October Road Trip To/From California - Post #1
Playing "catch up" on these posts, both from the trip and the conference i attended, over the next couple of weeks. As I have mentioned in a couple of other places, this was a driving trip I made to/from the National Financial Literacy and Economics Conference in Carlsbad, CA (just north of San Diego) in early October 2026. As usual I did some other visits while I was coming and going - some of those are not topics for blog posts (like my visit to my brother in L.A. to see the Broncos beat the Chargers at SoFi Stadium) but some other visits fit here well. Post #1 is going to focus on one of the two presidential museums in California . . .
Part One - Visiting the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum:
I wanted to start with a quick bit of perspective, because it is very easy today to remember Richard Nixon for one event (though obviously a major one) - Watergate. Think of all the other events, though, that were part of Nixon's presidency between 1969 and 1974 - the Vietnam War, putting a man on the moon, detente with the Soviet Union, opening up relations with Communist China, continued efforts in the Civil Rights movement, creation of the EPA and the Endangered Species Act, passage of Title IX protections for women's sports, the Paris Peace Accords, etc...
Nixon's electoral victory in 1972 by 18 million votes is still the largest margin in U.S. history, as he won 49 of 50 states, and his Gallup approval rating by January of 1973 was at 68%. In fact, several historians have noted the irony that the Watergate break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters was so unnecessary - he was going to win the election anyway - but ultimately led to his downfall within the following 2 years.
Having said all that, Nixon is obviously not thought of well today and I think you see some of that in the contrast between the two presidents from California and how they are remembered. Ronald Reagan's library and museum on the west end of the San Fernando Valley is a modern building with ongoing funders, a thriving education and lecture series, and a center for conservative thought today. Richard Nixon's museum and library, based east of Los Angeles in the suburb of Yorba Linda (where he was born and is buried) is much smaller and in an older area of town, and primarily focuses on tour groups and in-person displays. There are some good exhibits, but while I will show a few pictures below it is hard to share much content with the virtual audience who can't make it to California to visit for themselves.
Resource #2 - The American Presidency Project (@ UC-Santa Barbara):
This is a relatively new project, but has a very impressive scope and search engine to find primary sources, particularly documents, speeches, and links to videos related to those two. As you might imagine, there are a LOT more resources available for presidents within the past 100 years or so, but every president has a certain amount of coverage. One of the first things I liked was the introduction for each president with starting research points - key biographies, key links to research facilities, and a timeline students can use as a starting point for understanding the context of a president within other things they have studied (like seeing a younger Nixon as Eisenhower's Vice President during the 1950s, for example).
Below that I provide a couple of examples of the research tools on this site. The search results were for a list of speeches given by Richard Nixon between Jan 1970 and Jan 1973 - I just screenshotted the first few of about 50 entries found. Then I used a different search to examine results for types of material - almost all have the text of the speech, but some also have links to broadcasts of the event (like in the case of the video clip here, Nixon's nationally-televised resignation speech in Aug 1974). No lesson links here - this is a research tool primarily for primary sources.
Resources and Links Mentioned Above (in the order presented):
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/index.php/
Education Department for the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/education
"Docs Teach - The Nixon and Ford Years", Docs Teach (from the National Archives), 2026, https://docsteach.org/topics/nixon-ford/
"The American Presidency Project - Richard Nixon", UC-Santa Barbara, 2026, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/people/president/richard-nixon
"A Summary of the Nixon Presidency", Nixon Foundation, 2026, https://www.nixonfoundation.org/president-nixon/
"Nixon Civics Academy", Nixon Foundation, 2026, https://www.nixonfoundation.org/civics-academy/
YouTube channel from the Nixon Foundation, https://www.youtube.com/@NixonFoundation
"President Nixon and Watergate | Teaching with Primary Sources" (lesson plan), PBS Learning Media, 2026, https://rmpbs.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/da2fbe54-af1d-4989-9202-5a15ba435262/president-nixon-and-watergate/
"Watergate and the limits of presidential power" (lesson plan), PBS News Hour, Apr 2024, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/classroom/lesson-plans/2024/04/watergate-lesson-plan-the-limits-of-presidential-power
"President Nixon’s Cold War Foreign Policy | Interactive Map" (lesson plan), PBS Learning Media, 2026, https://rmpbs.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ush22-soc-nixonforeignpolicy/president-nixons-cold-war-foreign-policy-interactive-map/
Resource #4 - Three lessons/resources from PBS on the Nixon era:
The final resource is actually three resources - 3 different lesson plans from PBS Learning Media and/or PBS NewsHour on aspects of Richard Nixon's presidency. Two of them are on Watergate - one focusing on primary source material, while the other focuses on the decision-making during the crisis - while the other is an interactive map on Nixon's Cold War Foreign Policy. I'm just going to include screenshots of each of them below - the links for all 3 (and the other resources listed above) are below that.
As I mentioned above, though, one thing the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum does not have that most other presidential centers now have is an active education center. While many older presidential libraries (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and L.B.J. come to mind) have established an online presence for scholars and educators to access materials from their collections, the Nixon education page focuses on one thing - school field trips.
That's great if you are within driving distance (and there are enough schoolchildren in the L.A. area to keep them busy) but not very helpful for the rest of the country. So in the remainder of this post, I want to feature some of the online educational resources on the Nixon Presidency.
Resource #1 - DocsTeach.org:
This is a good starting point, since the National Archives is technically in charge of resources and documents curated by the various presidential libraries. However, DocsTeach does a nice job of making those resources easier to find for teachers, particularly for specific time periods. In this case, they have a specific webpage devoted to the Nixon/Ford period (1969-1977), obviously focusing on Watergate but also bringing in a number of categories spanning multiple time periods (like environmentalism or the space race).
Below I show a couple of ways the primary sources are cataloged - some are simply photos or documents from the time period, while others have lesson plans or activities already created for classroom use. They have a good search engine, but you may have to sort multiple times to prioritize what you are looking for (because of the size of the collection, particularly the closer you get to present day).
Resource #3 - The Nixon Foundation (including their YouTube page):
While the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum tends to focus on in-person tours about the history of Nixon and his presidency, the Nixon Foundation focuses more on the implications of events during his time as president for later American history, as well as preserving video resources from one of the first politicians directly involved with the early television era. The Foundation says its' goal is to "Advance President Nixon’s legacy of visionary leadership, geopolitical grand strategy, public service, and a more just society for all Americans." They still host speakers and presentations by contemporary politicians in California and online, but I was mostly interested in the resources they preserve from the 1960s and 1970s.
Two specific things I want to mention about current projects of the Foundation. First, most of their current efforts focus on the Nixon Civics Academy, which provides funding and academic support for local days of history at the elementary level, the National Civics Bee for middle schoolers, a new AP Civics course in high school, and immersive experiences for college students in Washington, D.C. They also have a teacher PD program with the National Archives that appears to be on hiatus currently. Second, their collection on their YouTube channel is up to 1,300+ videos - I have selected 4 examples below from different time periods to show you what kind of video resources are available to classrooms.
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