Benjamin Hufbauer, a professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, who has written a book on the subject.
“Basically, there is a final campaign for a president to try to elect himself to a better place in history, and that’s what the presidential libraries and museums are ultimately all about,” Hufbauer told AFP.
New York University history professor Jonathan Zimmerman agreed, recalling a cartoon published in The Washington Post that referred to Johnson’s library as the “Great Pyramid of Austin”.
“Like the pharaohs, the presidents get to literally construct their own monuments, starting while they are in office, as we are seeing, and thereafter,” Zimmerman said.
Shadowy moments in a presidency, controversies and straight-up mistakes rarely find their place in presidential libraries.
The Monica Lewinsky affair gets scant mention in Clinton’s library.
Some of the controversies of George W. Bush’s two terms, including the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” — eventually called torture in a Senate report — only get a tiny mention in his library.
Over time, the most flagrant errors and omissions are addressed, Hufbauer said.
The Reagan library at first scarcely mentioned the Iran-contra scandal that saw secret arms sales to Iran to fund Nicaraguan rebel groups but now has accorded the issue a more prominent place.
Beyond what is — and what is not — put on display, presidential libraries also frequently draw controversy because of how they are funded. A 1955 law established the general principle that a president — and his generous donors — pay for construction, while the federal government partially takes care of operating costs.
The private fundraising is not subject to any regulation and has sometimes drawn criticism, especially as it shines the light on the wider debate over the place of corporate donations in American political life.
Zimmerman recalled the controversy surrounding Clinton’s 2001 pardon of businessman Marc Rich, who had faced fraud charges but whose family had contributed to the construction of the Democrat’s library.
In an effort for transparency, the Obama Foundation has promised to make public all donations over $200 and not to accept foreign gifts.
For some, the very fact that the American taxpayer is paying to maintain presidential libraries is problematic.
“I have no problem with George W. Bush or Barack Obama trying to tell their own story, I just don’t see why the taxpayer should subsidise it,” Zimmerman said.
With the libraries spread out across the vast country, some people want all the presidential archives to be gathered in one, easily accessible location.
But it seems extremely unlikely that any future presidents would forfeit the opportunity to craft their own image for generations to come.