A Call to Adventure: Charlie Melcher, Ed O’Keefe and the Brand New Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

ED O'KEEFE

The two worst words you could apply to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library are library and museum. As a museum lover and a museum goer, I think those who are like me will enjoy it. There are artifacts under glass, there is storytelling, there is a lot of content to be absorbed, but it is really a call to adventure. It is an immersive experience in the chapters of Theodore Roosevelt's life.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. Folks, this one's going to be a little different. Today I'm coming to you not only as a host, but also as a participant and a collaborator and yes, as a Roosevelt to celebrate something years in the making. On July 4th in 2026, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will open its doors in Medora, North Dakota. It is the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, and that timing is no accident. In 1901, the year America marked its 125th birthday, my great-great-grandfather became president of the United States. Now, 125 years later, we are opening an extraordinary institution in his name. That place in history between the birth of this nation and the moment in which we now stand raises the central question this library was built to explore. What should the next 125 years look like?

And who better to help us begin answering that question than Ed O'Keefe, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, and Charlie Melcher, the CEO of the Future of Storytelling, two of the people most responsible for turning this improbable vision into reality. Having worked together for years, this conversation serves a few purposes. It is a reflection on where the idea began, how close it came to never happening, and what we have been trying to build. It is also a look ahead at who this library will draw, how visitors will experience it, and what Theodore Roosevelt's story might inspire in citizens across the country and around the world. Listen for the moment on a snowy butte in the badlands when Ed and Charlie knew they had found the right place and hear about the imaginative experiences built around a radical idea: The hero of this library is not really Theodore Roosevelt. The hero is you. So let's get started. Here's Ed O'Keefe.

ED O'KEEFE

We talk a lot about the physical design. And for those who visit the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, you'll see there's a long narrative gallery that has the chronological story of Theodore Roosevelt's life. That's probably the most traditional museum-like experience. And then there are these adventure galleries, which are the chapters of that story. You're in the young adulthood, you're in the Elkhorn, you're charging up San Juan Heights, you're in the Amazon. These are the chapters almost of a book. And we want you to dive into that as if you were living the adventure with him.

TED ROOSEVELT V

I want to start there because this is an unusual project in that we started with a blank page. So how did you begin envisioning what this library might be?

ED O'KEEFE

I called Charlie Melcher.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Good first call.

ED O'KEEFE

First call I made. I mean, seriously, I knew that the Future of Storytelling was at the forefront of immersive, interactive, theatrical at times experience.

CHARLIE MELCHER

The big realization was that we didn't have TR to work with. Every other presidential library has the president and he's there getting to help direct it and help to write that first chapter of history, how history will look upon his presidency. And of course, as you said, a place to store all the papers and memorabilia. We didn't have any of that. And that's incredibly freeing. I mean, it also creates huge challenges too. We didn't have him to run around and fundraise for us either. We had to rely on -

ED O'KEEFE

I was asked about that the other day. I was asked, "What do you think the biggest disadvantage was?" Between us and the Obama Presidential Center—which was coming up at the same time—I said, "Well, we didn't have a living president to make phone calls, but we also didn't have a living president to tell us what not to do."

CHARLIE MELCHER

And so the realization early on was that this is in a way not just about TR. If we're going to do it, it has to be meaningful for people today and tomorrow. It had to become not just TR's library, but the people's library. And so a tremendous amount of the thinking was, how do we make our guest the hero? I mean, yes, you're going to come and you're going to be learning about and inspired by TR, but the intention was for those experiences to make you think differently about your own life and about how you could show up as a better citizen or leader or conservationist, which are the three pillar principles. We needed to design this in a way where our guests would be able to engage with the history in a way that was embodied, emotional, multisensoral, where they would feel what it felt like to be a leader or feel what it felt like to be in the arena and give a speech.

We really want this to be a place where people will come in, be so inspired that they will go out and feel and show up differently in the world.

TED ROOSEVELT V

I want to confess something and Ed knows this because we had some conversations about this, but when the library, the interior of the library was first getting built, one of my concerns was this is going to be a Disney-fied version of Theodore Roosevelt. We're going to lose all the substance of what this great man did. And what is very clear now as we are opening the library is that in fact, that balance unbelievably well met. How did you think about being able to do those two things, not create a bunch of amusement park rides for people and marry it to a relatively substantive person in American history?

CHARLIE MELCHER

I will say that we were inspired by Theodore Roosevelt. I mean, here's a man who is both a man of letters, a writer, a thinker, a voracious reader, but also a man of action. He was out there hunting, riding, leading the troops up Kettle Hill. He represented both mind and body and heart. And partially I should just answer it by saying none of the interactive elements are gimmicks. They're all authentically built out of his experience, out of the real history, rigorous history. We had many historical advisors so we were sure that we were not making stuff up and that these were true to his experience in those places. The difference is we're now putting you into the river of doubt. You are on the canoe going down the river and sure you're learning about his experience, but you also are getting a bit of the excitement or the fear or the emotional resonance of that journey for yourself.

ED O'KEEFE

I think we were advantaged by the fact again that we weren't building this in the 1920s in the wake of Theodore Roosevelt's life or presidency. We were building this in the 2020s where we could look at technology and immersive design and embodied experience as a means of storytelling. I mean, maybe 50 years from now they'll need to change the exhibit experience probably. Of course, I hope it'll evolve and change. But when the Nixon library opened, it didn't talk about Watergate. I mean, it wasn't part of the exhibit experience. It didn't happen until Tim Neftali and a group of more courageous leaders after the president and first lady had died said, "We ought to actually talk about Watergate in the Nixon Library." I hope we've created an experience where if you have read every single biography about Theodore Roosevelt, and if you have never read a single thing about him, you can come in here and enjoy it. That is a trick. That has been hard to pull off. I hope we have successfully done it.

TED ROOSEVELT V

And I think you have, from what I've seen, it's there. And I was talking to somebody the other day about this and you alluded to this is that we have a hundred plus years since the passing of the president, which gives you a hundred years to reflect on his legacy, which is actually a massive advantage because you don't know what the implications of certain policies are going to be until a hundred years later you can see which were the great ones and which sort of fizzled out.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And it was one of the inspiring things for us because we started by doing a lot of research, both the historical record, conversations with people. Ed kindly encouraged us to go on a listening tour across North Dakota, understanding how TR fit into that landscape and how the library might be relevant to that community. And what we learned very quickly was that Theodore Roosevelt represented different things to different people. Everyone sees in him what they want to see. There are people on the right who love the fact that he was a war hero and an expansionist and then people on the left, conservationist and 230 million acres that he put in reserve. And so everybody sort of sees what they want out of him and we knew that we needed to be able to continue that. We would be unsuccessful if some people walked in and didn't feel like, wait, that's not the TR I know.

They weren't a little challenged by being able to see both. And early on we wrote this list of 10 tenants, commandments, if you will, for the design of the library. And one of them was to humanize, not lionize. And again, that's a difference that we all have a hundred years later versus the actual president when he's talking about himself. So we made real efforts to make sure that we dealt with some of the things that he didn't deal with well and that we're honest about that in the library.

ED O'KEEFE

We made a conscious decision to not put our thumb on the scale of which version of TR you supposedly should believe in. Republicans, Democrats, independents alike will come into this museum loving something about TR and they will find some aspect of that story to walk out with an even better impression of him. We don't tell you which version is right or you should believe in. You couldn't do that in real time with a living president.

TED ROOSEVELT V

And there's nothing that TR would enjoy more than knowing people are still arguing about his legacy. I think you would agree with this approach.

ED O'KEEFE

Oh, I mean, I've been asked a number of times, what would TR think? And I reflectively say, I don't know because I never met the man. And I never take him out of his time and place. But I think one thing I can safely say is he would be enormously happy that we're still talking about him and debating him and thinking about him. And yeah, he liked to be the bride at every wedding and the baby at every baptism and the corpse at every funeral. So I mean, delighted that we are still going.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And one of the things I know that he would love about this library is how forward our technology usage is. He was an early adopter. He was the first president to be on a submarine and fly in an airplane and have the telegraph room in the White House so he could leave the country, first president to leave the country while he was in office. And so here we have things like a full projection mapped room where you can go down the Amazon and feel surrounded by the visuals and the sound or an AI-empowered TR. So you can go and talk to the president. And actually it's the large language model for that AI is fed with all of his writings and his books and other historians' takes on it. So in a way that AI is the living library. It is the opportunity to access in a much more friendly user interface all of the great writings that this very prolific writer and historian had available.

ED O'KEEFE

Which by the way, we called our shot back in 2020. I mean this technology did not—nobody was talking about AI in 2020. And yet we said we are going to digitize the archive of Theodore Roosevelt and make it available to the general public in a way that hasn't been made available to date. We didn't quite know how. We didn't know exactly what we were going to do to accomplish that, but we set it out as a goal. And with the intersection and advent of AI, it became more possible.

CHARLIE MELCHER

It's one of the things that was so interesting about this when we first went out together to Medora, North Dakota, which as it happens, I hadn't been to before. Surprising. And I realized just how beautiful but also remote this was, that we were going to have to create a hell of a destination venue. We were going to have to relish, make lemons from the lemonade—

ED O'KEEFE

I don't know who said it first, but it was pilgrimage and platform. We're going to have to build a place and it is a pilgrimage, a journey to get there.

CHARLIE MELCHER

It is.

ED O'KEEFE

And a platform that will make whatever we're doing there accessible instantaneously around the world.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Well, Ed, talk more about that because those are two key points about what this library is. I mean, I think the first question people always ask is he doesn't have a library. Why is that? The second question is Western North Dakota, why are you doing it there? And there's a historical reason for doing it there, but there's also the pilgrimage component of it and the idea because it's so remote of having it be a platform that yes, we want everybody to visit the library, but you don't need to visit the library to benefit from this library. So can you talk about those decisions and why it's built that way?

ED O'KEEFE

Yes. So again, the short version of why North Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt famously lives as a cowboy and a rancher for the better part of two years at one of the lowest points in his life after the deaths of his wife and mother of different causes on the same day in the same house. He's devastated, he's depressed, and he turns as he often does in his life to nature for respite, renewal and resilience. He finds it in North Dakota. Later says, "I never would've been president without my experiences in North Dakota." But I really think it is the fulcrum of the hero's journey. This is the place where you can come today and you can still feel that sense of renewal, of hope, of resilience in nature. You can stand at what remains of the Elkhorn Ranch in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and you really do get a sense that Theodore Roosevelt's spirit is there with you.

It is a pilgrimage for some. It is a road trip for millions of others. I mean, having a cultural institution of this magnitude in the Midwest being accessible to people who might not be able to go to Washington DC or New York to visit Sagamore, the birthplace, I think is a hugely important attribute.

TED ROOSEVELT V

I've seen this time and time again as people that have not been out to the library have visited it before it opened, seen the location and seen the area. It is a very emotional experience for people. Can you describe what it's been like for you to bring people out there and see it for the first time?

ED O'KEEFE

I grew up in North Dakota and I grew up with the lore and legend of Theodore Roosevelt over me, not quite as much as your experience did. But to have people come from all different walks of life, from all different parts of the world, probably coming a little skeptical, a little try before you buy, a little, let's just see if this is, let's trust but verify here. And to have them literally in tears looking at the magnificence of the landscape, at the beauty of this unique place that meant a lot to me, meant a lot to many North Dakotans and those who live in the area, but was otherwise sort of a foreign land to many people.

TED ROOSEVELT V

It brings up another point about this library that is the opportunity set that's so amazing about it. And TR is loved by progressives, loves by conservatives, loved by Republicans, loved by Democrats. Josh Holly's favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt. Elizabeth Warren's favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt. Barack Obama's favorite president is Theodore Roosevelt. I mean, you can just go down this list of people that don't agree on anything, but they can agree on Theodore Roosevelt. And it creates a center for this country to bring people that normally do not talk to each other together around a commonality.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And its location is actually in the center of the United States.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah.

CHARLIE MELCHER

It's on the 100th Meridian, I think. Literally the dead center.

ED O'KEEFE

Geographic center of North America.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And you have there also the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the only national park named after a president or a person even. And that's there because to a large degree, his time in North Dakota is what helped him to understand the importance of the need for conservation and preservation. He was there during this time when the bison basically disappeared where the overgrazing of the West was creating collapse for the cattle who were there. They had over hunted the big game. He was aware of just how we wouldn't have these natural resources if we didn't take some consideration of how they were being consumed and used. And he thought so deeply that that was part of what it meant to be in a democracy. Europe had its cathedrals. Egypt had its pyramids. America had its great natural wonders and we needed to preserve them as part of the legacy for all Americans.

ED O'KEEFE

Which was a radical, insane idea at the time. I mean, it was relegated to academic circles, but TR is the first person with real political power and influence to attach to that idea. So when we started thinking about where the landscape, and I think that's why people will want to come and see it because we didn't spoil what TR saw.

CHARLIE MELCHER

We had always said, "We're going to bring you in to get you to go out." And this is such a magical landscape for people to go out into. There's so much to do, biking and hiking and all sorts of wonders outside, but also as a place for study. He was a naturalist. He wanted to do science outdoors. He wants us to be out there. That was the legacy.

ED O'KEEFE

I mean, we were trying to accomplish a lot. I mean, if I think back on, if I look at the Story Guide now, I think, well, that's a little insane. I mean, it's 300 pages of what we want to do.

CHARLIE MELCHER

So for our listener, early on we wrote a book that became, we call it the Story Guide. And it was really the intention for the institution in the way that say a show, a television show might create a Story Bible where you identify the characters and the plots and the universe. And what we realized was that if we could describe that big, bold vision early on, it would help us to bring people to it. It would help us to align people around it, whether that was donors or the hundreds of people we were going to be hiring, God willing, over the next few years and have them have something to onboard around. This became a way to align people to this larger set of values and vision for the institution. And surprisingly, it worked.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah. And I want to talk about that, but for listeners who haven't seen the library yet, it's very subtle. It's built into the landscape, but the square footage is quite large. How big is it?

ED O'KEEFE

Over 95,000 square feet interior.

TED ROOSEVELT V

I mean, that is a massive building.

ED O'KEEFE

Yeah. On 93 acres, 43 of which is really navigable. So that's very large. There are not a lot of comparables in terms of acreage. You're also along 144 miles of biking trails. The TR Library is now the single largest public-private partnership alongside a national park ever.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Which is not an easy thing to do.

ED O'KEEFE

No. I mean, the second largest was the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was a massive project in a much more populated area in a much more populous state. That's I think the totality of the experience. You can come with your families, put down your phones and tablets, get out into nature, and you can come into this experience and really be immersed in an incredibly inspiring story that challenges you.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And it was intentionally designed. There are many things that are great for little kids. There are things here that are immersive and interactive that anything from teenagers, young adults, adventurous adults will enjoy. And then there's a ton here for serious scholars, for people who want to dive deeply, who want to read all of the captions and watch and listen to all of the footage. So we really though about designing multiple layers and points of entry. And I will say there's a lot here. It's so much content. I cannot think of another presidential library or even basic museum that is this richly packed with so much media, so much technology and so much authentic artifacts and original materials. It was incredibly bold. And honestly, when we started, I don't know that any of us thought we could really pull it off. I mean, just for a second, talk about the challenge of getting some of these original artifacts that had to be lent from other institutions.

ED O'KEEFE

Charlie was never a believer in that fact.

CHARLIE MELCHER

I just didn't think it was going to be possible.

TED ROOSEVELT V

This is the direction I want to go in this conversation because now at the doorstep of the opening, one of my concerns is that people are going to arrive here, they're going to see this building that is so beautifully incorporated in the landscape. It's so obvious now that it should be here, but it's going to feel like a fate accompli. And the reality is if you roll the clock back five, six years, this was an audacious idea and it's been accomplished and you deserve all the credit in the world for having accomplished it all the way along. There were plenty of opportunities that this could have gotten off the tracks and yet it managed to keep getting back on the tracks. So I'd love to have you explain as much as you're comfortable how long a journey this been and how it feels to accomplish this.

CHARLIE MELCHER

What is it? Seven years? Yeah. I think it's seven years since you were hired and then you hired me and my team. That's a long time, long project. And when I just think I have these images, Ed, of us wandering around while it's snowing, lightly snowing out in Medora and we're climbing over elk fence sometimes not so gracefully for a couple of guys who have spent a lot of years in New York.

And we're walking on different pieces of property, some that are private, some that were national parks, some that were... I don't know who owned them.

ED O'KEEFE

They knew.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Some of which were definitely we were trespassing. Anyway, and we get to this one, I remember coming down this wash and I look up and there's this horse up there, like Q Central Casting out of—

TED ROOSEVELT V

A wild horse.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Well, that's what I thought. Everyone was like, "Oh my God, look, there's a wild horse" because there are wild horses. It was so idyllic, so picturesque. And we come down off this bute down the wash to the train tracks and literally we're right where TR got off the train.

ED O'KEEFE

Yeah. No, that was a magical moment.

CHARLIE MELCHER

In Medora.

ED O'KEEFE

That was in February of 2020. And I literally turned to an unnamed companion and said, "It's over. This is the site. This is it. He has spoken."

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah. But none of it was preordained. I mean, these were all decisions that had to be made along the way. It could have, to your point, when you were walking around Medora, there's a lot of wide open space. There are a lot of places that it looked like it could be finding this spot, being able to get it by the land, from the legislature. These were all very complicated things to accomplish. The idea that there would be an institution, and Ed, you can talk about this too, this was originally a much smaller project in a neighboring town.

ED O'KEEFE

Yes.

TED ROOSEVELT V

And it grew into something that I think if you told people when they first envisioned this library would've said you are out of your mind if you think you're going to accomplish that.

ED O'KEEFE

They told me that several times. I didn't need to imagine it because relatives, friends, enemies. Potential donors. Everybody. I came across a Theodore Roosevelt quote the other day that I had never heard before. And it really reminded me of what you just said, Ted. He said, "All really great work is rough in the doing, though it seems smooth enough to those who look back upon it or the contemporaries who overlook it from afar."

TED ROOSEVELT V

100% that.

ED O'KEEFE

That's it.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah.

ED O'KEEFE

And as we've gained steam toward the opening and the first few months of operation, boy, do we have a lot more friends. I've never had people call me and say, "I would like to be in the arena. Where do I sign up?" And I'm like, "Wow, that's different." I mean, there were lonely moments. I remember very distinctly I was driving down I-94. It was getting dark. We were really at one of those moments where we needed an injection of capital or it was hard to see how we were going to keep going at the pace we were going. And I got a call from an anonymous benefactor who made a very significant gift. And I just pulled over and cried. It was like, "Oh my God, we're going to keep going." There were definitely, I mean, these big projects, I don't think people like to talk about that or admit that because it's what TR said in "In the Arena."

You're going to fail. I mean, there's going to be moments where you err, where you come short. And it's dust and blood covered and it doesn't feel very good because you're like, "Man, I think this is something that should work and it could work and why the hell won't it work?" And you just got to keep going.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And I have to say people don't understand, but raising half a billion dollars, that's an incredible feat. It's crazy. Unbelievable. And Ed, you led that all the way.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Absolutely.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And you don't understand how many nos there are to get to a yes.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Oh yeah.

CHARLIE MELCHER

There are so many nos. And in the early days, just repeated no after no after no. At a certain point, you get some momentum going downhill, but that was years in. It was years of just shoulder into the oncoming wind and storm and I have huge respect.

ED O'KEEFE

I appreciate that, but there are so many people, Dan Muse, our chief development officer, Sigrid Letcher, all the people that joined the team and have gone on to other things.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Ted!

ED O'KEEFE

Well, I was just going to say the credibility that is lent by the Roosevelt descendants being a part of the project, it is maybe after why doesn't he have a library? Why is it in North Dakota? Are the Roosevelts involved? Yeah. What do they think?

TED ROOSEVELT V

It's interesting because this is not the first attempt at a presidential library and I have not been involved with any of the others from the start. I just said, "This is for other people to do. I'm fine with it." And I apreciate the credit I'm getting here, but it really was a reflection of the trust I had in Ed and you. It was a series of those events where it was clear that this was going to be in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, but more importantly, it was going to be something that benefited the country today, that it was about the visitor and really putting the visitor at the center so they were asking themselves big audacious questions and hopefully changing the trajectory of their lives. I had no interest in being involved in a legacy project. Other people can argue his legacy, but I think Ed, Charlie and all these other people that were involved, it was clear that we were trying to do something bigger, as audacious as that sounds, than the actual president himself.

ED O'KEEFE

Yeah. I had no interest in being involved in a legacy project. That's why I think I became intrigued is the Roosevelts aren't sitting there saying, "And now here is where Mount Rushmore II shall be held." I didn't know that could have been what the disposition was that this is going to be a big honorific legacy cementing project. I was like, he's well taken care of. I mean, he's a top five president, but we need him. I mean, we need the words that he said 120 years ago that somehow feel like they were said yesterday. And that was as true when I was growing up as it is in 2026. So if we can reignite that incredible life and make it relevant to new generations of not just Americans but global citizens, well, that felt like a worthwhile task to me.

TED ROOSEVELT V

So the library opens on the 250th anniversary of the country. I want to talk about why that was an important date because it certainly acted as a deadline. Charlie, you know this as well as anyone

CHARLIE MELCHER

Deadline?

TED ROOSEVELT V

Which I think helped keep everything on track, but all the opportunity in the world to say, let's open it in 2027 and not meet that deadline. Ed, I know it was critical for you to open on that date. Why was that so important to you?

ED O'KEEFE

Well, there are a couple of Ed-isms that the team is probably tired of hearing, one of which is deadlines work. So there was a very pragmatic, practical part of me that knew without a deadline it would go on interminably and infantesimally. And I think that is the death of most projects where there is not a clear line of sight and there is not a finish line that you absolutely must hit. So that was the pragmatic part. The philosophical symbolic part was Theodore Roosevelt was president at America's 125th birthday. He's literally right in the middle of zero, the birth of the nation at the Declaration of Independence and where the country is and will be on July 4th, 2026. I think one of the only people on the planet at America 125 that could have envisioned America 250 was Theodore Roosevelt. And so think about what America looks like at 500 because that's where we are in July of 2026. We are halfway to America 500. And the only way to get there is with better leaders, citizens, and conservationists. It is imperative that you have participants in a democracy.

I think if you boiled Theodore Roosevelt's philosophy down to the simplest core, active citizens, good citizens, that the act of participation of citizens in a democracy is essential for our survival. And so it just felt to me that it had to be that date. You had to have a reason to look both back at what he thought at America 125 and what we all should be thinking about if there's any chance of reaching America 500.

TED ROOSEVELT V

How do you feel about the place that this library is going to sit in the American political spectrum?

ED O'KEEFE

Also very intentionally well. Theodore Roosevelt was president at a time of incredibly rapid technological change. He was born in 1858 without electricity, without motor vehicles, without airplanes or submarines, or the ability to communicate via a telegraph or a phonograph record. If you read contemporary accounts in the early 1900s of what it felt like, fears of political violence, political instability, tribalism taking over our politics, the idea that immigration was an incredibly controversial issue of what it is to be an American, what is America's place in the world? It's all what we're experiencing again. I again feel like Theodore Roosevelt is almost this person from the past that has a view of the future. It's like he could see everything that we were going to face because he faced it in his lifetime. He gives you a framework with which to approach issues that says, yes, you have a perspective and that's valuable, but if we don't work together as Americans, if we don't see beyond whatever your particular political party is, then the American Democratic experiment is not going to work.

That is not a partisan statement. That is not a political statement. That has been true since 1776 and it is very true in 2026. So maybe if we can use his example to bring people together and have civic conversations, we get a little closer.

CHARLIE MELCHER

One of the things that I took away from all the time I've gotten to spend learning about and being inspired by Theodore Roosevelt is that he was somebody who made his decisions based on his values on a kind of moral leadership. And he was also so curious about the world, constantly reading and speaking with people and learning. He was somebody whose ideas would change as he got more information, as he became more informed. He's a tremendous role model for today because he really led from a sense of core beliefs and they were more important than party. It was more his philosophy and his moral compass that was driving his leadership than his attachment to party. And so I think that's a very valuable lesson for today. I think for left and right, people have stopped thinking, they've stopped learning, they've stopped evolving and changing their opinions and becoming more informed.

ED O'KEEFE

We seem to have lost touch as this nation has grown so much larger with the connective tissue that actually brings us together as Americans and TR in particular as global citizens. I mean, I hope that more people going to Madora, North Dakota and seeing the Badlands, which was a much harder journey when TR was around, will remind you of some of that connectivity and connection.

CHARLIE MELCHER

What makes us American as opposed to what makes us a Democrat or Republican. TR was this wealthy family, New York Dandy, Harvard educated, who went out to shoot a bison on an ultimate hunting trip. And yet the time he spent out there ultimately transformed him into understanding who the real Americans were, what it meant to be able to really connect with the average citizen, the hardworking family person. And I'm hoping that people from all over the country, from the West Coast to the East Coast to all the other states will come to North Dakota and have a similar kind of awakening or experience that helps them feel more connected to their fellow citizens in an age when our social media is doing just the opposite.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Well, it speaks to the location, as you just said, as being an asset, not a liability for this library, which I've really come to appreciate during this journey of building this library. And the other thing that strikes me is that one of the questions we ask everybody on Good Citizen at the end is what makes a good citizen? And it's striking how micro the answer is. Nobody says go out and start a political party and change the world. Everybody starts with their community. Everybody starts with their neighbors and meeting people that they otherwise wouldn't meet and engaging in dialogue. But I think that is a very realistic goal for this library is to have everybody come out of this library and feel like I can do something. It doesn't have to be as grand, at least initially as grand in scale as Theodore Roosevelt. And I can start to make a real substantive change in this country.

ED O'KEEFE

I think everybody should come out and realize they don't have to be president to make a difference. There are things they can do in their own community. There are things they can do by simply talking to one another. And yeah, there's a part of me that hopes there's some young Theodore Roosevelt that walks through and goes, "Maybe I will be president of the United States someday. And here's why." I mean, why do we build memorials and tributes and presidential libraries, but if not to inspire what's next?

TED ROOSEVELT V

We've referenced the historians that have been involved with this project. It's really an unbelievable list. I mean, it's a who's who of national historians. Can you talk about some of the participants that are involved and how you were able to bring them together to be involved with helping us discuss the story of Theodore Roosevelt in a way that was factually accurate that accounted for his legacy?

ED O'KEEFE

Doris Kerns-Goodwin, Douglas Brinkley, Dr. Kathy Dalton, Stacy Quartery, Clay Risen, Mike Cullinan, Doug Ellison. If there's a person, the estate of Edmund and Sylvia Morris, I mean, literally acquiring their estate and papers in order to understand their perspective. Sadly, they're not with us to be a part of the project, but Leroy Dorsey so many different... I mean, I put 2,700 miles on my dad's Subaru visiting every tribal community in North Dakota. I mean, the tribal perspective was extraordinarily valuable. Everybody you could possibly imagine and then some.

CHARLIE MELCHER

And scholars at the Smithsonian at the American Museum of Natural History

ED O'KEEFE

Library of Congress.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Library of Congress, Sagamore Hill.

ED O'KEEFE

National Park Service.

CHARLIE MELCHER

We reached out and it took a village and so many different interesting perspectives. And as you said, his life is so full. No one has it all. We were turning for different people for expertise in different parts of his life.

ED O'KEEFE

The voice of the museum is Nick Offerman, Oprah, Garth Brooks, Brene Brown and go on and on former presidents all doing the in the arena speech. It gives you chills. Chills. I mean, when you're going through, that's not a normal museum experience.

CHARLIE MELCHER

You want to just stay in that room and hear everybody read it. It's so powerful.

ED O'KEEFE

Oh yeah. No, I've gone through the experience with people who are listening and they hear Garth Brooks' voice and about halfway through somebody goes, "That's Garth Brooks." And it's super fun. You're just like, "Oh my God, they're going to do that all day long every day. Every time you come in, there's going to be a different voice reading this experience." And I'll tell you, the person, the benefactor of that particular experience, he came through and he saw it and he was delighted. We're thinking, "Hey, it's going to be Garth and Oprah and Nick Offerman and Conan O'Brien and Brene Brown and all these things." And he said, "You know what I want you to do at some point? I want respectfully, I want you to have the voices of everyday regular Americans." Absolutely. And in particular, immigrants, first generation immigrants and you could have a little bit about their story and what it is to be an American, to be in the arena, to fight for what you want and what this country should be. And I thought that's amazing.

TED ROOSEVELT V

It's a beautiful idea.

ED O'KEEFE

It's a great idea.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah. Is there a room in particular, a moment in this library that really sings to you personally?

CHARLIE MELCHER

I happen to be very fond of the first childhood room, which is the Roosevelt Natural History Museum. And that room is meant to elicit that sense of curiosity that young Theodore Roosevelt had. And so we created this room where you walk in and it was almost a litle bit of magical realism, how a young asthmatic boy would be home bound and homeschooled but fantasizing about these adventures out in nature. And that room is designed with these amazing screens and this opportunity to unlock things in the room that literally then crawl along the floor and go up onto the screen and you have this picture of the outdoors. So it's magical, it represents accurately an ecosystem and nature and the study of nature and it feels like a living cabinet of curiosities. It's designed obviously to be wonderful for small kids, but it's just as wonderful for us older kids.

TED ROOSEVELT V

One of the things that the library does so well is it uses technology in the way that you're describing, but it very quickly shifts to the outdoors. So there are all these moments throughout the library where you're interior, interior, and then you see these vistas into the badlands. Can you talk about the intentionality of having that happen and why it was built that way?

ED O'KEEFE

One really good example of that is you're in the Memory Train. Theodore Roosevelt did not make it back in time to say goodbye to his father when his father was dying when TR was 20 and his dad was 46. And then there's this fateful moment where he's coming back from Albany not knowing the fate of his wife and mother and his newborn child. And so we take those parallel experiences and the terror and anxiety that Theodore Roosevelt must have felt on each of those train rides and you're physically embodied in this rumbling experience as the story of his courtship and marriage of his first wife Alice Lee goes by you and then you're at the moment, February 14th, 1884, when you find out his wife and mother have died. You turn the corner and you actually see the diary, right? The X, the light has gone out of my life. That's a really interesting mix of technology and object.

We really tried to think about where you could combine immersive technology that would take you away into the moment and an object that has symbolic significance but is even greater because you've just heard an incredible story. After that moment, you see the light of the Badlands, you see -

TED ROOSEVELT V

Because there's a window out into them.

ED O'KEEFE

There's a window that beckons you out of this dark space and it's obviously allegorical. It is metaphorical in the sense that that's where TR was. He wrote those words in 1884 at a very low depressed point in his life and then turns west and comes to the Badlands. And so we've got that little gleam of light coming through to say, "You are going to make it."

TED ROOSEVELT V

I think of the average visitor coming in is probably walking in with their phone, looking at their phone. I mean, that's just the world that we live in. And you have this first room that really grabs your attention. There's a lot of technology, there's a lot of interaction, a lot of lights that sort of bring you up from your phone. And then you basically walk into the memory train. There's a little history here. You learn about this moment in time and then you have this connective point where you find he had this great loss and maybe I have some great loss that I can share with him and then it introduces you to nature. It's this three-step process of like, let's get your attention, let's connect you to TR, let's connect you to the land. It's really, it's doing two tricks. One, it's not about TR, it's about you and it's actually not about the inside of this library. It's about what happens when you leave the library.

CHARLIE MELCHER

I have to emphasize that because I really think that for TR, going outdoors, the time outside, it was both healing, it was inspiring, it was a place of adventure, it was a place of science. It was the thing that I think gave him the strength and the courage and the belief that he could do anything. He was this man of action, but by action, I mean doing things, getting out there and doing things. And I think we live in a world now that's built too much around being passive. We sit and we watch, maybe we move our thumbs on a little screen. We've lost that sense of going on a point A to point B march. I just feel like if we could do anything, it would be that, that we'd get people in to a library, get them physically participating in all these things and it leaves them wanting to go on a hike, go over to the national park or do a bike ride or watch some birds just gets them out living in the world in their bodies with other people.

If you ask me what's the basis of good citizenship, it's actually that.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Yeah.

ED O'KEEFE

Connection. Connection. Connection to nature.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Nature and to yourself because that's ultimately what TR got out of that. He found himself being small out in the badlands or being small under this infinite stars. It was a sense of being able to connect to oneself and from there he could go on and do anything. Yeah.

ED O'KEEFE

Also, it's a hell of a lot of fun too. We're very serious in this conversation, but this guy, he knew how to live with joy and we've brought that joy into many of these experiences. I mean, we really intentionally thought about the design of where there are play filled areas where kids can just let loose.

CHARLIE MELCHER

It's literally jungle gym and then they can crawl through a fireplace and end up in the family room, which is this beautiful sitting room where the parents can be sitting and enjoy and relax and learning about the Roosevelts in the White House. It's actually something I'm so happy we were able to get in because it was one of those things you wanted from the very beginning which was -

ED O'KEEFE

Yeah, it was on the bubble.

CHARLIE MELCHER

We need to have a Meow Wolf-like passage way where you get on your hands and knees and try to—

ED O'KEEFE

Which let me tell you, talking with serious museum designers about a passage way that they don't—

TED ROOSEVELT V

That wasn't high on their list.

ED O'KEEFE

They don't take you so seriously anymore. They kind of look at you like, "Who are you?" That was different. That really begins to shape how you approach design. I mean, we want the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History for you to feel curiosity. If it doesn't make you curious about things, then it's probably not the right design.

TED ROOSEVELT V

I remember when that was first presented being not skeptical, but thinking like, "I don't have the framework for this." A room's really trying to get you to have a certain value and a feeling is going to come from this. And you're going to tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt all throughout. It's a very complicated dance that you guys have accomplished here.

ED O'KEEFE

Yes, that's architecture, that's design, that's exhibit experience, that's scenic. I mean, they accomplish this in theater, they accomplish this on sets. I mean, we were bringing that theatricality into a museum experience.

TED ROOSEVELT V

We've touched on this, but I'm going to come back to this question because we ask everybody and I think it's an important one, which is what makes a good citizen today?

ED O'KEEFE

Someone who cares about their community. I mean, someone who believes in making a connection with a fellow human being more than thinks about what party they belong to or how they vote or where they live or how they live. I think a good citizen is somebody who recognizes that democracy requires participation.

CHARLIE MELCHER

Empathy. I think being able to relate to other people, wanting to connect with other people and wanting to leave this place better off than how you found it.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Ed, I'm almost hesitant to ask this question because I want you to bask in the glory of this accomplishment, but what is next for the presidential library? What is the vision from here now that the physical structure is complete?

ED O'KEEFE

Well, now the real fun can begin. This has been an arduous and rewarding journey, but it is really that the end is just the beginning. It's not a hard question because in part it's been what we've been wanting and waiting to do from the beginning, which is invest in K-12 education. We can get 26,000 students a year from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, and Wyoming to the TR Library. We want to develop the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Scholars, a fellowship and scholarship program where we can really invest in conservation. I mean, the number of conservation organizations that bring validity by inserting Theodore Roosevelt somewhere into their mission or literal name is countless. And so here's somebody who brings people together once again and it feels like there is a need for a convening of conservation from a lot of different vantage points and Theodore Roosevelt is the means by which to do that. I think there's just innumerable programs with the National Park and with the platform. I mean, we've developed this TR AI, which is so incredible, but it's right at the outset. It's at the nascent stages of this technology that's only going to get better. So if we've got every word he ever spoke and every word he ever wrote and every article he ever published and every book he ever wrote and we have the canon of those who have particular parts of his life well documented since his death, that's the starting point. I can't even imagine where that goes. I mean, that's very, very exciting. It's been a long road to get here, but believe it or not, the end is just the beginning.

TED ROOSEVELT V

It is really a momentous accomplishment and I am so excited because we talked about this, but to get people there, because the emotional response that people have, even before all the exhibits are in, just the location, just the building has brought countless visitors to tears. It sounds like hyperbole, but it's happened to me and I've seen it happen to others. It is a truly magical place and I'm so excited for the world to finally get to see it and experience it. And the tribute really belongs to you guys among everybody else that's been working on this. So thank you.

ED O'KEEFE

Thank you, Ted. Thank you for being a part of this project and lending the credibility of your family name to it and your entire family's participation. It's been quite a journey and very excited to see what's next.

TED ROOSEVELT V

Ed, Charlie, huge thanks for sitting down with me. This conversation had it all from worries, doubt to warmth, laughter, the bold dreams and hard won accomplishments. I am so glad to be able to have this conversation with you on the precipice of the opening of this library. Listeners, as Ed said at the start, this library is a call to adventure. I hope all of you someday can heed that call and take this journey to this truly special place. Good Citizen is produced by the brand new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of Storytelling and Charts and Leisure. You can learn more about TR's presidential library at trlibrary.com.