AI breathes life into Theodore Roosevelt at new Library

A Savory Tort Photo Essay

The new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opened on July 4, in Medora, North Dakota, and I visited last week.

(All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

I'm a Theodore Roosevelt ("TR") fan, politically, socially, and otherwise, and this summer, I've immersed myself in a torrent of books and audiovisual media about the 26th President of the United States and his remarkable life. In the weeks to come, I plan to write more about TR, and North Dakota, with relevance to contemporary life, from U.S. party politics to foreign policy.

I pose with sculptor John Lopez's bronze TR (2017) at the Old Town Hall in Medora, North Dakota.

Meanwhile, I write to share, and to laud, the new TR Presidential Library (Library), especially the artificial intelligence (AI) experience. You might have seen the Library on TV already, as Lee Cowan produced a July package on the opening for CBS Sunday Morning.

The Library itself is a physical marvel. Designed by the global, Oslo-headquartered architectural firm Snøhetta, the earth-toned buildings are melded in sweeping curves into the breathtaking landscape of the North Dakota badlands.  

The Library blends into its landscape.

 

The landscape is part of the visitor experience both outside and inside the Library.

Visitors are encouraged to explore a perimeter boardwalk, where grasslands are being restored, post-construction, and the badlands buttes of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park stretch to the horizon. 

More than mere conveyance, the boardwalk around the Library is a work of exceptional craftsmanship.

Moreover, visitors can switchback their way to the top of the organic green roof of the Library itself.

Visitors summit the Library roof.

The exhibition space features a central hall with rows of displays that, through artifacts and text panels, tell the story of TR's life, from youth to higher education, to North Dakota ranching, New York politics, Washington, the Spanish-American War, the White House, Africa, and the Amazon.

The central hall exhibits are organized chronologically.

In the manner of a presidential library, the subject matter is treated with reverence, but not with total ignorance of controversy or the fallibility of the subject. For example, one display depicts TR's meeting and correspondence with Booker T. Washington, but notes that TR distanced himself from Washington publicly after the meeting went down poorly with Republicans.

Most displayed papers are replicas or on loan, as TR artifacts are collected already at other sites.
Artful exhibits convey authenticity nonetheless; replicas of papers and objects are well made.

On both sides of the hall, large, themed rooms beckon with elaborate sets re-creating periods of TR's life, such as a log cabin in the badlands, or the 1900 Republican convention in Philadelphia.

TR escaped to remote North Dakota amid the grief of losing his (first) wife and mother both on Valentine's Day, 1884.

The themed rooms feature further artifacts and information, as well as experiences for visitors, including the use of AI.

At an activity station, visitors can develop their own campaign posters in the style of the 19-aughts.

A visitor to the Library has the option of having a photograph taken at the Library entrance and carrying a bracelet with an RFID-enabled token to scan at various stations. In one experience, for example, visitors can play President and make decisions about crises the TR Administration faced. One can then see the trade-offs required to satisfy various constituencies, as approval ratings fluctuate in the high-tech choose-your-own-adventure. The Library AI constructs a cumulative record of the visitor's experiences and expressed preferences and generates a summation by email afterward.

Visitors can assess their take on the issues and cast their own votes in the 1912 election.

A recurring delight in the experience vein is a series of stations that use the visitor's likeness to place one in an AI-generated "photograph" in the context of a setting in TR's life. Visitors of all ages, including me, giddily anticipate the images, which appear on a large screen for everyone nearby to see, sometimes eliciting "wow"s, or giggles, and always delight. (Below are my own images from the Library, emailed to me after my visit.)

The crown jewel of the AI system is in the re-created White House Cabinet Room, where a holographic TR (technically, a "life-size interactive avatar") stands behind his desk and answers questions. "TR" invites visitors to come to a lectern in front of the desk, scan their bracelets, and hold down a mic button while asking a question. Along the ceiling above, both visitor and the hologram are captioned for the room.

TR himself answers visitor questions in the White House Cabinet Room.

The AI is good. I mean, very good. Frankly, I expected that the hologram would deliver only truisms and platitudes with the faltering dexterity of an animatronic in the Disney Hall of Presidents.

Not so. This TR was ebullient and on point. He answered questions with surprising depth of knowledge and even what seemed like insight. Even when seconds were required for the AI to formulate a response, the hologram delayed with smooth conversational transitions, such as "Well, let me consider that."

While I was there, one man asked what TR's greatest challenge was as President. That was a softball; TR answered with settlement of the 1902 Coal Strike, a good call. The hologram delivered, though, more than mere encyclopedic recitation, rather an insightful and stirring summary of the experience from the man who was in the room.

A woman then asked whether any of TR's descendants settled in North Dakota. I thought that question might force the AI to dodge. TR did have to "consider" for a few more seconds than for the previous question. He then answered with a capable summary of where his children moved on to, explaining how his family in subsequent generations did fan out across the country. But none, he lamented confidently, followed the old man's tracks back to North Dakota.

A young boy then went up to the lectern—courageously, I thought, with a room full of adults looking on—and eked out a simple question, "Did you like your name?" The hologram bought some time by lauding the question. Then he answered, firmly, no. He then capably explicated his nicknames in life, including "Teedie" as a boy and "Teddy" in politics, and said that he always preferred "Theodore" or "Thee." This hologram has read his David McCullough.

I asked a question, not a hard one, but one I hoped would make the AI earn its keep: "Why do you think you lost the 1912 election?" I made "think" my main verb because I wanted to spur the AI to speculate, not merely orate. I was not disappointed.

To my surprise and delight, the hologram took little time to think and became animated. TR described for the room how, yes, forming the Bull Moose Party had split Republican voters and handed the 1912 election to Woodrow Wilson. Yet, pounding a fist, TR was adamant that he had done the right thing, standing on principle for the needs of people and against the private interests that had captured the Republican party. (Sound familiar? Then you have a sense of what I hope to write more about soon.)

Inevitably, a person in the room asked TR how he would address political division in America today. Here, the AI was programmed with brakes. TR gave an eloquent answer, a dodge at last, about how it's not his place to second-guess political decision-making in a time so different from his.

But he wasn't finished. Again to my surprise, TR went on to give an impassioned description of political rifts in his own time, and how he addressed them, with salient examples, such as negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Speaking further of the higher calling to exhibit integrity in politics rather than pander to popular sentiments, his answer proved to have contemporary relevance with very little inference required. Or maybe that's just how I heard it.

I was reluctant to leave the room. AI TR was enchanting. 

I met a couple of TR impersonators while I was in Medora. Joe Wiegand's Teddy Roosevelt Show at the Town Square Showhall is superb. (Me with Wiegand's TR at left.) But on those occasions, I was always aware that I was watching and interacting with an actor, however well prepared and gifted for the role.

 

TR (Wiegand) weaved rhetoric into a brilliant portrayal at the Teddy Roosevelt Show.

At the Library, there was no actor. It was easier than I imagined to be seduced by the ghost in the machine. I left the Library feeling like I had some authentic measure of the magnetic charisma that so many of TR's contemporaries described. 

There are some other gems in the Library. There are artifacts from when TR was shot in an assassination attempt. There is a small room dedicated to the dark day when he lost his wife and mother. I don't want to say too much and spoil the adventure. The joy of visiting the Library is discovering these spaces yourself, and imagining yourself in the same historical context—with a little help from AI.

My AI Images from the Library

"Life in TR's New York"
TR was born to privilege but raised with a powerful ethic that wealth entailed an obligation of public service.

"Ranching in the Badlands"
TR sunk more than half of his liquid wealth into ranching in North Dakota. Ultimately he took a massive loss before divesting. But he never regretted the experience, saying it made him who he was, and he would not have been President but for the time he spent in North Dakota.

"Working on the Police Force"
As president of the Police Commission Board, TR walked New York City streets at night with journalist Jacob Riis to uncover and clean up dirty policing.

"Serving in the Navy"
TR did not serve in uniform in the Navy; he served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the first-term administration of President William McKinley. Later, as President, Roosevelt deployed "the Great White Fleet," a show of American power and deterrent to aggression, from 1907 to 1909.

"Joining the Rough Riders"
TR resigned his Washington post in 1898 to join the U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, "the Rough Riders," in the Spanish-American War. TR is the only President who has been awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for his heroism in Cuba.

"Leading as President"
TR's political opponents in his own party, corporate-friendly Republicans, hoped to sideline him as President McKinley's running mate on the 1900 reelection ticket. To their dismay, TR became President when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. 

My campaign poster, 19-aughts style
TR had pledged not to seek a third term, honoring the example of President Washington. He went on safari in Africa to remove himself from the political fray. But dissatisfied with the performance of his handpicked successor, President William Taft, he threw his hat in the ring for 1912, unsuccessfully.

"Journeying Into the Amazon"
Ever seeking adventure as an antidote to loss, former President Roosevelt joined an expedition in Brazil to chart a river in the Amazon, from 1913 to 1914. Suffering from a leg injury in a portage and from malaria, he very nearly died. Certainly the wear and tear on his health did him no favors. He died at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, in 1919, of pulmonary embolism, at age 60. 

Library podcast sights bike path highs in Rhode Island

Today is World Bicycle Day.

In tandem with National Bicycle Month in May, podcast Rhody Radio published a poignant episode featuring the East Bay Bike Path, a 14-mile paved trail running between Providence and Bristol, Rhode Island.

(Following link updated Sept. 2, 2025, to refer to Rhody Radio Archive at Overdueingit.org.) 

East Bay Bike Path, Bristol, R.I., June 2020
(RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I run, walk, or bike on the path almost every day that I'm home.  I contributed a segment to the podcast (cue 7:30, running time about 2m30s), remembering walks with my late dog, Rocky. (Update, Sept. 2, 2025: to cue precisely, you'll have to visit the episode at the archive.)

Rhody Radio is a statewide collaborative library project. Now ongoing, the podcast was launched to keep communities engaged with their local libraries during the pandemic. This exemplary episode was organized and hosted by energetic Project Lead Jessica Faye D'Avanza (outdated link disabled), who has served as community engagement librarian for the Barrington (R.I.) Public Library since 2013. (Update, Sept. 2, 2025: Rhody Radio ended in May 2024. At the time of this writing, J. Faye D'Avanza (LinkedIn) is living in Asheville, N.C., where she is the artist, editor, writer, librarian, and creative facilitator for the Library of Care.)

The podcast is episode 43, Libraries, Bicycles, & Storytelling from the East Bay Bike Path, Rhody Radio (May 25, 2021).

Publishers put the '©' in World Book Day

The 1885 John Ormsby translation of Cervantes's Don Quijote,
with 1880 illustrations by Gustave Doré, are in the public domain
at Project Gutenberg.

Today, April 23, is the International Day of the Book, or "World Book and Copyright Day," a recognition organized by UNESCO since 1995.  The date was chosen to coincide with the date of death of Miguel de Cervantes, though that date in truth is only an estimate.

Some of the promotional material from UNESCO refers only to "World Book Day," and I've found no clear record of how copyright became attached.  Cervantes was gone for a century by the time the British Statute of Anne came on the scene in 1710.  In fairness to publishers, copyright did contribute to making authorship and printing commercially viable, so it deserves credit for promoting creativity and literacy.  (Read more about the history of copyright and later developments.)

But the skeptic in me suspects that "copyright" as part of our international day of recognition came about at the behest of an industry, which, today, overreaches.  When, ancillary to civil rights-era constitutional activism, the U.S. Supreme Court found some room for the First Amendment to operate even as against the copyright clause of the 1789 Constitution, the publishers took the lead in drafting ungenerous "fair use guidelines," limits on copyright carve-out, that too often are regarded as law, especially by administrators in academia.

Lately, my wife, a librarian, and I have been troubled by the terms imposed on our local library, and all libraries, for the use of electronic books.  Once upon a time in the analog world, a library could lend a book as many times as the book could physically sustain.  Even then, the library could rebind the book and give it a new lending life.  After a single purchase, a book could reach new readers for centuries, well beyond its copyright.

1880 Doré illustration of the Adventure of the Windmills

No longer.  Publishers now self-servingly "estimate" the shelf-life equivalent of an electronic book and permit libraries to lend the book only so many times, say, 52 loans or two years, whichever comes first.  Then poof, the e-book turns into a pumpkin, and the library has to pay for a new e-book again.  Be careful about putting your name to a library service that automatically checks out an e-book to you when it becomes available, but you can then pass it on if you're not ready to read it.  The access apps are supported by publishers, and your pass counts as a full check-out against the license limit.  Our local libraries cannot afford this turnover.  Only time will tell what damage we inflict on public access, collective memory, and incentives to create, not to mention global equity in the distribution of knowledge, when we have fully turned books into inalienable commodities.

If you spare two thoughts for "World Book and Copyright Day," let one be about how you can push back against copyright restrictions so that books, including their electronic equivalents, can be, and forever remain, accessible to all.  That's no windmill.

Burning of the Bodleian

Guide Fiona in an oak-paneled room of the ground-level, former Divinity School at Oxford University's main building of the Bodleian Libraries.  Photos are not permitted on the Humfrey Library level, discussed in this post and featured in Harry Potter's Hogwarts.

Today I had the extraordinary experience of touring the main, historic building of the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University, UK.  Here's some of the intriguing and tragic history shared by my capable guide, Fiona (a knowledgeable academic, whom I wish I could identify more precisely; Fiona, get in touch if you read this, and I shall give you due credit).

To get the most important matter out of the way at the top: Yes, this is the place where books literally were flying about the room at Harry Potter's Hogwarts.  Fiona told a couple of good stories about filming in the library, which was permitted only during, and ran fully throughout, nighttime closing hours, 7-7.  Sometimes filming had to be stopped on Harry Potter if sound booms got too close to the ceiling beams, or lights raised the temperature too much for the books' safety. On another occasion, Fiona asked a bearded guy, authorized to case the library, why?, and he answered, "For the next Transformers movie."  Only later did she realize she had spoken with Steven Spielberg.  She still wasn't sure why the library would make an apt set for Transformers.

So I'll skip the fascinating mechanics and history of care for the books--let Fiona have her IP, and you should take the tour, at least the 60-minute version, yourself--and mention just one arresting, contemporary fact: Fiona said it takes on average £20,000 pounds to scan one book from the historical collection.  So feel welcome to donate in support of the effort.  What's here that's worth such extravagant effort?  Fiona casually mentioned the presence of an original Johnson dictionary among the holdings.

In the 15th century--the dawn of the printing press, remember--Fiona said, one book cost about as much as a small car today.  The University library owned the princely sum of 20 books. In the 16th century, Oxford got a massive donation of books from Duke Humfrey (Humphrey of Lancaster, first Duke of Gloucester), but had no place to put them.  So the library asked for some additional money from Humfrey to build the structure I was in today (but just the second floor; the Divinity School was on the ground floor and today is part of the halls still used for Convocation; it was and remains--with modern climate controls precluded in the name of historic building preservation--unwise to store books on the ground level because of the risk of rat and insect infestations).

Today if someone who has the proper credentials wants to see a book from this old collection, he or she must request it in advance, and then is given a date, time, and place to view the book.  The book is then transported via underground tunnel across Broad Street to the more recent Watson Library (opened originally 1940s, renovated and reopened 2015), to meet its reader at the appointed time and station.

Yet these are not the original books of the 15th century.  In the 16th century, the entire contents of the library was (believed) burned in the name of the Reformation.  You can still see where a stone cross was removed from the wall.  The stained glass windows, featuring Catholic iconography, were destroyed and today still are just plain clear glass.  Some 40 or 50 (more?, it is suspected) books are known to have survived the burning, besides pages here and there (some lathered with butter, as they apparently were recycled by fishmongers to wrap their wares).  The library has managed to buy back five--5! (or just three, Wikipedia says).

Thomas Bodley came around to restore the library in the late 16th, early 17th centuries--after 50 years of post-Reformation neglect that left ceilings open to the elements--and the library/libraries took his name.  But that's another story for a longer tour....

"Readers" at the Bodleian--such as, once upon a time, JRR Tolkein--have always been compelled to recite aloud the library's pledge, formerly in Latin and now, thankfully, in English.  At the shop, I bought the tin sign for my law-librarian wife to adorn her workplace, and perhaps demand likewise of patrons eager to explore special collections:

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

See, fire, such as the burning of candles even for the innocent purpose of generating reading light, always and still poses a grave threat to the library.  But that threat is second, Fiona said, to the ravages of water, which might be needed to put out a fire.  Mold begets hungry bugs, who don't stop when they reach paper.  Not even bottled H2O is permitted to today's readers, who must exit the library to slake their thirst.

Shhhhh!  Silence in the stacks, please.