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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Little Rock, Arkansas

Photos and text by Gleaves Whitney




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The William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, holds 78 million pages of official records, 1.85 million photographs, and over 75,000 museum artifacts.  It is one of 11 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.
 
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President Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas.

His father died in a car accident three months before his birth; the future president took the name of his step father in high school.
 
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After graduating from Georgetown University, Clinton met Hillary Rodham at Yale, where they both studies law.  They married in 1975.
 
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Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas at the tender age of 22, but lost his first reelection bid.  He was elected again two years later and served as governor for the next 12 years.

Bill and Hillary Clinton's daughter Chelsea was born in 1980 at the end of Governor Clinton's first term.


 
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The William J. Clinton Museum includes replicas of the Oval Office (pictured) and the cabinet room.
 
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This painting of the Statue of Liberty by Norman Rockwell hung in President Clinton's Oval Office.  It was a gift of filmmaker Steven Spielberg who wrote that Rockwell "painted the American dream... better than anyone."
 
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President Clinton's Oval Office featured busts of several former presidents -- Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter -- as well as paintings of George Washington and Andrew Jackson.


 

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At the end of 1998, President Clinton became the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached.  He stood accused of perjury in his testimony before a federal grand jury, and responded calling the act of Congress "the politics of personal destruction and the poisonous venom of excessive partisanship.

The president was acquitted two months later.

 
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The museum features two statistical portraits that represent President Clinton's accomplishments at home and abroad.  Between 1992 and 2000, employment in the United States increased by more than 22 million and the number of people 25 and older with college education rose by more than 10 million.  At the same time, the crime rate was reduced by a quarter, and the number of people living below the poverty line was reduced nearly 4%.

Abroad the percentage of countries with electoral democracies rose 10%.  The total number of nuclear warheads was reduced by more than 20 thousand and trade volume increased from $202 billion to $1.5 trillion.
 
Photos and text © Gleaves Whitney 2006

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