TRU Blog

TRU Blog

A Word from Harry | August 31, 2014

 

Senator Truman Accepts the Democratic Party’s VP Nomination

Seventy years ago this summer, a world-altering decision was made in Chicago, Illinois. The Democratic Party nominated U.S. Senator Harry Truman – not Vice President Henry Wallace – to be FDRs running mate in the 1944 election. On August 31, Truman gave his formal acceptance speech in his birthplace, Lamar, Missouri. Here’s a bit of what he had to say.

MR. CHAIRMAN, members of the notification committee and fellow citizens:

I am deeply honored to have been named as the Democratic party’s candidate for the Vice-Presidency and accept with humility and a prayer for guidance that I may perform honorably and well whatever tasks are laid before me.

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A Word from Harry

2014 Harry S. Truman Book Award | July 31, 2014

Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential Campaign and the Future of Postwar Liberalism

Henry Wallace’s 1948 bid for the presidency stands as a bold experiment in American third-party politics. Some hail Wallace for challenging the Cold War drift toward “reaction” and “red- baiting.” Others depict Wallace as a pawn of the Communist Party. In his award-winning book, historian Thomas W. Devine sheds new light on this debate with an “exhaustively researched and elegantly argued” book that “places the Wallace campaign into a larger context of late 1940s post-Popular Front politics” (American Historical Review). In this TRU Magazine exclusive, Jeffrey Gall asks the author to tell us more.

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2014 Harry S. Truman Book Award

National History Day | March 3, 2014

These kids are amazing!

On Saturday, a record-breaking 491 students competed at the Truman Library in the 2014 National History Day contest. Thanks, Kansas City Star, for coming to capture the moment. And good luck to our region’s students who are now preparing to compete in the state semi-final and then national competitions. Here are some of our favorite pictures from one of our favorite annual events.

View our Facebook photo album.

National History Day