Babies Born in the White House

The first baby born in the White House was James Madison Randolph in 1806, the grandson of Thomas Jefferson. The first baby born to a President in the White House was Esther Cleveland, born in 1893 to Grover and Frances Cleveland.

Just some fun trivia to say that I'll be on "maternity" leave from the blog for the next month or so as my second son will be born within the week. Michael and EHT will be doing some posting in that time frame.

Nixon letters on Kent State Shootings

Today marks 40 years since the Kent State shootings and, as you can imagine, it's big news here in Ohio (plus my husband teaches at Kent State). So I thought I'd post something related here (as a note, if you want I posted the press conference awhile back). From the Ohio Historical Society's Ohio Memory Project, I found these two letters from Richard Nixon to Kent State's President, Robert White, on the shootings. The item description (you can view the actual image files of the letters at the site) tells us this:
President Richard Nixon sent these two letters to Kent State University President Robert I. White regarding the shootings of four Kent State students by National Guard troops on May 4, 1970. The first letter discusses the appointment of a presidential commission to investigate the shootings. In a second letter, Nixon suggests distributing to students a letter by J. Edgar Hoover encouraging them to avoid involvement with "extremist" groups.

Opinion of President Wilson

The LOC has Stars and Stripes online (1918-1919 editions) in their American Memory section. This collection is searchable, so I spent some time wandering about it and this fun piece on opinions of President Wilson from the January 17, 1919 edition. I think the entire collection is rather fun to browse as well. Here's one little blurb about Wilson:
What do I think of him? I can't do any more than say my wife is expecting someone. If it's a boy we'll call him Wilson - Pvt. Dumondret