As we head into the presidential election season—officially launched by two conventions within the next few weeks—we’d like to highlight some Fold3 presidential discoveries. 
Presidential Conventions
This year, the Republican National Convention takes place August 27-30 in Tampa Bay. The 2012 Democratic National Convention is September 3-6 in Charlotte. Neither convention will resemble the experiences of delegates at most of the earlier conventions. The first Republican Convention was in Philadelphia in 1856, while the Democrats met first in Baltimore in 1831.
Taft and Roosevelt vie for front-page headlines in a 1912 edition of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. President Taft was nominated by “Standpatters” at the Republican Convention in Chicago, while Teddy Roosevelt’s supporters started a new party in order to nominate him. In Fold3’s FBI Case Files, there are many references to political alliances. One case file discusses an editorial in Denver’s Pueblo Chieftain newspaper about “why Col. Roosevelt should not be nominated at the Chicago Republican Convention.”
A 1948 photo of Harry S. Truman with his family and VP candidate Alben W. Barkley is identified as taken ” … after their nomination at the Democratic Party’s national convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
Presidential Pasts
A great deal of presidential material, as well as photo collections for Coolidge, FDR, Eisenhower, and Truman, can be found on Fold3. Documents for presidents also appear in unexpected places like the Civil War and Later Veterans Pensions Index. Cards were created for twelve presidents in their roles as Commanders in Chief, from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson. Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley served in the Civil War.
Perhaps most unexpected is Lyndon Johnson’s original 1908 birth certificate in which he was given no first name. The record was amended, however, in 1961 just after he was inaugurated as vice president of the United States. It’s just another of the many interesting discoveries relating to U.S. presidents on Fold3.