American history tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Forow us on twitter information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. Each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and Historic Places to learn about American History. Next, we tour the president ial vehicles collection at the Henry Ford Museum in dearborn, michigan. Transportation curator Matt Anderson shows of cars used by president s truman, eisenhower, carter, and reagan, and the Lincoln Continental that john f. Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated. Matt my name is Matt Anderson. im the curator of transportation here at the henry ford, and we are inside the Henry Ford Museum of american innovation. Just outside our driving america exhibit, where we look at the history of the automobile in the United States. This is the series of president ial limousines which show president ial transportation over the last 117 years or so. Behind me is the 1902 carriage used by theodore roosevelt. Ae automobile really becomes force in the United States in the 1890s, but by the time of roosevelts administration, it is a common occurrence to see cars moving on public streets. Roosevelt, interestingly enough, for all the reputation he has as a real forwardlooking progressive, really never cared much for automobiles. He wanted to remain in horsedrawn vehicles. I think partly he thought there is a formality involved with horsedrawn transportation that was appropriate to the dignity of the office. But also, he had a regressive and man of the people image she wanted to protect. At that time, automobiles were thought he wanted to protect. At that time, automobiles were thought of as playthings for the wealthy, and so he remained in the carriage for his primary transportation when moving around washington, d. C. Vehicles like this would have been fairly common, especially in larger cities. We had a vision and our head from western movies that everybody had a carriage, and it was the equivalent of the family car in the 1860s and 1870s. Not so much the case. If you are in the city you were , most often walking on foot, perhaps bicycling by the 1890s. 1890s. Y, an certainly streetcars were , available at that time. In rural areas you probably had a generalpurpose carriage, more like a farm wagon or something you could use to take into town or wherever you are going. In larger cities you would see these used for personal transportation or taxi services, but certainly for the president , he would be of a certain station that he would be able to use one of these. Next we are going to look at a vehicle that along to another roosevelt, one of teddys cousins franklin roosevelt, who , would be president a few decades later. Teddy roosevelt preferred a horsedrawn vehicle throughout his administration, which led to his successor, William Howard taft, to motorized the white house fleet. He had electric car, a gasoline powered car, and a Steam Powered car. From that time on, president ial transportation involved rather quickly. Car behind us right now is the lincoln model k is one of the most significant president ial vehicles in that it is the first car specifically modified for president ial use. When i say that, i dont mean armored. Nor was it modified to be more luxurious or flashy. Instead, it was modified for practical purposes. For example the upholstery is , thicker than it would be on a standard lincoln because a lot of people were getting in and out of the car, putting a lot of where on that seat. This vehicle is most oftens oftenated most associated with franklin roosevelt, and has a popular nickname, sunshine special, which comes partially from roosevelts preference to ride with the top down it is a convertible whenever weather permitted, but also because of roosevelts sunny optimism throughout the depression and world war ii. He maintained a sort of optimistic persona and his in his public appearances. This car was modified even more after pearl harbor was attacked in 1941. In fact, in early 1942, it went back to detroit, where lincoln was able to add some armor to the vehicle. There is armor plating and the doors, bullet resistant glass along the side. Curiously, though, it is still a convertible, so there is a weak spot in the protection. But nevertheless, it is an important turning point in president ial transportation. If we look at the sunshine special, we see some other modifications you would not see on a typical vehicle. It has got some wide running boards, which were still somewhat common in the 1930s. They were starting to fade away and fall from popularity. If you look at the back of the car, there is a lit sign that said police, do not pass. In other words, if you come up behind this car in the motorcade, you should not pass it. The president should always be in front of the group. There were also grab handles on the back and along the front and sides as well for secret Service Agents to hold on to the vehicle, and a couple of platforms on the rear bumper for agents to ride to protect the president and his passengers. And president ial motorcades were evolving at the time. They could still be fairly modest affairs during roosevelts term. He would be in the car with perhaps a few police cars as escorts. Certainly a few trailing vehicles carrying other members of the party, but then, as now, the greatest honor and status symbol would be to be able to ride in the car with the president himself. So particularly important dignitaries or people roosevelt was trying to woo, perhaps members of congress. They would ride in the car with him. Treat. D be a great there are also some other modifications, there are a couple of cabinets built into the rear of the front seat that can be used to store weapons in the event of an emergency if the secret service needed it to protect the president. So several things you would not see on a typical car. A siren in the front, red lights so it could be used to get as well so it could be used to get attention and get people out lights as well so it could be used to get attention and get people out of the way. With that, we can look at another car that came after world war ii and was used by a few of roosevelts successors. We are looking now at a 1950 lincoln cosmopolitan used by president harry truman and president john f. Kennedy for a short period, but it is most often associated with president dwight d. Eisenhower. As originally built, the car was a convertible. It did not have this plexiglass top. That has been credited to eisenhower himself when he saw vehicles like this being used in europe during the war. He thought that might be handy for the president ial vehicle. It is not armored. In fact, no part of the car is. The war was over. There was no thought of security, or a least it is not thought to be a vital concern. It does provide protection from weather, so in the event of rain or snow the president can have some protection. Otherwise, all those panels could be neatly stacked in the trunk so you have it if you need it but it doesnt have to be , used. That allowed president s to stand up in the car. There were handrails that would allow eisenhower or truman or kennedy to stand and wait to crowds as they pass by. That also explains that other rectangular windshield up there too. That is a bug shield for the president standing up there and waving to crowds, so that he does not get a face full of flies or something. But this is really a standard lincoln that has been stretched a bit and given a more rigorous upholstery to hold up to the wear and tear of people getting in and out. There are platforms on the back for secret Service Agents, and some flashing lights, spotlights, sirens. That kind of thing, but still fairly modest in terms of his appointment. It certainly served the president s very well up until the kennedy administration. The size of the president ial fleet varies from year to year. It starts fairly modest and rose a little bit. But primarily there was always , one main parade car for the president , and that car certainly would be used whenever he was traveling in some kind of motorcade in washington, d. C. It might be taken with him when he was traveling. At this time this car could have , traveled by rail or by airplane at that time. They start to move towards cargo planes to traverse these cars. To otherort these cars places by the time eisenhower is president. But often, the president just might use a vehicle furnished by a local dealer, and that was it. They might just go to the local lincoln agent and he would provide a new car that looks fairly recent, and that was it. These state cars were really used for special purposes or becausefile offense, there was a lot of difficulty and expense of transporting. , because there was a lot of difficulty and expense of transporting. President s wouldnt be driving themselves in their official capacity, not a motorcade, because their point was to be seen. These cars were always meant to provide an opportunity for the public to feel as though they were getting a close look at the president. However, president s did enjoy driving around on their own. Perhaps around the white house grounds or their own private homes. Franklin roosevelt had a ford model a modified that allowed him to drive it with hand controls. Of course he didnt have the use , of his legs. President Lyndon Johnson of, too, as thought going down to his ranch. He had one of those cars that turned into a boat. He loves to drive that into the river on his ranch. So president s certainly did drive for fun, but not in their official capacities. The president ial vehicle behind me is undoubtedly the most famous president ial vehicle in our collection. And arguably the best known president ial limousine of any sort. This is the 1961 Lincoln Continental used by president kennedy through all of his years in office, and it is in fact the car in which he was riding when he was assassinated in 1963. Now it looks very different. We see those pictures and we think of it as being a deep blue color, and it was a convertible, originally and it had no armor , of any kind. This was a time after world war ii when despite the cold war heating up, we do not think there would be that kind of risk or danger to a president s life. But this is also a time when the automobile is in everyday life. This is after president eisenhower created the interstate highway system. So people are now traveling on summer vacations, or business and going by car, and to some extent, airplanes, but the family car is very much a force of life. This lincoln was a perfect fit for president kennedy. We think about large cars like x cadillacs or lincolns we take of , those tailfins and the shiny chrome. By 1958 and 1959, perhaps it got a bit excessive, past the point of good taste. They really were a breath of fresh air. The chrome is really smooth, very understated. This car is clean, very elegant looking, very formal. The Perfect Match for president kennedy because we think about , him as being very elegant, very modern, very forwardlooking as he leads us into the new frontier. So the two made a Perfect Match president kennedy and the , vehicle. Of course everything about the , car changed after november 22, 1963, when the president was assassinated. There had been a roof for the vehicle, even though it was a convertible, but it was one like we saw on the earlier lincoln the bubble top, acrylic to , protect from weather, snow, rain. It would not provide any protection from any kind of weapon. Of course, the car was in convertible configuration that day in dallas. After the assassination, the car was immediately sent back to the white house, where the fbi and secret service conducted a thorough investigation of the vehicle, took many photographs and documented but they needed , to for evidence purposes. After that, the car was sent back to its modifiers in cincinnati to be completely rebuilt as an armored vehicle. People are always astonished to think that this was put back into service after the assassination. You would assume it was destroyed or locked away in a warehouse. But no the simple fact is, the , president needed to have a vehicle president johnson at the timent, and there was not to go back to the drawing board and build something from scratch. The most expeditious thing to do was to rebuild this car. They stripped it down to its bare frame and rebuilt it with titanium armor plating behind the doors, steel plating underneath the back seat to protect from landmines or grenades. There is a special filter put into the truck so that if there was a gas attack it would take out the harmful gas to take out to protect the president , and of course, there was this large wraparound rear windscreen, which at the time the largest piece of bulletproof glass which had ever been made. These cars always have this tricky dual mission. One, they have to protect the president but also make him as , visible as possible. It is tough to find the balance between those two things. We see the car now and notice it is black instead of that elegant Midnight Blue with the government of president kennedy. That was done at the insistence of president johnson. Obviously he was in the motorcade in dallas that day. He was always very uncomfortable riding in this car, for obvious reasons. One thing he insisted at the last minute is that the car be painted black. He thought the blue would be too associated with the tragedy in dallas. If we look at it now, we would notice there is a hatch built into the roof that wasnt originally there. That was put there at the insistence of president nixon, who wanted to be visible. He wanted the president to be able to get outside of this this armored bubble and wave to crowds. Theres this constant strain between the president and his protectors. The president wants to be seen. They thrive on that interaction with the public. The secret service would just as soon have them hermetically sealed. Of course, you couldnt, so they had to cover him with all of that class. It got very hot in that car. The original air conditioning, which just ran off vents and the front, would be sufficient to would not be sufficient to keep a card this size cool, so they added a second air conditioning unit. Even still, it would get sweltering hot in that car. It was used all the way through 1977 into the carter administration. It was no longer the primary president ial vehicle by the early 1970s, but it might be used if the primary vehicle wasnt available for some reason. It is remarkable to think it was used for that long before it was finally retired from service and came here to the Henry Ford Museum of american innovation. I should point out these cars at this time were not purchased outright by the white house or by the secret service. Frankly, they did not have the budget at that time to be buying expensive vehicles like this. Instead, they were least to the white house by lincoln for a nominal sum each year. Lincoln thought it was worth it because they got tremendous publicity out of it, and it was a good deal for the white house because they would not have used tremendous amounts of money. The problem with these cars, as with any cars, as after a they just get too dated. This car looked very modern in 1961, but was decidedly out of fashion in the 1970s. Looking now in the last of our series of president ial vehicles, this is a 1972 Lincoln Continental that was billed for president nixon and used by every subsequent president up until george h. W. Bush. This car represents the final step in the evolution of president ial transportation. Weve done all the way from that carriage which belongs to teddy roosevelt, up through the sunshine special and john f. Kennedys lincoln as transitional cars, whereas this is a car built from the ground up as an armored vehicle, design ed from the get go to provide maximum protection to the president. You have armored plating behind the doors bulletproof glass, runflat tires reinforced with steel inside so is the tired tire gets punctured it can still drive to safety. It is billed for president nixon and became the primary car, but it is most often associated with resident reagan. He, of course, was shot in 1981. He survived, of course, although it was more dangerous than we thought perhaps at the time. This was the car into which he was getting after he made the speech at the milwaukee hilton where he was shot. It is almost ironic. As the president was getting into the car or being pushed by a secret service agent, he was actually it not by a direct bullet, but i believe that ricocheted off of one of the armor panels on the car. It was a perfect shot, for the lack of a better term. The ricochet went through the gap of the door and the body. Had things moved a fraction of an inch one way or the other, he may not have been hit at all. He was pushed into the car and then sped off to the hospital and was able to make a recovery. The car continued to be used. Any damage the car would have received would have been minor. We think of these cars as glamorous, but they would have lived very rough lives, being bumped and pushed around in airplanes all the time, strapped down, banged up, scratched. There are also getting hit by paint, rocks by protesters. It is part of the american way of life. We are free to speak our minds in protest, and these cars would have been on the front line. They had a garage located near the white house where they can repaint them, wash them, change their oil, all those things to keep them in top condition. Even with that, the cars did simply age after a certain point. They fell out of fashion and oo dated. Ng looked t you can see here they changed , the front end to try and make it look a little more current. Whenever they want, they would try to do that to make these cars look fresh. But some of these cars would look too dated, especially after the 1990s. Some of these cars are associated not just with the president s, but with the passengers they carried. Really almost any world leader or dignitary you can think of from the middle part of the 20th century would have written in one of these cars. We think of roosevelt sunshine special. He certainly had Winston Churchill riding in that several times. With president eisenhower with charles de gaulle, queen elizabeth, and any number of dignitaries would have been in these more recent cars as well. So being in a president ial car is a real perk and a real point of pride for folks. Anyone from perhaps a bigcity mayor to someone in the congress who the president is trying to woo in order to get legislation passed might get a ride in this car just as air force one is , treated as a perk today, something the president uses as it will to influence people to vote the way he might wish them to. This is the most recent car we have in our collection, even though it was built in 1972, so it is several decades old. The fact is the cars really arent going to museums much anymore. Part of that is because theyre not just building one primary car, but several copies of the primary car, so there are more of them out there. Carsartly, because these are really destroyed at the end of the service life. That is partly to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands, but also to keep the effectiveness of the armor against different and more modern weapons. It is rare to see them in museums anymore. We may not get any more, either. O of course we got these vehicles , from the lincoln motor company, leased to the white house by lincoln. When the lease expired and the cars begin to look dated, lincoln took the cars back and turned around and gave them to us. Now the cars are provided by cadillac and purchased outright by the white house. So they do not go back to cadillac or general motors, they remain property of the government to do with as they see fit. Visitors always have a lot of questions about these cars. The question they ask all the time about the kennedy car is, of course, is this really the car in which the president was assassinated . It is just hard to believe it would have been put back in service and used for several more years after the assassination, but it is. It was simply a matter of time. They needed a car for the president , and it was faster to rebuild that one that to start from scratch. They ask about the reagan car, what looks like a spoiler on the back. That is what they ask does this car have a spoiler like a sports car . No that is actually a handrail , for secret Service Agents. The bumper full down to make a foot platform, that lists up lifts up from the trunk to make a handrail for them to hold onto when they are riding with the president and a parade. I think some people are surprised by the technology in the cars. They assume there must be rocket launchers hidden behind the headlights or special trackers were homing devices. Really, the technology is pretty basic. There might be a pa system in there with a microphone so the president could talk to a crowd. There might be a radiotelephone that could be passed in so the president could make phone calls. Thats really about it. They were designed to get the president where he was going to allow him to be seen in parades and those kinds of situations. Beyond that, technology was fairly basic. If i had to pick a favorite car, i suppose it is the one a lot of people would pick, but i think of the kennedy car. That represents really two worlds of president ial transport. You have what starts as a modified lincoln, been stretched, a larger engine, but beyond that it is a car you could buy from any dealer. After the assassination it is completely rebuilt with titanium plating, special filters for gas attacks, steel plating underneath for grenades. That is a car that really represents a changing moment where we really have to start thinking about protection for our president. It is surprising that it took that long and something that tragic to make that realization happened. Of course, president lincoln had lincoln had been assassinated in had been assassinated in the 1860s. It seems for a time which is thought people would not harm the president. It couldnt happen again. Unfortunately, it did several times, even before president kennedy was assassinated. I would pick back one, but that one, but i do also like the sunshine special because it is so associated with president roosevelt and so perfect for his sunny optimism during the darkest years of the depression. And he loved that car very much, too. Ding in it andtinri insisted on the top being down when it was nice. They loved to be able to reach out, shake hands. They really did get a lot of energy out of that. Both of those cars are really associated with that. President ial limousines are a permanent exhibit here. All of them have been on the floor since the day we got them and have remained on the floor. The kennedy car was off display for several years out of sensitivity of the tragedy associated with it, but it has been on display on the floor since the late 1970s. These are some of the first things people see when they come into the museum, very prominently in front because they are the first things people are looking for. They always want to see them. I always have fun seeing people pose for pictures with these cars. They always pose with the sunshine special and the kennedy car. A few years ago we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the kennedy assassination, we moved the kennedy car to the front so it was closer to the entrance of the museum. That was one of the most remarkable days in my professional career, seeing people lined up out the door waiting for an hour or more just to spend a few minutes with that car. They left flowers, cards, notes. It really kind of shows how these are real, physical, tangible links to our own memories and personal experiences and i think thats , what makes these cars so special. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website, at www. Cspan. Org history. Next on lectures in history come co. University of