“This temple of our history will appropriately be one of the most beautiful buildings in America, an expression of the American soul.”
— Herbert Hoover, February 20, 1933, at the laying of the cornerstone of the National Archives Building. (Photo: 64-NA-136)
via Prologue: Our Story — How the National Archives Evolved Over 75 Years
February 1966. In this silent home movie, Lady Bird frolics with the beagles and the collie Blanco in the snow on the White House south lawn (about 10 seconds in). After the initial sequence, the film is spliced and the scene switches to Texas, three months later, and as different a landscape as can be imagined. This section features Lady Bird, Lynda, Lynda’s current boyfriend actor George Hamilton, and the ever-present beagles. Oh, and at 5:13 or so the President of the United States shows his guests a dead snake.
As a side note, the woman dissecting the snake at 5:45 is Mathilde Krim, a friend of the Johnsons and a fascinating woman in her own right—take a look at her biography on the Jewish Women’s Archive for more.
Lady Bird Johnson Home Movie #37: The LBJ Ranch, The White House, Lake LBJ and Washington in 1966. LBJ Library, public domain.
The Formal End of Japanese American Relocation
Source: facebook.com
The Beginning of National Black History Month - 1976
What first began as Negro History Week in February 1926 expanded into a month-long celebration in 1976. President Gerald R. Ford issued this message recognizing National Black History Month on February 10, 1976.
-from the Ford Library
Source: facebook.com
life:
Not originally published in LIFE. Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration, 1953.
(Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
“I do believe before the day was over he did ask me to marry him and I thought he was just out of his mind.”
-Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor
Two teenagers in love might exchange hundreds of texts on their phones. But during their two-and-a-half month courtship, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor were each writing a letter—and sometimes even two—every day in a constant overlapping correspondence between Washington, DC, and Karnack, Texas.
Today, on Valentine’s Day, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library is releasing love letters between the future President and the First Lady. Most of the letters have not been seen before by the public, and they offer a glimpse into the feelings and thoughts of the couple during this intense courtship.
It was a whirlwind romance. LBJ was 26, and Lady Bird was just 22 years old. They met in the office of a mutual friend in Austin, Texas, in September of 1934. Although LBJ had a date that night, he asked Lady Bird to meet him for breakfast. The breakfast date turned into a day-long affair as the pair drove around Austin.
LBJ even proposed. Read More
Photo: Newlyweds Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson pose in a boat on the Floating Gardens in Xochimilco, Mexico, during their honeymoon, November 1934.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes inauguration and life in the White House-
In honor of Valentine’s Day we present a brief collection of America’s First Sweethearts.
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
We interrupt this regularly scheduled LBJ Time Machine:
To tell y’all that we have posted the 1934 love letters between LBJ and Lady Bird, available in full for the very first time, on the web. You can find them here: searchable, downloadable, and transcribed.
LBJ and Lady Bird met on September 5, 1934 and ”committed matrimony,” as Lady Bird described it, on November 17 of that same year. These 90-odd letters are their correspondence during the time of their (brief) courtship, while he was in Washington and she was in Texas. Enjoy—and Happy Valentine’s Day, from us to you.
— LBJ Presidential Library Archives Staff
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, 10 weeks worth of passionate love letters between Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson.
Lyndon and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor met in early September 1934 in Austin. On their first date, Lyndon Johnson proposed and for the next 2 ½ months the two exchanged approximately 90 letters. They also exchanged photographs, including the ones shown here.
Lyndon was working as a Congressional Aide in Washington, D. C. and impatient to marry. Lady Bird, who was living in her hometown of Karnack, Texas, was cautious but called her suitor “electric” and was sure she didn’t want to lose him.
On November 17, 1934, Johnson and Lady Bird drove to San Antonio to “commit matrimony” as she would later describe it.
LBJ didn’t have a wedding band and asked Dan Quill, friend and Postmaster of San Antonio, to get one. Quill bought a wedding band at the nearby Sears, Roebuck & Co. for $2.50.
Lyndon Johnson and Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor married on November 17, 1934, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio. They honeymooned in Mexico and were married for 39 years.
At 9am this morning, the LBJ library released all of the 1932 love letters between Lady Bird and Lyndon from the 10-week period between the time they met and they married. You can read the letters and see the photos they exchanged at www.lbjlibrary.org.
-from the LBJ Library