Having recently visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library again, I overheard many of the guests commenting on the exhibits in the museum. I heard various comments, such as “I read about this in class,” and “I never knew that Elvis Presley met Richard Nixon.” These types of comments are common since many students come to the museum.\u00a0During many of my visits, I overheard one particular comment that has always fascinated me: “I remember that.” This comment comes from the elderly, people who are old enough to have lived during the Nixon Administration, either as a child or a young adult. The elderly guests sometimes stare at the pictures of Nixon meeting Zhou Enlai or the pictures of the POW’s coming back from Vietnam. “I remember that,” they’ll say. Or when they watch President Nixon leave the White House in his helicopter, they sometimes get emotional because they remember the very same broadcast from forty years ago.<\/p>\n

I feel that as historians, or people in general, we have \u00a0a tendency to view history as something far away from us, existing only in the past. Many of us learn about the 1960’s and early 70’s through textbooks, neglecting the fact that there are people among us who lived through these eras, even as young adults. \u00a0The elderly are living history, proof of a generation long before us.\u00a0They remember the past personally in a way that we cannot.\u00a0If you want to learn more about the recent past, I recommend that in addition to scholarly research, you should also speak to someone who has experienced it. This type of personal history will not always be available. Talk to an old person today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having recently visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library again, I overheard many of the guests commenting on the exhibits in the museum. I heard various comments, such as “I read about this in class,” and “I never knew that Elvis Presley met Richard Nixon.” These types of comments are common since many students come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions\/1447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist300a-spring2017\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}