Historic Furnishings Report: The Ansley Wilcox House and Its Furnishings, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site

Wallace, David

At 3:31 in the afternoon of September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office as president of the United States, a few hours after President McKinley's unexpected death from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt a week earlier. The simple ceremony took place in the library of 641 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, home of Mr. and Mrs. Ansley Wilcox, friends of the new president. Sixty-five years later, this poignant moment in its history led to the house's preservation as a national historic site. Federally owned since 1969, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site is administered by the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service. In the years since it became a public site, the Ansley Wilcox house has undergone partial restoration of the first floor, largely gutted in the 1930s to accommodate a restaurant. Three rooms-the library, the dining room, and a bedroom on the second floor-have also been furnished by the foundation to give visitors some sense of what the house looked like when it briefly served as President Roosevelt's headquarters. This report is designed to bring together the available information on the house and its furnishings, its occupants, and Theodore Roosevelt's temporary residency, which catapulted the house into the national limelight. Much of this information is already recorded in existing room furnishing plans and other research or planning documents, but the site has long felt the need for an integrated study that interpreters and planners may more readily use. The report's furnishing recommendations, based on this information and some new data, reflect the National Park Service's commitment to the principle of"no restoration without documentation," to borrow a phrase from the political arena.