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"No one has more experience in
successfully leading presidential libraries than Richard Norton
Smith," said Gov. Blagojevich. "He was my first choice to head the
library and museum we are building to honor Abraham Lincoln, and I
am ecstatic that he has accepted."
Smith has been director of the
Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas
since December 2001. He was director of the Gerald R. Ford Museum
and Library in Lansing, Mich., from 1996 through 2001 and was named
the first executive director of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation in
2000. From 1993 to 1996 Smith was director of the Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library and executive director of the Ronald Reagan
Presidential Foundation and the Reagan Center for Public Affairs in
Simi Valley, California. Smith was director of the Herbert Hoover
Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, from 1987 to
1993, and during most of 1990 did double duty as director of the
Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kan.
"I am profoundly grateful to
Governor Blagojevich for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime,"
said Smith, "and a chance to be part of an institution without
equal."
Perhaps best known as a
historian and biographer, Smith is currently working on a biography
of Nelson A. Rockefeller to be published in 2006. His first major
book, "Thomas E. Dewey and His Times," was a finalist for the 1983
Pulitzer Prize. Smith has also written "An Uncommon Man: The Triumph
of Herbert Hoover" (1984); "The Harvard Century: The Making of a
University to a Nation (1986)"; "Patriarch: George Washington and
the New American Nation" (1993); and "The Colonel: The Life and
Legend of Robert R. McCormick," (1997) a book about the Chicago
Tribune publisher, which received the prestigious Goldsmith Prize
awarded by Harvard's John F. Kennedy School.
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this article]
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Smith, 49, graduated from
Harvard University in 1975 with a degree in government. Following
graduation he worked as a White House intern and as a freelance
writer for the Washington Post. In 1977, Smith became a speech
writer for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke and two years later went
to work for Sen. Bob Dole, with whom he has been closely associated
ever since. He collaborated with Robert and Elizabeth Dole on their
joint autobiography, "Unlimited Partners" (1998, revised 1996), and
assisted Dole on his 1998 book of political humor, "Laughing
(Almost) All the Way to the White House," and a sequel, "Great
Presidential Wit" (2001).
Smith will oversee the Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum now under construction in
Springfield. It will be staffed and operated by the Illinois
Historic Preservation Agency, a government agency that currently
safeguards the state's Lincoln collection and operates more than 60
historic sites and memorials, many with ties to Lincoln. The
complex, which features separate library and museum buildings as
well as a welcome center and parking deck, will showcase the state
of Illinois' 47,000-item Abraham Lincoln collection.
The library building is
scheduled to open in spring 2004, with the museum open by late 2004.
The restored 1890 Union Station, directly across the street from the
museum, will be rehabilitated for use as a visitor welcome center,
and a 500-car parking deck will be constructed to serve the complex.
The
project is being funded by the state of Illinois, the federal
government and the city of Springfield.
[Illinois
Government News Network
news release]
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