We started our first full day in Cincinnati at the Taft National Historic site.
That was the family home purchased by Taft's father, then added on to while the family was still there, becoming rented as apartments, and after many twists and turns becoming part of the National Park Service.
It wasn't our big priority; just something we thought we should do while we were there. A schedule that was initially based solely on proximity and efficiency had to be adjusted for weather; that's how we ended up there first.
Still, it inspired a lot of thoughts.
In AP History, in addition to the regular textbook there were some printouts with anecdotes about each president up to that time (1989). Anecdotes being what they are, a lot of what I remember most strongly comes from there.
I am mad about those stories, which is really only possible because of additional reading.
Mainly what I recall from then about Taft was him being fat (what is most commonly remembered about him) and that he tried to compete with Teddy Roosevelt's bull moose (and maybe the teddy bear) with a Wally Possum.
Also, I believe I remember from then that he was much happier as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court than as president.
Some interesting facts I learned at the site were that he was offered a Supreme Court position earlier. He turned that down, along with other good career moves, because it would have meant not finishing things that he started. He was known for integrity and responsibility.
In addition, although they did mention the people of the Philippines growing to love the "gentle giant" when he was serving there, there was also this tidbit that he would start each morning with a four mile walk to his office. Yes, he was a big dude, but the prevailing memory lacks some nuance.
What really got to me was how the information there interacted with a book I read ten years ago:
1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs -- The Election that Changed the Country by James Chace (2004)
Books about elections are often really interesting because they go over the forces working in the country at the time and how the people process them.
I did not come away from it learning a lot about Taft; just the basic conflicts. Then, time passes and experience accrues. I found myself here, on vacation, getting really angry with Roosevelt.
Okay, Taft is governing as his own person, not the sequel to you. You don't like that so you become a primary challenger and lose. Instead of just accepting that, then you form a third party and split the Republican vote, handing the country over to that racist Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
(Yes, this was back when it still made sense to call the Republicans "the party of Lincoln." That time is long gone.)
I don't know how proud Roosevelt was of inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House; the pushback he got caused him to be much more discreet about his racial progressivism after that. I don't doubt that he still harbored some racist beliefs, and there are ways in which that would have made it to work with Washington than some other potential figures of the time. However, Roosevelt did seem to want to improve things for Black Americans, at least in the South, and what did he do?
He handed things to Woodrow Wilson who resegregated the federal workforce:
Equality, always a struggle, lost ground.
One of the other anecdotes I remember from that collection was about Wilson, where he was so excited about the film The Birth of a Nation that he called it history written with lightning.
Now, I have seen an article debunking that:
The author of that may be right, but there are enough other signs of racism that it doesn't do much to help Wilson's image.
Here's the other thing; I remember that line sticking with me, and wondering if maybe -- with film still being a relatively new medium -- maybe that just meant he was amazed by the motion picture or if Wilson was specifically applauding the racism. As I learned more about his presidential "achievements" I felt pretty certain he was applauding the racism.
What I don't remember is getting any context for the quote.
If we are supposed to be getting to know the presidents better, the whole thing was kind of lacking, as I remember it, but they sure could have mentioned a lot more about the racism and not just with Wilson.
I say this as someone who really liked the teacher, whom I know did not set the curriculum so this is not blaming him. Still, I see how much the Lost Cause crept in, and how things that were unjustifiable were glossed over, and we were studying at the accelerated rate!
I knew that we were not getting everything because there was not enough time for that, but we missed so much of the core foundation. That lack of understanding about the greed and racism and all of those factors interacting is still causing destruction today, and in very similar ways.
Sure, any time you try and correct that, there is a lot of pushback and misusing of terms and outright lies, but it's important and we need to do better.
Which is pretty crucial for the last place we visited in Cincinnati.
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