Park" to welcome the public
to the "world of the Roosevelts." In addition
to their introduction to the Library and Home, visitors
will also be able to buy tickets and receive information
about Val-Kill and Top Cottage. The new building also
offers multipurpose rooms designed for conferences, school
groups, and special programs; a café; state-of-the-art
audio-visual facilities; an auditorium and a new museum
store. The architectural design, created by the New York
firm of Kliment and Halsband, is based upon the simple lines
of early Dutch Buildings in the Hudson River Valley. FDR
loved that style of architecture and designed his Presidential
Library to reflect colonial Dutch influence.
The
Wallace Center is operated by the Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum, in an innovative partnership
with the National Park Service. The private non-profit Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI) has been instrumental
in raising private support for both the Wallace Center and
Top Cottage which opened to the public in 2001. FERI will
host an ambitious program of national and international
scholarly conferences and public policy activities in the
new Center. Federal funding for the project has been provided
through both the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) and the National Park Service, with each agency securing
$8 million in congressional appropriations. The Roosevelt
Library and Museum is one of NARA's eleven presidential
libraries. The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
raised $4 million for the construction.
These
are exciting times in Hyde Park. They are also historic
times. For the dedication of the Henry A. Wallace Center
allows us to continue in the 21st century Roosevelt's own
vision for vital educational historical institutions dedicated
to giving Americans the tools they need to govern a democracy.
Along
with construction of the Wallace Center, the original Library
building has been renovated to create a new 3,000 square
foot special exhibit gallery. That gallery is named
for long-time president and chairman of the Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, William J. vanden Heuvel. The
Vanden Heuvel Gallery will feature a schedule of exciting
exhibitions drawn from public and private collections worldwide
as well as traveling exhibits from the nation's top museums.
The first exhibition, is drawn from the Museum's varied
collection and includes the story of how the Roosevelt
Library came to be.
The
building dedication took place Saturday, November 15
at 2:30 PM. Hosted by the Archivist of the United States,
former Governor of Kansas, John Carlin, top officials from
the National Park Service and leaders from the Roosevelt
Institute, Home and Library joined the Roosevelt and
Wallace families-and the general public-in dedicating this
new facility to its high purposes. As the first new structure
to be added to the Roosevelt estate since construction of
the Roosevelt Library in 1941, those gathered recalled
FDR's original Dedication Speech:
"The
dedication of a Library is in itself an act of faith. To
bring together the records of the past and . . . preserve
them for the use of men and women living in the future,
a nation must believe in three things. It must believe in
the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above
all, believe in the capacity of its people so to learn from
the past that they can gain in judgement for the creation
of the future."
As
a magnet for heritage tourism and economic development throughout
the Hudson Valley, the Wallace Center will make a substantial
contribution towards enhancing the region's $600 million
tourism industry. Recent studies show that tourists to the
Hudson Valley care most deeply about visiting our historic
sites and enjoying the bounties of nature. The Wallace Center
helps both visitors and the local community enjoy more of
Hyde Park's already strong assets in these areas.
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