Kenyon’s Special Collections and Archives are home to a wide array of memorabilia: old photographs of Middle Path, past club advertisement posters and historical issues of the Collegian. Little is known, however, about our presidential signature book, the largest collection of presidential signatures out of all colleges and universities in the United States. Georgetown University, Claremont McKenna College, Azusa Pacific University, the University of Alabama and Lipscomb University also have presidential signature collections, but none are as complete as Kenyon’s. 

As we contend with the recent inauguration, students and community members are encouraged to take the unique opportunity to view these relics of past presidencies in the Special Collections and Archives office in Chalmers Library. This collection has genuine signatures (meaning not auto-penned or digitally signed) from all U.S. presidents except former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump. 

The collection originally belonged to William A. Leonard, the fourth Episcopal bishop of Ohio. He spent time in Mount Vernon as a child, and later obtained a Doctor of Laws from Kenyon in 1921. He died in Gambier in 1930 and left his collection to the College. The Special Collections and Archives team at Kenyon decided to continue adding to the book in an effort to preserve this physical emblem of American history at Kenyon. This decision created an opportunity for students and community members to access this impressive compilation of historical artifacts. 

The Special Collections and Archives team requires the signatures to be original; however, they do not have to be from a time in office. George Washington’s signature is included in a letter from the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson’s from a letter in which he agrees to appoint Thomas Aborn as Commercial Agent and Abraham Lincoln’s was cut from a check. Because of Leonard’s esteem as a Bishop, many of the signatures from his original collection also come from letters written directly to him from various presidents. Signatures from Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon come from letters they addressed to Kenyon, declining invitations to speak. Hoover was invited in 1924, five years before he became president, to speak at Kenyon’s commencement, and Nixon was invited in 1963, six years before he took office, to lecture. 

Other signatures have been acquired via donations from alumni or partners of the College, and some have come directly from the White House, like the most recent addition of former President Joe Biden’s signature. Natalie Demirdjian-Rivest, who served under the Biden administration as special assistant to the vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and is also the spouse of Assistant Professor of History Justin Rivest, is responsible for this latest acquisition. She was able to connect with colleagues in the White House and request a letter from Biden in honor of the College’s bicentennial. “I have never been more optimistic about the future of America than I am today, in part because of the students, instructors, and staff at schools like yours,” Biden wrote in his letter addressed to Kenyon. The letter garnered special attention and excitement when it was put on display in May 2024 for Reunion Weekend, which happened to take place just days after Demirdjian-Rivest hand-delivered it. 

The Special Collections staff has sent repeated letters to Obama and one to Trump requesting signatures, but they have only received photographs signed digitally. These are included in the collection but have not constituted its completion. As the search for these signatures continues, the Special Collections team led by Director of Special Collections and Archives Elizabeth Williams-Clymer and Outreach Librarian for Special Collections and Archives Eve Kausch hopes that the news of these two absences will reach someone who is willing to donate their copy. “Some visitors have said they have Obama or Trump’s signature, but we just haven’t gotten anyone to donate…yet!” Kausch and Williams-Clymer wrote in an email to the Collegian.

If any readers have the missing pieces to this anthology of signatures, Kenyon will have a completed collection of presidential signatures for view, something not even available at the American History Museum. 

Once the College has sourced the two remaining signatures, it will have a complete collection for view — something not even available at the  Smithsonian Museum of American History!