Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 December 4

= December 4 =

Building ID..File:Roberts Hall Colby College Old Campus.png


This is identified as Roberts Hall, Colby college. However, a broadly simmilar building appears in a photo here: https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/HCOLBIANA_118612467460;prevRouteTS=1543916779721 identified as different building.

Which building is this? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:03, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Your two photographs are the same.  The Artstor version is Hedman Hall taken on 11 June 1914, and a subject link is "Roberts Hall".   It is Colbiana accession number 2007_301349.   The Commons version is stated to have been created 1 January 1905.   At List of Colby College buildings there is a picture of Hedman Hall built 1915 under accession number 2006_0057.   To my eye, both photographs are of the same building.   There's no mention of "Roberts Hall" being constructed in 1911 - maybe some confusion with the "Roberts Building", which is not a dormitory.   A new dormitory was built in 1913 and "Roberts Hall" was closed on at least one occasion during the First World War when student numbers dipped.  2A02:C7F:8230:8F00:2970:AAF6:9414:6AB4 (talk) 14:52, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I would say they are not just "broadly similar" but are the exact same photo. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:22, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree. 2A02:C7F:8230:8F00:2970:AAF6:9414:6AB4 (talk) 15:27, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Why did US presidents decide to be buried in their presidential libraries, museums, or properties?
Specifically, how and why did this tradition start, and why did most recent US president decide to follow it? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 11:20, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You can research your own answer to this question starting with the article titled List of burial places of presidents and vice presidents of the United States, which indicates to me that the first U.S. president to be buried on the grounds of a "presidential library" or similar was Herbert Hoover, who is interred at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa after having died in 1964. Since Hoover died, every president who died afterwards have been buried at their own Presidential libraries/museums/memorials (two presidents who served after Hoover died before him, being Roosevelt and Kennedy).  Hoover started the tradition because he wished to be buried in his hometown of West Branch, Iowa, and it appears the rest have followed tradition.  The next to die was Eisenhower, and he is buried at his boyhood home in Abilene, Kansas.  Indeed, all of the deaths though Gerald Ford seems to have been buried (and located the memorial/library/museum) at their boyhood homes.  Reagan and GHW Bush are (or are soon to be) interred at places far from the place they grew up, perhaps starting a new trend.  -- Jayron 32 12:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * This was encouraged by a 1955 law. See Presidential library. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, that established the creation of the presidential libraries as a concept but it didn't mandate that they had to be buried there. For example, Kennedy died after the 1955 law, and a library was established under its aegis, but Kennedy isn't buried there, he's buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  Likewise, LBJ, who died after Hoover started the trend, is buried at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, not at his library in Austin, and Gerald Ford is buried at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, not the Library in Ann Arbor, they're still all buried at public museums, though.  -- Jayron 32 16:17, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * While you're right that there's nothing in the law nor even I assume in the conception that really suggested they should be buried there. But Kennedy is sort of a unique case because the nature of his death means it was well before the library was even properly planned John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and I'm doubtful he'd really considered where to be buried that well. (State funeral of John F. Kennedy says he had no funeral plan in place.) Nil Einne (talk) 06:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Eight US presidents have died in office, and it's reasonable to expect that they weren't planning on it. JFK, in particular, was still rather young. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Just as a counterpoint, presidents can be exhumed and their bodies re-interred in a new location. Abraham Lincoln was, an absurd 17 times.  Grant's Tomb was completed months after his death, and he was transferred there.  So, the fact that Kennedy wasn't buried at his library is not because his first burial was some sort of barrier.  He could have been moved there.  He didn't have to be (and indeed, no President has to be buried anywhere).  -- Jayron 32 13:19, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Not a complete barrier sure, but for quite a few people and families, exhumation is something they'd prefer avoid if there isn't a good reason, so if the current burial site is good enough, they may keep it even if they'd have preferred somewhere else. Anyway my main point was not so much the difficulties burying him there, but considering his library was barely planned and he may not have given a great amount of thought to his possible death, there's a reasonable chance it was never well considered and maybe even not considered at all, by him. As for his family, the nature of his death meant it was in many ways ever more traumatic than a lot of other deaths so contemplating such options at the time would likely have been difficult. Especially since I'm not sure whether burying in the library was really well contemplated before it happened for Herbert Hoover nearly a year later, albeit I don't know if there was talk of it before his death. (And per earlier, while they could have decided to move him, it would be that surprising if they felt they'd prefer to keep things as they were even if they may have chosen a different option had they been able to consider it over a longer time period and with a bit less emotion.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess it may be better to note that most Presidents are buried at or near their home, often their childhood home. Coincidentally, most Presidents (before Reagan) sited their libraries at their childhood home, so I think we have two independent trends that became merged over time.  Presidents are buried near where they lived.  Their libraries are built near where they lived.  The fact that the grave is near the library is more a transitive property of those two facts than a deliberate attempt to bury at the library, or at least not initially until someone noticed a trend.  -- Jayron 32 17:16, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (EC) To put my point a different way, if no president had died for ~12 years, not Hoover or anyone else and Kennedy had served his first term and been elected to a second and served that then a year or two later found he had cancer which he fought for 3-4 years before succumbing, it's possible that Kennedy would have been the one who established the precedent. What happened to him IMO meant him being buried in his library was significantly less likely. Nil Einne (talk) 17:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Presidents who owned estates were often buried there, going back to Washington. This isn't common in the 20th and 21st centuries, but the presidential libraries and other sites are something of an outgrowth of that. Presidents who died suddenly have sometimes been placed in receiving vaults at cemeteries (McKinley and Harding, for example) pending the building of permanent monuments. Permanency is an issue for relatively landless presidents so you don't have another Polk, moved from a city lot to the state capitol in Nashville when his widow died and the property was sold, and now possibly to be moved again due to aversion to him as a slaveholder. The best way to assure permanency is for the federal government to own the site.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:58, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there a Trump library or Trump Museum where Trump might be buried some day? 00:47, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Nothing has been announced to my knowledge. Had Obama announced his burial plans at a like point in his first term? But given the likelihood that the burial choice will become politicized, I would expect that it will be made very hard to undo.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:48, 7 December 2018 (UTC)