Exhibits
The permanent exhibition is the heart of the Library. It tells Roosevelt's story the way he lived it — in order, from a boy at a bedroom window to a former president on the world stage — across eight chapters, from a New York City childhood to the Badlands, Cuba, the White House, the Amazon, and home again to Oyster Bay.
Within those chapters you move between two kinds of spaces that work together: Narrative Galleries that carry the story forward, and interactive environments that hand it to you to pick up yourself.
Consider this your call to adventure.
Most museums ask you to stand back and read. This one hands you a key and asks you to use it — to make choices, take sides, and decide what you would have done. Theodore Roosevelt's life runs through eight chapters here, in the order he lived it, and you don't watch it from behind a rope. You walk it.
Plan on about three and a half hours in the exhibition, and give yourself another hour outside on the Boardwalk. Roosevelt didn't become himself in a building. He became himself out in this country, and the Library is built so you can stand in it.
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