Explore the Life of a U.S. President Through His Books in Fremont

It’s often said you can’t judge a book by its cover, but what do the titles someone reads tell you about who they are? The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums in Fremont explores that idea with its special exhibition “Inside President Hayes’ Library,” which opens March 28 and runs through June 30, 2026.

Visitors will see approximately 111 books from our 19th president’s personal library that highlight who he was as a reader. The selection is just a tiny portion of Hayes’ book collection, which spanned 8,000 titles.

“And that’s not including the 4,000 that we have that he purchased to start the Birchard Public Library when it opened,” says Kevin Moore, curator of artifacts at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums. “[It was] named for Rutherford’s uncle Sardis Birchard, who, when he passed away, left money for a library to be built.”

Along with some of Hayes’ beloved reads, visitors will also see diary quotes on display from the president that share reflections on his readings. Hayes was also a member of literary clubs over the course of his life, both in college and as a formative member of the Cincinnati Literary Club, which still exists today.

“He was a big fan of poetry. He had the complete works of Lord Byron, Keats [and] Wordsworth,” Moore says. “Over the course of his life, he had the opportunity to meet several of the fireside poets who were American poets like Longfellow and Lowell and Whittier and Bryant.”

Moore also notes that Hayes was a reader of classics from Homer and Cicero, enjoyed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy and, for leisure, read the works of Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain. Hayes even exchanged correspondence with Twain, as well as Frederick Douglass, and those letters are displayed in the exhibition as well (Douglass letter pictured above). 

Hayes read for enjoyment but also to gain insight into the changing world around him. 

“He had a habit of whenever there was a social issue, like slavery or Chinese immigration or tariffs or temperance or prison reform, he would just get tons and tons of books about the issue and just read everything he could about it to inform his opinion,” Moore says.

The gallery hosting these books and others is on the lower level of the museum building and is included in the cost of admission. Those who want to see Hayes’ actual library and the place where he often sat when reading these books can take a tour of the Hayes home, also located on the Fremont estate known as Spiegel Grove.  

“He was very much an intellectual, and it seems like he was very interested in learning how the world works,” Moore says. “I think that type of lifelong learning or curiosity is an important virtue.”

For more information about this exhibit, visit rbhayes.org.

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