Podcast: The "U" is Silent - We Aren't (Visit Staunton)

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S2E1THE HARD WORK OF HARD HISTORY: INSIDE A PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

From a dairy farm to the helm of a presidential library — Robin Von Seldeneck's journey is one worth hearing. In this episode, Samantha sits down with the President & CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Virginia, to explore how museums are becoming something more than collections of artifacts. They're becoming places where communities can wrestle with hard truths. Robin shares her vision for honest dialogue around Wilson's complicated legacy on race, power, and democracy, and what it means for a small city to carry the weight of a president's story.

About This Podcast

The U may be silent, but Staunton has a lot to say. Join Visit Staunton as we sit down with inspiring individuals at the top of their craft. We’re chatting about what drives their passion, the actions behind the impact, and a little about the place where they’re making it all happen.

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Meeting Royalty

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Meeting Royalty

After the end of World War I, President Wilson traveled to Europe to participate in the negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference, ultimately producing the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. However, he first traveled to London, England and met with the British Royal family on Boxing Day, December 26, 1918.

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The Bruising Battle

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The Bruising Battle

After returning from the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson was determined to see the United States join the League of Nations, as he told the members of Congress. Still, many American politicians were unsure of whether entry into the League would be good for the United States. In order to fight for ratification, Wilson began a public speaking tour of the country in order to convince the American people to sway their senators in support of his plan.

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Mining Text

/ Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum/
Mining Text

One thing that scholars have been doing with all of the historical sources and literary works online these days is to apply tools of linguistic analaysis to the texts. For instance, if you take Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government from 1885 and look at weighted word frequencies through what is called a word cloud, you can see what sort of language he was using

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President Wilson Memorial in Prague, Czech Republic

/ Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum/
President Wilson Memorial in Prague, Czech Republic

Former US Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright had to live in exile with her family when she was a girl during the Nazi occupation of her native city of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Later, when the Communists took over the country’s government after World War II, her father took the family to the United States, where Madeleine became a citizen, raised a family and earned a PhD before joining the Carter administration. She is well aware of the troubled history of the Czech-speaking lands during the 20th century and before. And the Secretary of State knows very well the role that Woodrow Wilson played in creating the state of Czechloslovakia out of the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the Great War.

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