Harry S. Truman's Presidential Library and Museum was the first presidential library built under the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 — a law that Truman himself helped shape. Truman was deeply concerned with the preservation of presidential records and believed that a president's papers belonged to the American people. The library opened in 1957, and Truman used an office here almost daily until shortly before his death in 1972.
He is buried in the library's courtyard, alongside Bess, who died in 1982. Inside, the museum documents not only Truman's presidency but the extraordinary pivot point in world history that his years in office represented: the end of World War Two, the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe, the Berlin Airlift, the recognition of Israel, the Korean War, and the policy of containment that defined American foreign policy for the next four decades. Truman's approval ratings were at historical lows when he left office — many Americans thought he had been indecisive or too aggressive by turns.
History has been considerably kinder. The Truman Library is a good place to wrestle with the distance between how history is lived and how it is eventually judged.